How does babby into wine? I'm looking to refine my pallet.

To be honest, I would recommend you start with whiskey instead

strip ur teeth out

- Buy a cheap box of wine vs. a $15-50 bottle of wine (quality of wine is ~negligible and perception of quality is ~insignificant for most laymen).

- Visit a winery during a lazy weekend.

- Let a sommelier recommend a glass with your meal at a nice restaurant.

You drink it often and you constantly try new things

Wine is easily the most varied alcoholic beverage, more than enough to keep you busy for a lifetime

With that being said, don't mistake lots of brands for variety. A significant segment of the market chases the "international style" which boils down to a handful of flavor profiles, mostly French in origin, being slavishly imitated to varying degrees of success. There's no harm starting with that, but unless you're fortunate to live in a place that has a wine savvy population that is very likely all you'll find locally

>>8423494

Thanks, Cinco!

The average person cannot tell a $5 bottle from a $50 bottle.
Don't bother wasting your time "refining" anything with wine unless you spend years studying as a taster.

Drink whatever wine tastes good, and leave the real tasting for whiskey.

>>8423488
If you like sweet things, start with sangria and sweet whites before moving on to dryer wines.

Give a friend $100.
Tell him to go buy three bottles of wine.
A $70 bottle, a $20 bottle, and a $10 bottle.
Do not let him tell you which is which.
Taste them each, try to determine which is which.
Then have him tell you.
Then stop caring because you probably liked the $20 bottle the most.

>>8423517
>the purpose of wine is to play "the price is right"
If you are under the age of 18, discontinue browsing immediately

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>>8423488
>refine my pallet

Nice somethingawful meme, op. Wine,yes....wine...go fuck yourself

>>8423542

that's because they don't know shit about it

>>8423574

Oh, where did I strutter ?

>>8423542
>>8423577

ABSCESSED

>>8423574
What are you even talking about?

>>8423526

If the truth gets you butthurt, you might belong here.

>>>/pol/

>>8423488
Buy wines from different places and different varieties of grape. Take notes on what you like or not.

MD > Thunderbird

>>8423687
looks like someone's had too much to drink and angry

>>8423488
palate

>>8423488

drink a glass a day, thats 2-3 bottles a week, thats possible 150 bottles a year, thats a lot of experience in one year and you didn't even have to get drunk.

>>8424663
>and you didn't even have to get drunk.

Then why fucking drink at all faggot?

>>8424664

feel free to kill yourself anytime

>>8424666
>>8424663
Welch's grape juice would be much cheaper.

Honestly OP if you want to get into wine pick up two different $20 bottles and split them with a friend or two while trying to pick out flavor profiles. Flavor profiles can really just boil down to "this tastes like x" rather than some sophisticated bullshit.

I've gone to group tastings before and I feel like there's a subconscious pressure to agree with what people are tasting even if you don't yourself. Would still suggest them if you live near any small wine shops or even a vineyard.

>>8424670
Funtrivia, Welch's came from a dude during the US temperance movement when the founder wanted to find a way to avoid his grape crops from fermenting into wine.

>>8424707
Point proven.
:^)

>>8423488
Starting drinking a fuckton of cheap wine.

There are decent bottles to be had for under $7, depending on cost of living where you are.

Find your favorites, and figure it out what it is that stands them apart from the other cheap wines.

Next, start buying highly-reviewed $12-20 bottles of wine. Figure out the similarities and differences of them, and see if any are better than your favorite cheap wines.

At this point, you should be starting to see some big differences in sweetness, fruits used, and amount of oak/wood flavors.

>>8423542
I'm sure the hicks of your country have expansive wine knowledge and refined palates and perhaps some somm experience at a fine restaurant.

>>8423687
Literally everything I don't like is /pol/

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>pallet

>>8424749
How about you read his post you mongrel. He said the lowest common denominator does not drink wine in America, and the same probably goes for your country. He doesn't say anything about when or why wine should be served, which is the strawman you're trying to argue against. Or maybe you're just that fucking illiterate, which makes it seem like you're projecting your own insecurities of inferiority unto American citizen at large.

I've learned to like the taste of beer, but not wine. It just tastes unpleasantly acrid to me. I thought maybe I just needed to drink more of it. But I drink coffee every day and I still hate the stuff.

>>8424749
My sarcastic point was that the Americans you guys always post about are hicks. There are many Americans with serious wine knowledge.

In fact, according to The Court of Master Sommeliers, 147 of the 230 masters in the world come from "the Americas" chapter. (https://www.mastersommeliers.org/about under the "How many..." tab). And if you look at this list, https://www.mastersommeliers.org/masters/list/all , you will see that all of those masters either work in the US or are American.

So maybe there is a strong wine culture amongst Americans? Really makes you think

>>8424753
>the lowest common denominator does not drink wine in America

This is false. Have you ever been to a World Market on wine tasting day? There are some truly low-class people who drink wine. A lot of them probably do it to seem fancier than their station in life will allow them.

>>8424764
I don't want to give the obsessed euros more ammo to shitpost with, but another thing is how a lot of new money guys only drink cabs and their wives only chardonnay.

