Selecting Wines

In essence, there are four ways to choose wines:

• Take the advice or a friend, merchant, magazine, or expert wine taster;
• Choose by the wine characteristics (excluding taste and numbers);
• Via tastings;
• Via numbers.

This article will explore each approach.

Taking Advice

Friends are likely to recommend wines they like which is good in the sense that you will then have someone to talk to about the selections. It is not so good if you don’t happen to like your friend’s wines. Today you can have “digital” friends on wine blogs, e.g., Wine Spectator Conversations, and you are bound to find someone there who has similar wine tastes.

Many people find wine merchants they get to know and trust. Trust is important here because all vintners have a few cases of wine they are having difficulty selling. Frequently, my dinner guests will bring me bottles I know they paid $20-$30 for that are real bad.

There are also a number of wine magazines: I happen to like Food and Wine: it does an excellent job of finding relatively inexpensive okay wines to pare with different foods. For the more knowledgeable, you can check the ratings and notes of wine tasting experts – Robert Parker and Wine Spectator come to mind.

Wine Characteristics

The simplest distinction between wines is color: red, white, pink, or yellow-green (we will only deal with red and white here). Then there is “body”, a bit more subjective: does the wine taste light and fresh or heavier with deep and rich flavors. My experience is that these two dimensions, color and body, are the best predictors of what wines different people will like: heavy reds, heavy whites, light reds, light whites.

Some people prefer “light whites” such as those produced by the Sauvignon Blanc grape and some like “heavy whites” as those made from the Chardonnay grape. Others prefer “light reds” typified by Pinot Noir, while others like “heavy reds” such as those made from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape.

I characterized these four preferences by a grape. Once you know what color and body you like, choosing wines by the primary grape is probably the safest and easiest way to choose wines you are going to like. This method works well because the wines of most countries list their primary grape on the front label and are organized in liquor stores by the grape.

But there is a problem: most French, Italian, and some Spanish wines are named by the region from which they come and are organized accordingly on racks in liquor stores. To mitigate this problem, I have developed the following table that allows one to trace the wines of France, Italy and Spain back to the grape.

Color	Body	Grape	Country	Name (Other Than Grape)
White	Light	Sauvignon Blanc	US	Fume Blanc
			France	Sancerre, Pouilly Fume
White	Light	Chenin Blanc	France	Vouvray, White Bordeaux
White	Heavy	Riesling	Germany	Mosel, Saar, Rheingau
White	Heavy	Chardonnay	France	White Burgundy, Chablis,
				Champagne, Pouilly Fuisse
Red	Light	Pinot Noir	France	Red Burgundy
Red	Light	Gamay	France	Beaujolais
Red	Medium	Sangiovese	Italy	Chianti, Brunello di Montacino
Red	Heavy	Tempranillo	Spain	Rioja
Red	Heavy	Cabernet Sauvignon	France	Bordeaux
Red	Heavy	Merlot	France	Pomerol, St. Emilion
Red	Heavy	Syrah or Shiraz	France	Rhone: Chateauneuf du Pape, Hermitage, Cote-Rotie, Cotes du Rhone
Red	Heavy	Nebbiolo	Italy	Barbaresco, Barolo

So, for example, if you want a heavy white, look for a Chardonnay. And in France, Chardonnays include Chablis and White Burgundy. If you like heavy reds, you might try the Nebbiolo grape, which means trying Barbaresco and Barolos from Italy.

Of course, choosing wines by the grape is not perfect. There are significant variations. For example, in the heavy white category, Rieslings taste sweeter and fruitier that Chardonnays; in the heavy red category, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlots, and Shiraz taste similar while Nebbiolo has more of an acid taste.

Above, I talk of the “primary” grape. That is because virtually all wines are blends of several grapes, with one being more important than the others. For red wines, there are a growing number with more than one primary grape, for example a Shiraz – Cabernet Sauvignon is a popular combination of two primary grapes.

But if one wants to keep it simple, just decide which of the four color and body combinations you like and look for the primary grape indicated in the table on the wine list in a restaurant or on the racks in a liquor store.

Wine Tastings

To me, wine tastings are by far the best way to learn about and enjoy wines. Also, if you have a group of friends you can do them with, they are even better. There are a few things to be careful about:

• Wine tastes differently with and without food. I generally like to start a tasting before dinner and then drink the wines with dinner.
• Five wines is the maximum I would have for any tasting, and even that is pushing it.
• The range of wines to taste should depend on the “wine knowledge” of the tasters. For example, for novice wine drinkers, you might try a heavy red, a light red, a heavy white, and a light white. For more knowledgeable drinkers, the wine selection should be narrower. For example, I like and know heavy reds. I might taste a Cabernet Sauvignon against a Malbec against a Shiraz. Or I might stay with one grape and try wines costing more and less.
• Maybe it is just my problem, but Saturday afternoon wine tastings in liquor stores are not my cup of tea.

