The Art of Buying

Buying wine is more of an artform than a science. I'm talking by the consumer, not the distributor, wine shop, or restaurant. How do you know where the good buys are? How do you know what you will like?

There is certainly no science it, but there are some trickes of the trade.

When looking for something you will like, find something as close to another wine that you have liked and try another. 

So, for example, there is a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand that is over-advertised. In particular, they love advertising on TV when there are tennis tournaments. And, they seem to advertise the most in the Women's Finals. That tells me something, but that's not the point. 

Suppose you really like that wine that starts with a K and ends with a Ford. It's from Marlborough which is the real Sauvignon Blanc haven in New Zealand. Fairly cool in that area, it allows lots of the methoxypyrazine to show itself and those pyrazine give us the pear and some lime. Is that something special about this wine? No, it is common to most Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough. So, if you like one, you might like many of them.

But, this brings us to buying. Even when on sale, the wines you have heard of are usually not as well priced as the wines you haven't. Why? Regular wine purchasers flock to the labels they know. As a smart consumer, you should do the opposite and flock to the wines that you now know have a lot in common with what you like, but that nobody has ever heard of. Many wine shops show ratings. Look for ratings at least about 88 point and of course, the higher you get, the better it is likely to be. I've used this technique to find some excellent $7, $8, and $9 wines.



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