Red vs. White

In certain European corners of Wine Country, there are laws that determine what sort of wine can be made there.  To use two examples near each other, in the Northern Rhône winemakers in Condrieu must only make white wine.  Down the road a piece in Cornas, they are restricted to red wine and only Syrah at that.  We Americans (and Australians and Sicilians, too) are more used to visiting wineries in our own country, where almost all make both red and white wines.

Now, we at Power Tasting have a preference for red wine.  We have been known to say, only half facetiously, that white wine is something to do with your hands at parties.  But when we enter a tasting room, we are almost invariably offered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay to begin our introduction to their wines.  Should we go ahead and sip something we’re less likely to enjoy or skip right ahead to the red wines?

Photo courtesy of Bay Ridge Wine & Spirits

There are good reasons for either decision.  Among those in favor of trying the whites are:

  • It’s worthwhile to be open-minded. It’s not as though we dislike white wines, we just don’t like them as much.  So if we try it, we might like it.  After all, we do eat dinners of fish and salad, especially in the summer.  It’s a good idea to develop our noses and taste buds for the wines that go with those meals, too.
  • You learn a lot about a winery by sampling the complete range of a winemaker’s art. If we are particularly enamored by, say, the Cabernet Sauvignon at a particular winery why not try the Sauvignon Blanc as well?  We’re pretty sure that the winemaker didn’t consider it an afterthought.  Care and attention go into all the wines.  No one goes to a concert and listen only to the violins, so why leave out a part of what a winery has to offer?

 

On the other hand…

  • Don’t waste your precious alcohol capacity. If we are going to be tasting all day, we are going to take in a lot of alcohol.  We have techniques to preserve sobriety (sharing, pouring out, sipping gently and others) but we – and everyone – need to be conscious of the risk and of our own level of intake.  So if we know at the outset that we won’t enjoy white wines as much as reds, there’s a good reason not to add to the load.
  • The idea is to enjoy yourself. We go wine tasting for many reasons and education is indeed one of them.  So if we do take some white wine, we are being broadminded and dutiful.  But are we having fun?  If the answer is “no”, then maybe it’s not worth doing.  It’s wine, for Pete’s sake, not spinach.

As can be seen, there’s no universally correct answer.  We tend to go both ways, often with both white and red wine early in the day and only red as the shadows get longer.  And of course if you favor white wines over reds, all the above applies in reverse.

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