Wine has played a huge role in my life, whether tasting it, drinking it, studying it, or simply sharing it with friends, family, and wine lovers around the world. Although I have other interests, wine seems to be the topic everyone wants to discuss with me or, perhaps, I am the one who feels compelled to speak of wine out of a sense of my own passion or the perceived expectations of others. Whatever the case, in the more than 40 years I have been enjoying wine and worked in the trade, two questions invariably ensue. Firstly, what is your favorite wine? Secondly, what are the most important things everyone should know about wine? The answer to the first question is simple: I don’t have one single favorite wine. Besides, I don’t drink wine that I don’t enjoy, so the wine in my glass is invariably my momentary favorite. The second question requires a more lengthy response and encapsulates what I have learned about wine and life in the previous four decades.

1. Wine is meant to be enjoyed.
2. Wine doesn’t mean much until it’s shared and someone else enjoys it, too, so share.
3. You can’t drink a label, a price tag, or anyone else’s palate, only the contents of a bottle. All else is snobbery.
4. Paying too much or too little for wine is a recipe for disappointment.
5. Variety is truly the spice of life, so try new and different wines often; you will learn a tremendous amount about wine and your own palate.
6. Food and wine are fast friends; each makes the other shine and doubles the pleasure.
7. Pair different wines with the same dish to see which pairings work best.
8. Trust your own palate.
9. Drink wine from fine thin glassware that you wash and dry carefully by hand. Soap spots and water stains add nothing pleasurable to wine.
10. Read about wine and the world’s wine regions from multiples sources, learn about the varietal connections that link Old and New World wines, and taste, taste, taste… but don’t forget to enjoy! Wine is not a contest.

Salud!
Don

In some wine regions of the world, the quality of wine varies little from year to year. The reason is that the weather in some wine regions remains fairly consistent and predictable. This is particularly true in areas with Mediterranean climates. In other wine lands, such as Bordeaux, vintage means everything. The weather in Bordeaux varies enormously throughout the growing season and from one year to the next, and because weather largely determines the quality of the vintage and the resulting wine, vintage speaks volumes in the most hallowed of French appellations.

The adage in Bordeaux is June makes the quantity, August the style, and September the quality. If the flowering and subsequent berry set go well in June, growers can look forward to a bumper crop. And by August, the vignerons know roughly what to expect in style. But it’s September and, to a lesser extent, October that ultimately determine how good the Bordeaux wines will be, particularly the reds, based largely on the amount and frequency of rain that falls during those months. If a tropical depression sweeps in from the Atlantic, all bets will be off. With this said, Bordeaux has enjoyed two of the finest back to back vintages in recent memory in 2015 and 2016, and neither should be missed.

Not only is quality superb top to bottom from Grand Crus to Petits Châteaux in 2015 and 2016, subsequent vintages can hardly match this dynamic duo. Although the resulting wines are different in style, each of these vintages enjoyed ideal weather in September and October. Consequently, 2015 and 2016 produced a bevy of exciting and downright profound wines, with the red wines surpassing those even in the heretofore exceptional 2009 and 2010 vintages. Consequently, I’m putting as many 2015 and 2016 red Bordeaux in my cellar as I can afford because Bordeaux doesn’t get much better than the wines of these two vintages and neither 2017 nor 2018 can match what 2015 and 2016 have to offer.

Salud!
Don