Wine By The Numbers

Let me warn you, some people will have absolutely no use for what follows. But as an economist, I get a real kick out of looking at wine “by the numbers. What do I mean by that? In the next few paragraphs, I will offer a few examples.

How does one find the best wines for the money? My hunch is that French and American wines are overpriced relative to “New World” wines – Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, and South Africa. But how can my intuition be made more convincing?

I first need a measure of wine value that includes both how good the wine tastes and its price – the better a wine tastes per dollar of cost, the higher the wine value is. There are now various on-line databases that rate wine. For example, the Wine Spectator has a database with ratings of 218,000 wines (http://www.winespectator.com/wineratings).

Wine Spectator rates and estimates retail prices for wines. Their ratings are: 95-100 – classic; 90-95 – outstanding; 85-89 – very good; 80-84 – good; 75-79 – mediocre; and 50-74 – not recommended. I have found that any wine rated 88 or above is quite good. In a wine tasting comparing one rated 88 with one rated 95, you might be able to tell the difference, but a bottle rated 88 by itself is very good.

I will assert that if you look carefully, you can find very good (rated 88 or better) for $15 or less. To test this, I did a data search by grape for wines rated 88 or higher costing at most $15. In this and future tables, I limited the search to recent years (2004-2007) and to wines with production runs of 500 cases and up (this is important because you are not likely to find wines with fewer cases made). I have also incorporated French wines according my “grape-mapping table in the appropriate grape category.

Consider first “light whites” produced from Sauvignon Blanc. The Wine Spectator rated 1,723 wines, and of that number 7.7% were rated 88 or above and cost $15 or less. It is interesting to see that South Africa and New Zealand had the largest number of

Sauvignon Blanc
		Wines Meeting	% Meeting
Country	Wines Rated	Criteria	Criteria
South Africa	162	26	16.0%
New Zealand	361	47	13.0%
Argentina	43	4	9.3%
France	418	29	6.9%
Australia	63	3	4.8%
US	526	22	4.2%
Chile	150	2	1.3%
Totals	1723	133	7.7%

qualifying wines. And while the United States produces the most Sauvignon Blanc wines, they are either too expensive or too low in quality to make our list.

What might you conclude from this? There are some Sauvignon Blancs you can get for $15 or less with a rating of 88 or more, but not many – only 7.7% of the Sauvignon wines rated. Also, if you go into a wine store and look only at Sauvignons costing $15 or less, you have a better chance of finding a South African (16%) or a New Zealand (13%) bottle with a rating of 88 or more.

Consider next “heavy whites” produced from the Chardonnay grape. In this case, 1,960 wines have been rated and 58 met our criteria. The United States produced the most and had the most meeting our criteria. However, Argentina and Australia had the highest percentage of their rated wines getting 88 or higher ratings and priced at $15 or less.

Chardonnay
		Wines Meeting	% Meeting
Country	Wines Rated	Criteria	Criteria
Australia	241	18	7.5%
Argentina	103	6	5.8%
New Zealand	76	3	3.9%
Chile	130	5	3.8%
South Africa	111	3	2.7%
US	877	21	2.4%
France	422	2	0.5%
Totals	1960	58	3.0

What to conclude? Overall, only 3% of all Chards met our criteria. If you look only at Chards costing $15 or less, you have a better chance to get one rated 88 or more if you pick an Australian (7.5%) or an Argentinian (5.8%) than if you pick a French (0.5% – all those expensive white burgundies) or US (2.4%) bottle.

Let us next consider “light reds” produced from the Pinot Noir grape. Pinot Noirs are more expensive than other wines, so to get a reasonable sample, I had to increase the maximum price to $20.

Pinot Noir
		Wines Meeting	% Meeting
Country	Wines Rated	Criteria	Criteria
Australia	53	8	15.1%
Chile	21	2	9.5%
New Zealand	172	11	6.4%
Argentina	18	1	5.6%
France	145	1	0.7%
United States	881	6	0.7%
Total	1290	29	2.2%

Note that with even with the retail price increased to $20, only 2.2% of wines passed both criteria. The United States is again the largest producer and has the largest number of wines meeting our criteria. But if you look only at bottles costing $20 or less, you have a much better chance of getting a bottle rated 88 or higher if you choose an Australian (15.1%), or Chilean (9.5%).

