Learning about wine is a journey and not a destination.
Baron Philippe de Rothschild was once interviewed by Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes. Bradley, being a major wine geek, asked him what was the best bottle of wine he ever drank, expecting him to say a 1945 Petrus or a 1961 Chateau Margauux. He surprised him by answering, "When I was 20, I was sitting on a hill side in Spain with a lovely girl, drinking a bottle of wine, watching the sunset. That was the best bottle of wine I ever had." Great story and so true.
To answer the OP, red, white or rose are all good and come in all kinds of different grapes. In reds, to name a few: pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah (or shiraz), grenache, mouvedre, carignan, gamay, sangiovese, malbec, tempranillo, etc, etc. For whites: chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, piont blanc, pinot gris, chasselais, etc, etc.
Daunting? Where to start?
When I started on my journey, I focussed on a particular grape and bought different producers. Wnes have so many influencing variables: new vines ve old vines, stored in oak, old oak vs new oak, how were the grapes picked, when were they picked, was it a good season, are they blended. It goe son and on.
If you're just starting out, easy wines to get into, for reds, are cabernet sauvignon or shiraz. Very easy wines. Often, the price with reflect the complexity of the wine. By complexity, a good wine will have an abundanc of interesting flavours. Pick one and start buying them.
From my experience, you can get into some really nice wines in the $20-30 range. Of course you can buy cheaper, but the quality starts to pick up, generally speaking.
There are old world (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Germany) wines and new world (Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Australia) wines. Great value coming out of Chile and Argentina, meaning good structured, great fruit and complexity for good prices. There are some great wines out of California. Napa has some wines. Napa is small part of the California wine production at only 4% of total wine from Califormia. Nice cabs from Livermore. Very nice pinot noirs from Russian River. Interesting cabs from Washington state. I recently had a red from Virginia.
My personal preference is reds from Burgundy, France. Reds from Burgundy are pinot noir, the white is chardonnay. Lower Burgundy includes Beaujolais which is a gamay grape. We love Burgundy wines so much that we recently bought a small farm there. We're not growing, although there were vines on the property at one time. We just drink a lot.
My advice is to have a bunch of friends over. Ask them to bring a bottle of shiraz. Set a limit for how much is to be spent. When they arrive, open all the bottles, put them in paper bags, and have a blind tasting. By lining them up, you will learn the differences and eventually find a wine that will stand out.
If you want to enjoy wine and can spend just a bit more $$, again in the $20-30 range, you will enjoy it. Stay away from boxed wine. It's crap. LIfe is too short to drink crap.
PM me if you ever want any advice. Music, aviation and wine are three passions. I am far from knowing a lot about wine, but it's a journey and it starts with opening a bottle.
Now specific personal favorites. All of these are high scoring wines in Wine Spectator:
New Zealand Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc or chardonnay
Italian Nipizzano Chianti
Spanish Legaris Riberra
California Wente, Charles Wetmore Reserve (cab sauv)
France Chaves, Cote du Rhone, syrah
Each of those are around $20-25 I guess. The Cloudy Bay will be in the $35-40 range. Don't buy it until you're familiar with the grape so that you drop to knees in awe.
There are so many wines out there to discover. It's a fun hobby. It's been around for thousands of years. Jesus drank. It makes girls undress. It makes you feel good. It makes you a better dancer and a far more interesting conversationalist.
Long post, I know. Wine is neat. On its own or with a meal. Pairing wine with food is an art. When you nail, it's incredible. Simply incredible. Bite of food, add wine, flavours blend, you're in heaven.
Enough. Someone elses turn. Good luck.
Brian
That said, I prefer to drink a nice wine from a nicely-shaped glass rather than a plastic tumbler. I've also found that many of Riedel's specialty wine glasses can be found at Cost Plus for about 1/4 the price. The differences between the Riedel and the Cost Plus knock-off are so slight that you have to look awfully close to notice any difference. Also, I feel much less pained when I shatter a $5 glass than a $20 one.
), but when I intend to drink it, I usually get some cabernet sauvignon. Castillo Del Diablo is pretty good.
