Stuck In A Wine Rut? Take Advice, Be Brave And Crack Open Something Different This Weekend
I love mushrooms on toast but I don’t want to have it every night for dinner. I also love oxtail. If I see it on a restaurant menu I’m all over it... but I don’t want that for dinner every night either.
I think about wine the same way. The idea of drinking the same wine style all the time is absurd to me. It would be, well, like having mushrooms on toast every night. And let’s face it, eating mushrooms on toast every night is patently weird.
Not surprisingly then, I don’t understand wine drinkers who slavishly stick to the same wine style day after day. Back in the old days chardonnay was labelled the main culprit but now sauvignon blanc has clearly usurped it as the beverage of choice for the single variety heavy hitters. They drink it before dinner. They drink it with dinner. And after dinner too. They drink in summer. And they drink it in winter as well. Isn’t this patently weird too? Or am I missing something?
I crave variety. I love trying something new. And I choose different wines to match the time of day, the time of year, my mood, who I’m with, what I’m eating (if I’m eating...), and a host of other parameters that make me want to open one particular bottle of wine ahead of another.
Going through this process is half the fun for me. There are no hard and fast rules. And there are certainly no rights and wrongs. The only wrong is not chancing your arm and trying something new every now and then.
If you haven’t ventured out into uncharted wine territory for a while there is no better time to start than now. Our retail stores are awash with exciting new wine styles that deserve a crack. And increasingly these fringe varietals are being produced here in Hawke’s Bay.
So venture out. Try something new. The joys of viognier, semillon, montepulciano, tempranillo, pinot blanc, malbec and arneis await you. And your old mates riesling, and gewürztraminer probably deserve a chance to reacquaint themselves too.
Who knows? You might even like them. But one thing’s for sure - you won’t know if you don’t put them through their paces.
The trick, as always, is to head to your local retailer and ask someone who knows what they’re talking about to give you the heads up on some interesting options.
John 'Mac' Macpherson is the owner of Advintage Wine Warehouse, Havelock North, Hawkes Bay and regularly writes about wine for local publications.
Discover a new wine style by choosing from the huge range available at www.advintage.co.nz.
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