Mar 07 2009
Wine For Beginners
Learn About Wine
If you’ve ever wanted to know about wine then now is a great time to get started. The wine industry has been growing incrementally every year due to more and more people wanting to learn about wine and as a result wine is becoming that much easier to understand.
Yet while you can read everything about wine under the sun and know what to look for you can only really learn about wine by trying several and finding what you like. You’ve probably been to a grocery store and seen a wine tasting in progress. Or maybe you’ve seen advertisements for wine tasting events for local wine shops. The best way to know what you like is to go to as many of these free wine tastings and try as many wines as possible. Period.
The best part about learning wine today is that you can find a multitude of wines for under $10 that are superb drink-now wines. Drink-now means that the wines are made to be drunk right away rather than being stored or cellared for years to be matured. It makes it easier to learn about wine when you can have it readily accessible and not have to wait twenty years for a bottle to age and be worthy of drinking.
So let’s discuss some basic types of wine and get you familiar with the industry. I’ve put together a simple wine guide outlining the most popular red and white wines on the market that you will most likely come across.
But let me back up a minute and go over what wine is. If you don’t know, wine is fermented grape juice, plain and simple. The process of making wine is lengthy and isn’t really a topic for beginners. All we need to focus on right now is the basics: wine styles, wine tasting, some basic food and wine pairing, wine aromas, storage, shelf life, reading wine labels and other information that will help you learn about wine. But it’s enough to know that to make wine the grapes are pressed for the juice and yeasts are added which eat the natural sugars in the juice and convert the sugars to alcohol. Then you have wine. Like I said though, there is way more to it than the nutshell version I’ve just provided but it’s not useful information at a beginner stage. If you want to learn about wine production I can direct you to a website that takes an in-depth look at the process. Just ask in the comment section below.
So let’s start learning about wine with some wine basics. We’ll start with white wine.
White wine is typically made from white grapes. The grapes aren’t actually white, but are green like green table grapes. But the grapes used in wine production are from a species that don’t make for great table grapes. That species is called Vitis vinifera. And these are grapes that are native to European wine regions like France, Italy, Spain, Germany and several other European regions whose wines are all classified as Old World wines. Wines from California, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, Argentina and every other wine region in the world that is not European are classified as New World wines.
While white wine, like I said, is usually made from white wine grapes it can be made from red wine grapes. You see the part of the grape that is used for wine is the juice and all juice is clear to yellowish green. What gives red wine its color is the pigment in the skins of the grapes. So, leave off the skins and you will have white wine.
The most popular Vitis vinifera white wines are:
- Chardonnay
- Sauvignon Blanc
- Pinot Grigio
- Riesling
Lesser known white wine varieties that are still quite popular include Chenin Blanc, Gewürztraminer, Muscat and Viognier. These aren’t the only white wines worth looking into; I am just going to be talking about these wines as they are the most widely sought wines globally. There are countless white wines available, but these are the most popular.
As for reds:
- Cabernet Sauvignon
- Merlot
- Pinot Noir
- Shiraz
- Zinfandel
And then there are some other lesser but widely popular red wines like Sangiovese and Barbera, two red wines from Italy that receive wide acclaim in the world of wine.
The other thing to know about these wines is they are made from grapes of the same name. For example, Chardonnay wine is made from the Chardonnay grape, Merlot wine is made from the Merlot grape and so on.
These are the wines to know. These will help you learn about wine and grasp the basics. Over the coming posts we will discuss these wines in detail and I will provide some examples for you to go out and try. But again, the majority of the leg work will be up to you. Go to some free wine tastings. You should hit as many wine tasting events as you can. Most take place on Friday evenings, which makes for a great escape after a long week at the office. You can gain much insight about wine from going to these events. The more you attend the more you will learn and the faster you will learn.
I can help you with the details, but to really learn about wine you have to dive right in.
