Time to taste new wines and varieties – Part 1

Taste new wine

Its 2012. Time to make some new resolutions, explore opportunities, learn new things – time to taste and try new wines! And, when it comes to wine, there’s always lots to learn. While I always strive to learn more about the wine industry, wine issues and trends, I also look for ways to discover and  taste new wines and  varieties. So .. how best to find and taste new wines and varieties?

There are several good choices:

1. - Take advantage of wineries, new flash sites or out of state retailers that carry wines you cannot find locally to taste and try new wines
2. - Travel to wine regions to taste new wines and varieties
3. - Identify one or more local wine shops and/or wine focused groups as an opportunity to taste new wines

If you are located in the United States and not within the 38 states (hopefully New Jersey will be #39) that currently allow for direct shipments, you will be limited by what is distributed  through the 3-tiered system (producer – distributor – retailer), unless you travel nationally or internationally. This means the distributor first, then the retailer will decide what will be made available. Unfortunately, this greatly limits both the wines and the varieties available as well as your options for trying new wine brands or grapes.

Should you reside in one of the states that allow direct shipment, you can take advantage of either joining a winery wine club, scouting wines from retailers outside of your area, or trying new flash sites that have come on the scene over the last 3 or 4 years as a result of excess inventory and reduced demand brought on by the worldwide economic mess.

Lets take a quick look at each.

Buying wine direct from a winery: There are over 7,000 wineries in the US alone. Because of the 21st Amendment, shipping wine across state lines can be mind boggling at best. Even if you are within one of the 38 states that allow shipment, it is possible that the winery does not ship to your state. This could be a matter of cost (fees or other costs keeping up with regulations) or simply not enough wine produced to support broad shipment. If you find a winery that you would like to try and it does offer shipment, then you can proceed to purchase either individual bottle(s) or join the wine club. If you purchase by the bottle be prepared to pay full retail and likely shipping costs. This is the most expensive route for the buyer. In order to get discounts and special offers, it makes more sense to join the wine club, which is better both for the consumer and the winery.

Bottles are normally shipped quarterly or semi-annually to wine club members. Most of the time you only need to sign up for one year and then renew if happy with the wine and the service. Many times the wine maker will determine the contents of each shipment, although often there are some variations. For instance, many wineries will provide the option of shipping only white or only red wines. The major benefit to the wine club is not only discounts and sometimes free shipping. You will also be offered wines that are not available generally to the public, and if you plan on traveling to the winery, often you will be able to participate in no cost tastings and events.

 Buying wine from an out of state retailer: Again, there are thousands of retailers that sell wine. Depending upon your location and the out of state retailer’s location, you can assume some of the same wines are offered, but often additional wines that you cannot source locally. Here you can buy one bottle or cases at a time (again depending upon your State’s regulations). The out of state retailers will operate much the same as those in state in terms of promotions, so you can assume close outs and sales at different times of the year.

Normally, buying from an out of state retailer is done on line. There are many out there including Wine.com, Wine Anthology, K&L Merchants, and Wine Library (think Gary Vaynerchuk:-) to name a few. There are also special sites more like a “negotiant”, where they will buy wines from wineries, then rebrand. This will often drastically reduce the price that the original wine would fetch, but you will only know the general location, variety or blend, and year from which it was sourced, not the actual winery or winemaker. A good example is Cameron Hughes, where you can purchase single bottles, cases, or samplers, or join the wine club (you can chose red, white, red and white or seasonal lots).

Buying wine from a flash site: Sites such as Tillsoldout, Lot18, Cinderella, Invino, Last Bottle Wines, Last Call Wines, The Wine Spies, Wine Woot and Wineshopper(see below for a summary of each).

Above descriptions courtesy Wine & Vines Flash Report

According to Wines & Vines, the number of offers have doubled from 300 to 700 in just the last year. These sites normally sell one wine at a time,  one wine daily, or sometimes 2 – 6 at a time, and often at large discount. Last month the top discounter was Til Sold Out at 54% (Amusee). Some ship directly, while others act as the middleman letting the winery ship (Lot 18 – which in some cases may limit shipment based on where the winery is located). Regardless of the economy going forward, most believe these sites will continue unabated.

Particularly for the flash sites, but also pertaining to buying from any out of state option, the good news is that you will likely identify and be able to taste a variety of new wines that you are not able to find locally. The bad news is that if you don’t know what you are buying you may find yourself with several bottles of good wine that simply isn’t to your taste. Now there are ways to help avoid “mistakes”.

Wine Spectator Vintage Chart Application

Here are some tips to help you determine a likely good buy :

1. My first recommendation is to download (to your desktop, smartphone or pad)  handy vintage charts that give you an idea of the vintage ratings by location and variety.  In this case you’re not evaluating any particular wine, but rather getting a quick better understanding of the overall quality of wine produced in a particular year from a particular wine region, often designated by the variety. For instance, if a 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon is being offered from Napa Valley and you have downloaded the free Wine Spectator Vintage Chart, you will see that the vintage for Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa for 2007 was rated a whopping 99 points. This won’t guarantee the wine will suit your taste, but it will suggest there was a lot of good Cabernet produced in Napa Valley in 2007. On the other hand, if a 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon is offered, that rated a disappointing 85, which suggests a bit of caution. Some other charts to consider: Robert Partker, Chiff, Artisan Vineyards, and speciality charts such as provided by The Wine Insider to name a few.
2. Secondly, for pricing evaluation use sites such as wine-searcher.com or perhaps Snooth. Here you can check to see if the deal being offered is really highly discounted or not (keep in mind that some low production wines may not show up at all on wine-searcher since they are not in “distribution” per se).
3. Now that you have an idea on how to evaluate the vintage and the price, its time to decide whether or not the wine will likely be a winner for you. This is the most difficult decision since wine evaluation is subjective – a very well made wine may not be to your taste – so a 50%+ discount is not a good deal if you don’t like the wine.

One thing not mentioned above – these sites often will offer free shipping for some minimum number of bottles purchased. The number usually varies with the cost of the wine. As an example, on Tillsoldout the average number is normally 4 for bottles ranging from $10 to say $30. For more expensive bottles the minimum purchase can be as low as one. So if you are looking at a bottle with a price of say $15 the minimum purchase for free shipping is likely 4.  So how do you go about minimizing mistakes (don’t worry about flawed wines – if a bottle is corked it is returnable)?

Although I am in full agreement that wine reviews are extremely subjective, they can be a very useful tool when evaluated as a “clue” rather than as a conclusion. Most of the sites will provide reviews by the winemaker, winery or some person who is evaluating for the flash site. Here I would read the review looking for some clues such as “fruit”, “oak”, “earthy”, “spicey”, “full bodied”, etc. These can be either good or bad depending upon what you look for in a wine. Look especially for average weightings from people who have bought that particular wine from the site. Several sites will provide this information as well as encourage you to review and post your review of a wine you have bought.

Next check out other sites that may also include people that have bought that wine before. One very good site is Cellar Tracker.  Cellar Tracker now has over 180,000 users and over 2,000,000 wine reviews. These are typically wine enthusiasts not professional tasters and the reviews reflect a wide number of comments often on the same wine. Snooth is another site you can check regarding wine reviews as well as countless wine blogs and wine focused on line news. Lastly, there are dozens of wine columnists and bloggers that provide tasting notes on a wide variety of wines.