Reddit reviews How to Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine

1. fame and trends are definitely a driving force, which don't always speak to quality. awards and designated quality level have an influence, but these can be misleading. italy is known for having certain top designations that were gained politically, not because of any outstanding quality that they were trying to preserve. winemaking factors can also affect price and often have more of a hand in quality. if the variety is fickle and difficult to grow, lower quantity means higher prices. manual labor is expensive so if you need to, say, hand-pick frozen grapes for an ice wine, a delicate process, the extra cost contributes to the wine's price. overall, lower yields generally bring higher quality fruit, but again with less product, prices will climb. at least the latter few influences are good indicators of better quality.
   
   
2. your palate will change and adjust over time. flavors and textures might impress you early on that you'll find yourself shying away from a year later. try different wines and don't get so hung up on what's better than what. people get so focused on finding the best wine end up chasing the one style they've deemed great and using it as a measuring stick for all else. a long way of saying: keep an open mind. also, wine is about the place it comes from so read up on what you're drinking or just find it on a map. it's a great way to travel from home.
   
   
3. oak does contribute much of the flavors like toast, smoke, vanilla, cinnamon, baking spices, caramel and on and on. the primary flavors attributed to variety are that grape's personality, which is then influenced by terroir, ripeness, vinification processes like lees stirring, malolactic fermentation or oak usage, so the range of flavors is vast and can be quite subtle.
   
   
4. try drinking wines side by side, even just two wines of similar style or origin can help you begin distinguishing the subtle differences in categories. tasting won't do you any good if you're not paying attention so try talking about it aloud or writing your thoughts down. check out How To Taste if you want some more specific guidance.
   
   
5. wine is completely dynamic. there are so many factors that play into even a single bottle of wine's maturity (storage, cork, temperature) let alone what was put in the bottle. wines built for longer aging have more tannin, acidity or sugar (influenced by variety, style and vintage) and sulfur is pretty much a must to age a wine to its potential. in general, reds can age longer because they have tannin but quality rieslings with high acidity can also age for quite a while. regular wine stores do sell ageworthy wines, but to know when the wine is at its peak is more of a mystery, a frustrating fact for many. some people double up on their wine purchase, and some even buy a case just to watch the wine mature over the years. others, like me, read reviews and follow CellarTracker.
   
   
6. newer barrels impart more flavor in the wine, but that's not necessarily a good or bad thing, it just depends on the style. for instance, new barrel usage could overwhelm the flavors of a delicate wine while giving structure and flavors of a heartier variety. barrels are reused, and with each usage they have less to impart than the previous time. eventually they are considered neutral barrels that have little or nothing to offer in flavor but do help to mature wines (micro-oxygenation and such).
   
   hope that helps, even if i breezed through some of it.
   
   edit: formatting failures to repair

Definitely agree with this, no substitute for experience. Maybe join a wine tasting group, or food and wine group (I learnt loads from one of these, I miss it), do your own blind tastings etc. Wine is very experiential. You can read stuff and learn about grapes and techniques and all sorts of things but at the end of the day you need to get out and open a few bottles.

That said, this book by Jancis Robinson is pretty good, why not start there? Or maybe this one by Michael Schuster. Either way you'll only get 'advanced' but actually tasting wines (and probably taking notes as you go).

> I do decant my wine, but also sometimes use the magic decanter to see the difference in taste. Are the magic decanters frowned upon here?

I had to google this because they are marketed differently here and not called magic decanters. But I have used them when I used to work behind tasting bars. They do a little bit of aerating in my opinion, but I tend to just go with the old fashioned decanter. It's all personal preference.

> If there's any popular books you know of which are easy to read (i.e. more for beginners) then please let me know.

Are you thinking of just tasting books, to help you get in the swing of things? If so, here are a few:

• How To Taste
  
  
• Wine: A Tasting Course
  
  
• Wine Folly - this one is basically a lot of infographics and so it may not be as helpful on its own but in conjunction with one of the others it's good
  
  These are good starter books. Once you get the hang of it, invest in the Oxford Companion or other lovely tomes that may be a bit dense at the moment.

I don't know how seriously you want to take it, but Jancis Robinson wrote an awesome book on wine tasting called How to Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1416596658/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_B2x9wbQJK15HZ) that really helped me develop a better understanding and vocabulary as to what I was really tasting. Which in turn helped me appreciate and enjoy both wine and beer a lot more.

Also yeah, as mentioned by others, most of it is just finding what you like and developing your taste in that area and kind of branching out from there. So basically: just drink more beer. But that's my solution to most things.

The three books I found most helpful that aren't super expensive:

For General Knowledge:

Oldman's Guide to Outsmarting Wine

For Tasting:

How to Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine

For More Detailed Knowledge of Regions:

The Wine Bible

You can get those three for $50 total and if you read through them and do some of the things they say, and try some of what is mentioned, you will notice yourself getting really informed really quickly.

After a few months with these books, you can branch out to the more expensive and more specific books of which there are many.