This is a video I made late last year (reason being, I could have used just such an introduction ten years ago) and never quite got around to finishing. Here it is now, though, as my wife and I slowly move everything into our condo.
I suspect – well, know for a fact, really – that there are a lot of whisk(e)y, rum, mezcal, brandy (etc.) nerds out there who’d love to give wine an honest try. This is a challenge, and it usually ends in disappointment. The stuff’s expensive; the sheer range of regions, grapes, and producers is baffling; and, so far as I’ve found, folks who are already veterans with nerdy spirits (that’s who this video is for) don’t usually take well to the accessible “beginner” wines that are often pitched at them. Still more than that, though, spirit veterans are generally used to applying a set of rules that go with drinking good spirits that, in my opinion, run counter to how to approach wine: for example, judging quality by ABV and bottler (or brand) and time in barrel, having a clean palate without anything else around that’s going to “throw off” the experience, eliminating distractions (beyond maybe a handful of fellow tasters), and so on. The real difficulty, I think, isn’t just in the mass of information, the expense, or the new flavors, but more in a difference of principles.
This video is really about that difference in principles. I don’t intend to lecture you about grapes and regions and fermentation types, all of which you can research on your own; this is about giving the viewer a few rules of thumb to introduce you to the internal logic (so to speak) of being a wine nerd. Those little heuristics are, in order:
1. Wine goes with food.
2. Don’t worry too much about grapes, since production style and “terroir” often matter more. (But see #9.)
3. Wine rewards exploration.
4. It’s typically a mistake to look down on the wines you aren’t drinking.
5. (Almost) all grape juice starts off white.
6. Most wines can age (to a point), and many wines – often the red ones – need it.
7. You measure the age of wine from the vintage year, not by its time in the barrel.
8. Vintages and importers are your best friends.
9. Scores and labels take on most of the role that brand plays in spirits. [N.B. I originally had this earlier in the list, and in the video I usually refer to this rule offhend as #7 or #8]
10. Internationally-styled wines are great, albeit spirits nerds may find the most novelty in the classically-styled (and note that those aren’t mutually exclusive).
Guest-starring a bottle of 2008 Olga Raffault “Les Picasses” Chinon.