Have you just wanted to try a new good bottle of wine, but have no idea where to go or start?
Perhaps you live to far away from a winery to grab a quick bottle and your next wine shipment from your favorite wine club is due in weeks. What are you going to do!?! You must inevitably buy a bottle from the local wine store or even more dreaded the local grocery store! This article will give you tips and advice to get a great bottle of wine without ever tasting it first.
My preferred method is to go to the small “mom and pop” wine shop or a store where the person working there has a hand in picking out and selecting the wines that they carry. You should walk in there and not recognize most of the labels on the bottles and they should be able to give you the basics of each bottle. Establish a rapport with them where they begin to know your individual taste and can make recommendations to you. If you are in a rush and have never been there before, I like to ask the following question to the employee. “Pop quiz, the building is on fire and you only have time to save one bottle, which one do you grab?” They get kudos if they know what movie I am referring to. But what if they are closed or offer tasting of their wines. The latter you have already solved your dilemma.
My plan B is to go to the chain wine store. Examples of this would be BevMo or Total Wine. The staffs there are usually knowledgeable and can steer you in the right direction. I usually tell them what type of wine or style I am looking for and ask to show me 3-5 bottles they would recommend. From there you are left with maybe a small tasting note card or worst trying to decide from the appeal of the label on the bottle or are you? If you recall from one of my previous post about American Wine laws, you know how do decipher the text on the label. So make a choice from that.
Plan C is the local grocery store or corner store (Walgreens or CVS style). That is if you live in a state that allows sales there; sorry New Jersey and Maryland hopefully plan B worked out for you. Depending on the size of their wine selection it can be very challenging to find a good quality bottle of wine. They will mostly have widely distributed labels that are massed produce. I would still look for that “produced and bottle buy” on the label. If you can’t find any or one that fits the style you are looking for, as a last ditch effort you can go by which label appeals to you more. The price point is usually between $5-$20, so you are not taking to much of a gamble. “Some time you just have to roll the hard six”
Plan D is to phone a friend at tell them to bring a bottle of wine over and you will order the pizza. That way you don’t have to go through plans A-C. Only downfall with this plan is you might have had the bottle before.
I hope this article helps you on your quest for good quality wine.
P.S. At any time you can google or use many apps on your phone to find reviews of the wine bottle you are thinking about purchasing blindly. I would take all the reviews with a grain of salt; no one knows your taste like you! But it is another tool in your tool bag for you to use.