Lifestyle
How To Pick A Bottle
Of Wine
38
Many people drink wine or cook with wine regularly but do not have any real knowledge of how to select a good wine.
The first consideration should be whether you are selecting the wine to cook with or consume with a given meal. If you are cooking steak, red wine is the best selection either to drink with steak or cook the steak. Generally speaking, a Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon are excellent choices with any red meat such as steak. They will produce an excellent soft and flavoursome texture in any good cut of fillet or porterhouse steak when cooking the meat. You will also find that both red wines taste great when accompanying a good steak.
On the other hand, if you are cooking a seafood pasta or pan frying a good fillet of tuna or salmon steak, a white wine such as a good quality Riesling or Chardonnay will be excellent for cooking or as an accompaniment. Do not select an overly cheap wine to cook with or drink. Too cheap often equals poor quality. However, it is not necessary to spend $30 and above for a good quality red or white wine. A wine costing $10 to $20 will deliver an acceptable level of taste quality. Such a price tag will usually produce a wine with a vintage of at least three to four years which is good minimum level of maturity of flavour in the wine.
When selecting the wine pay attention to a few rules. For example, never buy wine in a plastic cask if you want the better quality. Whether wine is bottled with a synthetic or genuine cork or a screw top are not major issues. Many good wine producers have moved away from bottling wine with a cork and are now using screw tops because they provide easier access to the wine and are easier for re-capping of the bottle. Many good quality Australian wines produced by wineries like Penfold's and Jacob's Creek now bottle wine without using the traditional authentic cork.
Spend some time observing the bottle. A wine bottle with a bigger depression at the base of the bottle will often mean the wine is of a stronger or more imposing flavour. You should also make sure the wine level in the bottle is not too low as this is a sign of corking which will affect the taste.
Overall, Australian and Californian wines have a reputation for being of good quality and inexpensive. They are now some of the most consistently used wines in many restaurants across the western world.
Look for liquor stores or supermarkets that have a wide range of selection of wines and don't be afraid to sample wines that are discounted. They are often fine quality wines. If in doubt don't think you are displaying ignorance by asking the staff at the wine merchant for their opinion of a good wine. These people know what sells well and becomes popular for consistency of quality and value for money and their advice is worth getting.
Anthony Phillip Parker