Buying More Wines You Like. – Part One

Right, so you so enjoy a glass or five of good plonk, but how do you know what to buy. Walk into any bottle shop, there are a zillion brands you haven’t heard of, let alone tasted. Price is no guarantee of quality. Many wine companies have delusions of adequacy and their pricing structure makes Ned Kelly look like a philanthropic gentleman.

1. What about relying on wineries you have tried? For example, you liked XYZ Shiraz and you see an XYZ Cabernet Merlot. That’s also a hit and miss job. Many wineries will do one type of wine well, but the others may be ordinary. The XYZ Shiraz you liked may have been the only wine they have made that’s worth lubricating your precious tonsils.

2. How about Penfolds, they make pretty good wines? Selecting on any brands reputation, no matter which brand is also a potential trap and there are a number of reasons why. Firstly, no big name producers only make great wine and more importantly, wine that you are guaranteed to enjoy. Secondly, frequently the good vintages of these wines sell out quickly and the crappy vintages of these same wines sit on the shelves for years.

3. How about buying from a good vintage, 98 for example? To some extent that’s true, but it’s still hit and miss. You might pick a good 98 that’s not your style and not enjoy it. Alternatively you might pick a 98 and your date (that you are trying to impress) will say, oh yes, not bad, but the 97 Chateau Donald Duck that was next to it on the bottle shop shelf is much better.

4. How about buying wine with a good looking label? Great idea, but you can’t drink the label, and all the label is designed to do is to get you to buy the wine. If you want to use the label as a buying guide, look for the most boring, old fashioned ordinary label you can find. If a wine can survive and sell with such a bad image, your tongue may just enjoy being lubricated with the contents of this ordinary bottle. Is it guaranteed to work? Nope, but it’s as good a method of selecting a good wine as we have come up with so far.

5. You have a something to celebrate and this is a night you don’t want to forget so you use the old “its twice what I normally spend so it must be twice as good routine.” WRONG! There is a law of diminishing returns in operation when it comes to wine quality. A $50 is not twice as good as a $25 bottle, nor is a $100 bottle twice as good as a $50 bottle or four times as good as the $25 bottle. The higher up the pricing ladder you go, the more difficult it is to notice a corresponding increase in quality.

6. Finally, there is the “its old so it must be good routine”. This is a trap big enough to catch a grizzly bear. A perfect example is the 93 Thomas Hardy Cabernet Sauvignon that can still be found in a number of shops for about $67. Three years ago its release price was about $35. The 94 and 95 were released and sold quickly whilst the 93 was still available and gathering dust on the retailers shelves. Meanwhile the price has almost doubled and the only people who buy it are the mugs who think its old, its expensive, so it must be good. But we know better. Don’t we?

Now that I have depressed you enough to drown your sorrows with Scotch because you aren’t game to buy wine, you will have to wait till next week for some solutions.

Cheers

Ric