How to Select a Good Bottle of Wine

[Nick Armstrong]

... clearly I shall have to throw away all those bottles of romanée-conti, la tâche, and château laville haut-brion I have been carefully guarding

You may find your bin-man arriving by bicycle each morning from the direction of the Bayswater Road... wearing a "t-shirt" and browsing through a law book...

The OP is perpetrating a gigantic wind-up, no? Either that or he's been drinking the evidence.

[french frank]

If you have a big crumbly old chateau to maintain, you have to balance the books by retraining people who should be looking after the vineyards and jumping on grapes to clean masses of windows, paint their shutters, mend the central heating and chauffeur you about in your pink 2CV.

The neglect results in rubbish wine which you need to market with a pretty label at ridiculously high prices.

I missed this contribution which I applaud because it made me laugh!

[LeMartinPecheur]

You go into a wine merchant or the supermarket and there's a vast array of different bottles on the shelf: how do you pick a good 'un?

Being of a scientific bent I decided sometime ago to research this question in a scientific manner: i.e. I selflessly dedicated myself to sampling many bottles of wine in order to evolve a surefire method of wine selection.

After many false paths I stumbled upon a simple solution to the problem which I now use in all wine purchases with excellent results. I am now willing to pass this information on to a select band so you can share the fruits of my endeavouirs.

It's quite simple. You need to select bottles of wine that have pictures of the chateaux on their labels. This approach recommends itself immediately since Australian wines fall by the wayside at step one.

Next: count the windows on the chateaux. Not the individual panes, each total window counts as one window.

The more windows on the chateaux, the better the bottle of wine!

Now some of these pictures will not appear to you to be chateaux, more what you might consider to be no better than your own garage (if you have one) or shed. That's because they are, in fact, brewing in a garage or shed. I consider that here windows count as halves for the purposes of assessment.

Of course it could be argued that correlation between wine quality and window count may not imply causation between the two. However, I believe causation can be explained by linking the success of the wine with the wealth of the chateaux, and thus the number of windows.

Anyway: good hunting!

The OP reminds me of a colleague's simple rule for selection of French wines back in the 1970s: buy those with the fewest words in English on the label. Avoid like the plague those saying 'Made in France'!

Never followed it myself but that was maybe my loss...

[Thropplenoggin]

In answer to the OP:

Live in France.

[vinteuil]

... of late we have been drinking a fair amount of Italian - German - Spanish - Portuguese - Austrian wine in addition to the normal French quota.

Quite a lot of it is quite good. Very few windows in evidence.

No, I don't think the windows method really bears looking into

[french frank]

... of late we have been drinking a fair amount of Italian - German - Spanish - Portuguese - Austrian wine in addition to the normal French quota.

Quite a lot of it is quite good. Very few windows in evidence.

No, I don't think the windows method really bears looking into

Well, I don't think it's right to be looking into windows anyway.

Have you indeed found some decent German wines? I'm still living in hopes of a return to their glory days. About ten years ago I asked in Oddbins why they didn't have any German wines any more and was told the quality was no longer good enough.

[Keraulophone]

Live in France.

Such a draconian step isn't necessary. All that's needed is one pre-Christmas visit a year to The Wine Society's shop in the picturesque town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, less than an hour or so from Calais. One can help pay for a pleasant break by sending less to Mr Osborne.
http://www.thewinesociety.com/ServicesContent.aspx?PageCode=FrenShow&PageName=Fr ench%20Showroom

[Keraulophone]

Have you indeed found some decent German wines? I'm still living in hopes of a return to their glory days.

Hard to find in the high Street, ff, though M&S occasionally have some, but it's worth investigating specialist dealers like this former dentist (advice available): http://www.howardripley.com/german.php

[amateur51]

Well, I don't think it's right to be looking into windows anyway.

Have you indeed found some decent German wines? I'm still living in hopes of a return to their glory days. About ten years ago I asked in Oddbins why they didn't have any German wines any more and was told the quality was no longer good enough.

German wines have been a visible (and tasteable) 'victim' of climate change. The climatic conditions that have made it possible over the centuries for skilled winemakers to create low-alcohol, highly floral white wines with a magical balance of natural residual sweetness balanced by a racy acidity from principally the riesling grape have altered in the last decade so that wines delivering a higher alcohol load and a drier
trocken style have become the default wines of much of the area. This is a great shame for those of us who relish the old style.

There are still some masters with fortunately-placed vineyards who can still create the old magic but their relative rarity means that the price for their treasures has gone up.

Standard trocken riesling from Germany now has to compete with the ultra-citrussy examples from the New World which has become a style all of its own. They are often cheaper and more confident in asserting their style. Hence the Germans have tended to lose out.

However I am still a great fan of the old style of German riesling and because of its relatively low alcohol content, I greatly enjoy drinking it, as Malcolm Gluck used to write, 'with a good book'

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm not a wine expert, so I simply trust the judgement of Laithwaite's.

[amateur51]

I'm not a wine expert, so I simply trust the judgement of Laithwaite's.

Not a wine expert, EA?

Surely you are the world's expert in what sort of wine you like? That is the best sort of wine expert there is for domestic drinking. And if Messrs Laithwaite tickle your gout without giving you gout or pocketache, stick with that formula!

[Keraulophone]

Next: count the windows on the chateaux.

I now understand the full meaning of a drinking window.

[johnb]

Just finished off a 6 bottle case of Percheron Old Vine Cinsault 2010 - now ordering another 6 (but 2011 vintage) from The Wine Society. Lovely easy drinking for £5.75 a bottle (but not a window in sight)!

[french frank]

Avoid like the plague those saying 'Made in France'!

I misremembered what had been said here and thought it was Product of France, which I found quite acceptable today (having ignored the misremembered advice):


After lunch I studied my receipt to find the Coop had charged me £4.99 - a price I would not have countenanced, since I'm fairly sure it said £7.99 on the shelf (and, yes, I shall return to the Coop to discuss the matter with them).

Re German wine, they had one possible looking Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Riesling Kabinett at £9.99, but there I was deterred by the alc 8.5% vol. I'm afraid at that strength it would have been a tenner gone at one meal

[Anna]

Re German wine, they had one possible looking Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Riesling Kabinett at £9.99, but there I was deterred by the alc 8.5% vol. I'm afraid at that strength it would have been a tenner gone at one meal

I had a friend who only bought wine by strength of volume, but she lived in Crewkerne!