>>8424774
>twisting my words and doubling down on the hyperbolic stereotypes

Your hostility towards my country and its people knows no bounds and it doesn't make you right. I don't really feel like wasting my morning trading blows with you. Goodbye, and of course, stay obsessed.

>>8424768
This is interesting to me. I've noticed a lot of women seem to prefer chardonnay. My sister drinks it, but she buys the cheap stuff, what she calls "jug wine". I haven't really gotten a taste for wine yet, but I find myself gravitating toward the reds more often. My sister and I are kind of opposites in everything but gender. She prefers wine, while I prefer beer. I can chug a shot of whiskey, while she daintily sips at hers. This kind of fucks up the idea that alcohol preferences are tied to your genes or your culture. Because of course, my sister and I have the same genes and the same upbringing. Yet we have such different tastes.

I've been working in the industry for a handful of years. My roommate/coworker is a sommelier so I get a lot of chances to try shit. I still don't know ass, but I will tell you the best way to at least start to refine your palate is to consistently try a lot of wine back to back at tastings. When you have one glass of wine, it mostly tastes like fucking wine. Once you have two, you can start figuring out why they taste different from each other, and the contrast is where you find a lot of tasting notes.

>>8424811

America has the best wine in the world, friendo.

>>8424823
>new world
>best wine
surely you jest

>>8424762
Sure there might be 147 American master somms. But you can't deny that the majority of the populace either derides the thought of drinking wine, or loves shit like Barefoot Moscato.

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>>8424831
Well it's true, but not. I'd say domestically our wine is okay but we import wine from all over the world. I have a local wine shop in Florida where I can shop for wine by country of origin.

I guess it's more accurate to say we have the best wine selection than the best wine. Napa Valley is good but it's not THAT good.

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OP: Wine is roughly grouped into distinct regional styles. The way to understand wine is to understand a few different characteristics:

Heavy/light (i.e. how much the wine taste stays in your mouth once you swallow it)

Acidic/Smooth (pretty self explanatory. High acid wines are more food friendly than smooth wines, but smooth wines are easier to drink on their own. Oftentimes, oaking wine will lower the amount of acid through malolactic fermentation).

Tannins (red wines only. That clingy feeling on your tongue you get when you imagine licking tree bark).

In terms of taste, see pic related. First thing you do is smell the top of your glass (the lower part of the glass will give you a nose full of alcohol). Give a quick sniff, swirl around in your glass, and then sniff again as the wine opens up. Go around the outside of the glass and try and narrow down what you're smelling. It helps to have a pretty refined pallete from cooking/eating in the first place.

Some pretty big generalizations that will help you get started: new world wines (NZ/US/AUS/South Africa) will have a more pronounced fruit flavors, while old world wines will have more earthy flavors. In general, the warmer the climate, the "bigger" the wine--napa valley, for example, is warm for much of the year, and so it's great for growing big, bold fruit. while cooler climate wines have a shorter growing season, so their wines are more delicate.

The key to developing a pallete is to just drink everything. Good shit, bad shit, cheap shit, expensive shit. When you're at a restauraunt, order a glass with your meal and try it out. Most waiters know at least a little bit about wine pairing so they can usually point you in the direction of a good pairing.

>>8425115

continued:

Some reds to try: Australian Shiraz (big and fruity) Napa Cabernet (similarly), Sonoma Pinot Nior, Bordeaux (a blend of 5 different grapes, mainly cabernet/merlot), Burgundy (pinot nior), Beaujolais (technically part of burgundy, but made with the gamay grape which is lighter and fruitier), chianti classico (sangiovese, mostly), Rioja/Tempranillo (also big and fruity, but more dark fruit flavors, kind of spicy).

Some whites to try: California Chardonnay (buttery and smooth), Reisling (try a sweet one and a dry one to see the difference), NZ Sauvignon Blanc, Italian Pinot Grigio (minerally and crisp, but still with some fruit), Chablis (unaoked chardonnay from burgundy), Muscadet (perfect oyster wine, try and get it sur lees, which means that the dead yeast cells aren't ), Gruner Vietlener (very food friendly austrian white, characteristic white pepper note).

Also try a provencial rose, as well as a domestic rose to give yourself an example of the two styles.

Trader Joe's Two buck chuck/whole foods three Wishes/costco kirkland signature all makes private wines that, while not amazing, are usually pretty good examples of their style and are pretty cheap. Avoid wines with gimmicky labels or cheesy names. If you have a local wine store that does tastings, try to find a schedule (usually the people doing the tastings are the distributors, who have a decent sense of the wine).

Don't worry about looking stuid. 90% of wine drinkers are middle aged normies, and while it's intimidating at first, if you're relatively smart and good at retaining information, it's not that hard to be relatively conversant in wine.

>>8425154

You forgot your punctuation, bro.

>>8425160
You look nice today.

>>8425129

I knew i was forgetting something. Yes, sweet/dry is another big factor. Obviously, dry is the opposite of sweet. Sweet wines go pretty well with spicy food, but you want to avoid wines with high alcohol or high tannins.

And yes my spelling is awful.

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I have made a handy guide so idiots will stop driving me nuts with their abuse of the English language.

If you want to put forth any effort at all just google a picture of a wine tasting wheel and contemplate what you're drinking

>>8423540
Fuck, I want a dilly bar