We turn now to the “heavy reds” typified by the Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, and Malbec grapes. Consider first Cabernet Sauvignon or what the French call Bordeaux.

Cabernet Sauvignon
		Wines Meeting	% Meeting
Country	Wines Rated	Criteria	Criteria
Argentina	145	16	11.0%
Australia	179	12	6.7%
Chile	209	8	3.8%
South Africa	103	3	2.9%
United States	754	6	0.8%
France	1108	6	0.5%
Total	2498	51	2.0%

Note how many Cabs are produced, primarily by the French and Americans. Again, it is notable what a small percentage of the French and American wines meet our criteria relative to Argentina, Australia, Chile, and South Africa.

For several years now, the Shiraz/Syrah grape has been quite popular. Australia has sold a lot of Shiraz and consequently we associate the country with the grape. However, Shiraz is the dominant grape in the Rhone wines from France, and we have been importing and enjoying Rhone wines for many years. For Shiraz/Syrah, Chile, Australia, and France have the largest number of their wines meeting our criteria. The United States produces the third largest number of wines in which the Shiraz is the dominant grape. But none of its wines meet our criteria.

Shiraz
		Wines Meeting	% Meeting
Country	Wines Rated	Criteria	Criteria
Chile	72	6	8.3%
Australia	526	34	6.5%
France	808	51	6.3%
South Africa	91	5	5.5%
Argentina	43	2	4.7%
United States	321	0	0.0%
Total	1861	98	5.3%

Lovers of “heavy reds” should also try Malbecs. Argentina is the largest Malbec producer, but our search also turned up Chile. Note that Malbec ties Sauvignon

Malbec
		Wines Meeting	% Meeting
Country	Wines Rated	Criteria	Criteria
Argentina	304	24	7.9%
Chile	21	1	4.8%
Total	325	25	7.7%

Blanc for the percentage of rated wines that meet our criteria, suggesting that Malbecs might be a good buy relative to other heavy reds. One might also conclude that France and the United States do not fare well – in almost all cases, buying from a “New World” wine country will give you a better value, where “New World” wine countries include Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, and South Africa.

How definitive are these tables and conclusions? Not very! First, we are at the mercy of the Wine Spectator’s sampling. We have no way of knowing whether their samplings are “representative” the countries being compared. Second, there is the question of ratings: perhaps your tastes do not correspond to Wine Spectator’s tasters. And third, a very different price range might interest you.

But I do believe one general conclusion holds: you can find better buys from “New World” countries.

Look out, another quantitative example. I tell friends I never buy wines without a Wine Spectator spreadsheet.

For example, the following table presents the top choices for Shiraz from the Wine Spectator database (done in 2007) for retail prices less than $30 rated 90 or more. The Value column is the rating divided by the price. The Yellowtail comes out on top – you get more rating points per dollar than for any other wine. Typically when I shop, I will take a spreadsheet like this with me.

Wine	Year	Rating	Price	Value	Country
YELLOW TAIL Shiraz South Eastern Australia The Reserve	2005	90	$11	8.18	Australia
JACOB’S CREEK Shiraz South Australia Reserve	2004	90	$12	7.50	Australia
RAZOR’S EDGE Shiraz McLaren Vale	2005	90	$12	7.50	Australia
ALAIN BOISSON Côtes du Rhône-Villages Cairanne Domaine Cros de Romet	2005	90	$12	7.50	France
AUSTRALIAN DOMAINE WINES Shiraz McLaren Vale Alliance	2004	90	$14	6.43	Australia
RÉGIS & BRUNO BOISSON Côtes du Rhône-Villages Cairanne	2005	90	$14	6.43	France
PETER LEHMANN Shiraz Barossa	2005	91	$15	6.07	Australia
R. GASSIER Syrah Costières de Nîmes Les Piliers	2004	90	$15	6.00	France
DOMAINE JAUME Vinsobres Altitude 420	2005	90	$15	6.00	France
RÉGIS & BRUNO BOISSON Côtes du Rhône-Villages Massif d’Uchaux Clos de la Brussière	2005	91	$16	5.69	France
ANGOVE’S Shiraz McLaren Vale Vineyard Select	2004	91	$17	5.35	Australia
LANGMEIL Shiraz Barossa Valley Floor	2004	94	$23	4.09	Australia
SCHILD Shiraz Barossa	2004	96	$24	4.00	Australia

I have one further point on the “numbers. I don’t like the above rankings. Why? Because my wine preferences are not reflected by the rating to price ratio. A wine rated 96 by WS is a pretty special wine. So I don’t like to see Schild at the bottom of the list. I will happily pay $13 more for a wine rated 96 versus 90. But I do like to have such a spreadsheet with me when I shop for wine.