on what to drink

To followup my last post about beer, I thought I should post about wines. There was a great interview on Fresh Air about wine from two wine columnists for the WSJ, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher. The whole interview is worth a listen. But here is a great list which they give:

In their conversation with Fresh Air host Terry Gross, they break down their wine recommendations for holiday giving — and holiday celebrating — by varietal and price point:

Wines At Around $10

Good values, and some fine surprises if you’re willing to experiment

• Chilean Sauvignon Blancs

• Argentine varietals like Malbec and Torrontés

• Italian reds like Montepulciano d’Abruzzo

Wines At Around $20

Where wonderful wine-drinking starts

• New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs

• South African Chenin Blancs (sometimes called Steen) and Pinotages¹

The best advice they gave was this, “try something you have never heard of, or a label you have never seen before.” The reasoning behind this, is that there is a lot of great wine out there, coming in from all over the world. More importantly though, the names that you know have in most cases have been over produced because of such high demand for them. So by purchasing the unknown types from countries like Chile or Argentia you have a really good chance of getting a good wine.

1. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97946959 [↩]