We are certainly guilty of having a favorite wine that we purchase whether for home or at a restaurant, but trying new wines is the only way to discover wines that may become your new favorite. It isn’t just the brand of wine that you buy, but also the varieties of grapes that you choose. Sure, you may love chardonnay for your white or merlot for your red and that might be what you like the most, however, if you are willing to experiment, you might just find alternative choices.
Let us be clear, we are not wine experts and are definitely not wine snobs. We like what we like and are willing to pair wines with food based on our tastes and mood, not some contrived rule about what you’re supposed to have with certain foods. Red wine with fish, why not? If it tastes good to you then you should feel free to drink what you like with whatever you want. The same is true with trying different wines with different foods than you have in the past, you may never know what combination turns out to trip your flavor trigger.
One of the things that we did to try and help us grow our wine experience was to join a wine club. Obviously there are several out there, but most of them have reasonable prices and you can usually choose to get all red, all white, or a mix. We chose to get a mix of wines and the white wines will often contain a blush of some sort, which has changed our opinions on blush wines to some extent. We used to think that they were all too fruity, but that hasn’t turned out to be the case, we have found some of them to be more robust in flavor.
Don’t worry, we won’t be trying to tell you what wine to buy or trying to come across like a sommelier. Occasionally, we might let you know about a wine that we’ve found interesting, but mostly trying new wines is just something that we like to do for ourselves. If you like wine, try experimenting with different grape varieties, different brands, different flavor profiles, etc. Sometimes you’ll find some duds that you don’t like at all, but there will be other times where you’ll find that special wine that becomes your new favorite.
I love wine clubs, a great way to try new stuff you wouldn’t otherwise buy!
Yes, we have had many great surprises ☺
I haven’t tried a wine club mostly because I was worried it would turn me into a snob, and what if I didn’t like that $5 bottle from Trader Joe’s anymore? Glad to hear your experience has been a good one. 🙂
You bring up a great point though, wine doesn’t have to be expensive to like it. As long as it can get you tipsy we’re probably okay with it 😏
I used to go to quit elaborate wine tastings a local wine shop ran. These days a lot of wine shops, not to mention places like Whole Foods, have free tastings once a week.
If you’re looking for a new white wine grape I used to be very fond of Sauvingnon Blanc, but these days I drink more Viognier.
We will definitely give that a try. Wine is a lot more accessible and a lot less snobbish these days. ☺
Wine should always be about what you really like, and not about what connoisseurs dictate 🙂 So how about a great Merlot I had in the US last year: Francis Ford Coppola – of all things! And how about a delightful red wine served cool for the summer? Fichimori from the Italian Puglia region. Actually the trend was started years ago in the South of France – if the French did it, it can’t be all that uncouth, right? It’s never caught on on a large scale, but we’ve enjoyed Fichimori every August for 3 or 4 years now ….
We will have to give the Fichimori a try and we like the Francis Ford Coppola merlot as well ☺
Oh, so the good merlot wasn’t just my impression! Not sure the Fichimori travels well, so maybe you should wait till you’re in Europe 🙂