How To Tell If It's A Good Wine?

Wine is complicated to make, but need not be complicated to enjoy. The obsession of being able to tell if it's a good bottle of wine can really ruin your experience. A good bottle of wine tastes only so because you think so, not because a connoisseur says so... It is a similar expectation to wanting someone to tell you how you feel!

The ponderous dissertations people write up on wine are part of the problem. You might have to look up what ponderous means. I had to... I learnt it only a few minutes ago reading an article about how Chenin Blanc is making a comeback in the Napa Valley.

Some people are great story tellers, and use colourful words to make for a vivid description for the reader. Eventually they get to the same conclusion you will come to namely YAY, NAY or OK in terms of what you think of the wine. The degree of whether how much the wine was good or bad, can vary by the sip, never mind the ocassion, the company and your mood while you were drinking the wine.

For me, enjoying wine is as simple as knowing what feels like something I don't want to put in my mouth again versus what I can't get enough of, until I do feel I have had enough of it. The food pairing comes later, but it really is not a belief of mine that red wine with red meat and white wine with fish or chicken (white meat). It's not as simple as that...

What is simple is wine is about trying out different bottles of wine. Wine is about learning what you like, and equally as important what you dont like. If you are overwhelmed by where to start, you can choose a country, or region, or red or white wine as the boundary to stay within until you want to make the circle bigger.

I did enjoy reading a simple strategy a fellow in Australia was now following, to choose his wines. He had a price range, and within that, chose a wine bottle to try that had an interesting label. He did not define what an interesting label was. The point is, it's personal!