How To Choose Wine (From The Store) | Wine Folly

So on the Wine Folly newsletter this last week, we ran a feature on Italian wines, and I have been lusting after some Italian wine, which brings me to our topic today, how to choose a bottle of wine from the store. Choosing wine at the store is actually incredibly easy, and you don't have to be an expert to choose excellent, high-quality wines in the price range that you're looking. But in order to do that, a little bit of pre-planning is involved. And the first thing is to have a purpose. So for me, the purpose came from the Wine Folly newsletter. We were running an article on the wines of Piemonte, and now I have a major craving. The second and probably most important thing to keep in mind is to go to a store that specializes in wine or is known for its wine selection. So for my Northern Italian wine problem, I actually found a wine store through Instagram. I think it's time for a field trip. This place is like 15 minutes from my house. All right, so we've arrived in Bothell, where the wine shop is. Let's go check it out. Hey, what's up? Welcome to the wine shop. For all you out there who were kind of intimidated walking into a wine store, I decided to ask Santo to see what he had to say about that. Just go. I mean, that's the best way. I mean, the small wine shops, people have a really bad tendency to think that small wine shops are boutiquish, or, I mean, actually, we get a lot of boutique wine shops in our state, but they're always more expensive because they're smaller, when in reality, if the shop is run correctly, we can buy wines and still offer a really good price. Plus, we're getting wines that nobody else is gonna get. Now, all you have to do is tell the retailer the style of wine and your budget, and they'll take care of the rest. All right, so we ran this article on Piemonte, and I just wanna see what you have, and what's interesting, and I'm not, I'm kinda like that, 40, I'm thinking 40-ish. We're all low from Freddie Berry. Hopefully, Nikolai, we get these wines back in. We weren't... Whoa, 2015, that was a pretty tasty vintage. Yeah, it was very nice, actually. Wait, how much is that guy? 43 now? What? It was, it's so, we got it on a flute kind of a thing. All right, can you like kinda describe this wine? Oh my God, this is like, this is textbook. This is what a Barolo should be. And if you've met a great wine retailer, they'll help you get your expectations in line. A lot of times, we get questions about people asking, what wines go with what, and whatnot, but they'll, we had a gentleman who just came in, and said, I want three bottles of white wine, and three bottles of champagne, but I only want to spend $100. And I'm saying, that's just not impossible. It's impossible, you can't do it. So I hooked him up with two bottles of white wine, and a bottle of Copinier Blanc de Blanc for 48, and he walked out the door, $107 after taxes, and it happened. You know, people just need to realize, champagne's not cheap. I totally had a huge boner for this wine, so this is what I ended up getting. Thanks. $6,000 later, and. Check it out, here's the wine I bought. I thought we could sneak a taste. Whoa, smells like raspberry sauce, a little bit of licorice, maybe subtle touch of fennel, and that classic, almost tar-like flavor you get on a decent quality Barolo. Color looks mostly translucent, a brick red color, which is what I expect from Barolo and the Nebbiolo grape. Let's give it a taste. Tannin face, so much tannin on the front of the palate, on my tongue, coating my teeth, and really nice, bright acidity on the mid-palate. It carries into the finish with a little bit of that burn on the finish from the maybe slightly elevated alcohol. This wine tastes great. I hope this makes you feel more confident to explore new wines, and if you're interested, join the Wine Folly newsletter, it's free, and you'll find lots of jumping off points and reasons to go in to a wine store.