Picking Out a Bottle of Wine

  You're in a retail shop looking at many wine labels and it might be a bit overwhelming. Where do you start? Most begin with a particular varietal as in, "I want a chardonnay tonight." But after that?

  Some ideas to help you make a selection:

Price
  This is key, of course. Have you ever been disappointed in a wine and said to yourself, "That's what I get for picking up a seven dollar bottle." Of course you could also find yourself saying, "I can't believe I spent thirty bucks and didn't like it!"
  Like buying anything else you should know your price range before you enter the store. It would be a mistake to just say, "Give me your best bottle." Likewise, it's unrealistic to go in and say, "I want a great five dollar bottle of red."
   So what's the difference between an eight dollar bottle and an eighty dollar bottle? When you start that low there is a definite difference in quality, but that doesn't mean you'll think the expensive one is ten times better. If you go thirty and eighty dollars then the gap in quality is much smaller. So as the price increases there are diminishing returns.

Bang for Your Buck
  Generally, whites are less expensive to make than reds. Certain varieties from certain parts of the world can be a good bargain. Wine like Pinot Gris/Grigio, rosé, Prosecco for sparkling wine, and red blends can be bargains. Some Malbec from Argentina, whites from South Africa, and Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand can also be well-priced.
  In California Sauvignon Blanc is usually fairly priced. Even Cabernet Sauvignon can often be found at a decent price because there's so much of it around.

Label
  Lots of wine is purchased visually. That is, it's a colorful label, the wine has a fun name, or it has a picture of a dog. Does a plain label mean it's not good? What it means there was no marketing group spending money on the label. It's likely to mean the winemaker put all of his time and money into making the wine. So there's that.

The Bottle Closure
  Is there a difference in quality between a wine with a natural cork, a synthetic cork, or a screw top? Nope. There's only a perception that screw tops go on cheap wine.

Percentage Alcohol
  The label, by law, will tell you how much alcohol is in the wine and there's a big difference between a 13% wine and a 15% wine, for instance. American law allows a pretty big slop factor between what's on the label and the actual alcohol in the finished wine. Most winemakers are honest. I'm usually suspect of a wine listing the alcohol percent of, say, 13.9 or 14.9. At that point it's like listing the price of the wine at $19.99 because that sounds better than $20.
  Use the percentage as a general guide. I wouldn't pick one wine over another because one says 14.1% and the other 14.5%.

A label with all kinds of information!

Origin
  Where is the wine from? Bordeaux, Napa Valley, or Applegate Valley? Some are more well-known than others. Wines will often be more expensive because of the appellation on the bottle. So the question might become is a $40 Napa cabernet better than a $40 Washington State cabernet because Napa is famous for cab? Or is the Washington wine a better deal?

Asking Questions
  If you happen to be in a wine shop there should be someone to ask for help. So what do you ask? A smart start might be to describe what the wine is for. "I'd like a white wine for Sunday fried chicken dinner at mom's maybe in the twenty dollar range," is a really good start. Or even something like, "I'm going to share a bottle tonight with my S.O. in front of a fire. No idea what I want. What do you really like right now?" A good retailer will give you several choices at different prices.
  This doesn't work so well if you are shopping online. Best you can do is look for reviews, but whether they're from wine writers or consumers it's just someone else's opinion that may or may not match yours.

Learning
  If you can splurge a bit at the wine shop a really cool idea would be to say, "I really no nothing about Italian wines, but would love to know more. Help me put together a mixed six pack of good Italian dinner wines. I don't want to spend more than $xxx on the wines."
  Use the Internet to learn about wine regions, and terms like acids, tannins, malolactic fermentation and all those you'd like to know more about.