Is there any beverage more synonymous with refined relaxation than that of wine? We’re taught from a pretty young age that wine is a drink designed for special occasions. The wide variety of wine options as well as the different elaborate designs all are designed in order to make us want to try something new. While wine can be a delicious drink to have with your dinner or for a celebration, you shouldn’t approach a wine sale without knowing a little bit more about wine. Today, we are going to take some time in order to outline how you should approach buying a bottle of wine. Our goal will be to lay down a foundation of knowledge so that you can get the right bottle for you and your special occasion!
Buying the Right Wine
As you no doubt know, there are countless varieties of wine available to you. Simply walk through the wine section of your local grocery store and you’ll be inundated with price tags, special labels, and fancy names. If you are like the average wine consumer, you’ll likely have no idea what’s going on inside of those bottles. While we are familiar with terms like ‘dry’ ‘red’ and ‘white’, they don’t do much to functionally help us as we shop. So, with all of that being said let us go ahead and start our analysis on how to choose the right bottle of wine by organizing our selection process into three distinctly different categories.
1) Budgetary Constraints – While price isn’t everything, you certainly will end up getting what you pay for. A $10 bottle of wine is going to be dramatically different in terms of flavor profile than a $100 bottle of wine. Let’s not even discuss the differences between a $1,000 bottle of wine and a $10 bottle. With that being said, you can get a quality drink at every price point. Just stick to your budget and follow our next two suggestions.
2) Flavor Profile – If you are shopping in a grocery store, you won’t be able to take a sample of a bottle before you purchase it. If you are at a restaurant, ask for a sampled flute and you’ll be able to test the bottle before you make your purchase. With that being said, there are certain flavor complexities that you can derive from a bottle sitting on the shelf. You can find out the color of the wine: red, white, pink. You can also find out if the wine is dry or fruity. These aren’t exact measurements for your flavor profile, but they are a good start.
3) Research Before Shopping – Finally, the most obvious way to get the right bottle of wine is to do some research beforehand. Spend some time looking over wine ratings on the internet. You’ll be able to find flavor profiles, reviews, and detailed descriptions of what the wine goes well with.
Selecting a bottle of wine isn’t rocket science. Strolling down the wine aisle should definitely NOT give you a migraine. Use our guide above in order to help you find the right bottle of wine for your celebration.