Tastes Change So Don't Be Afraid To Change With Them
When it comes to your personal preferences for wine everyone has to start somewhere. More importantly those preferences are supposed to evolve over time. As a 21-year-old university student I thought Merlot was an Italian wine, and I couldn’t tell the difference between a buttery Chardonnay and a bone dry Riesling.
We all have that moment where we start to get interested in wine; mine involves a brick-orange Barolo, but that’s a story for another day. What I want to talk about is just how malleable each and every one of our taste buds are.
I was thinking about this last week while trying an iconic Sonoma Pinot Noir called Kosta Browne. I heard about this wine about a decade ago and was intrigued after reading so many glowing reviews about this wine. It took me over two years on a waiting list before I even had the opportunity to purchase their different blocks of Pinot.
I was so excited I way over-spent my first vintage and continued to buy vintage after vintage of their wine. Then something happened last year. I started to question what I was drinking. This wine, which had always been a treat, suddenly felt more like a chore. This is a big, powerful Pinot with lots of spice, red berries, plum all wrapped up with a long finish. What’s not to like?
Well, for one, it tasted too big for Pinot. This wine was too rich, too extracted for what I wanted from my Pinot. How could this have happened to a winery that rightfully has a “cult” status among so many lovers of California wine? I realized that the wine had not changed, I had.
Go look up a bottle of 2011 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir from Kosta Browne and you will see a slew of positive reviews. The wine makers put a ton of time, money and care in their product. What had occurred was that my own personal inclinations for Pinot had changed. I wanted/needed more delicacy, more earthy notes, a little less overt fruit notes and definitely less alcohol.
This epiphany did not happen overnight, it took years of a slow tectonic shift in my wine priorities. Big, bold wines with tons of juicy fruit now make up less of my shelf space, having been replaced with wines highlighted by their freshness, subtly and true expression of what the land around the vines has to offer.
Of course my own tastes are not for everyone nor are they by any means superior to anyone else’s. Far from it! I abhor the idea that there is any sort of hierarchy when it comes to wine preference. My point is that all wine tastes change and that is a good thing.
In so many ways I am your stereotypical wine drinker. In my early 20’s I drank almost all red wine and most of it came from either North or South America. I loved the big fruity wines. French wine confused me and most of that European crap was just far too watery for me.
Now it’s almost a 50/50 split between white and red, and I find I drink far more wines from regions where World Wars were fought versus New World regions such as Chile, Australia and America. Before I get accused of being some sort of Euro wine snob (the most common form of wine snob), I’ve been obsessed with Bordeaux Blends from Okanagan Valley in B.C. and the North Island of New Zealand.
Ask yourself: Is what you drink now on a regular basis different than what it was 10-15 years ago? I hope for many of you that it has. This is not say you shouldn’t be faithful to some of your favourite go-to wines. When in doubt I’ll still open up a Ripasso (some of the best under $20 value out there), but one of life’s great joys is the palette flexibility that we all possess.
That’s why I always push people to try new wines, no matter how much your palette changes over the years there will ALWAYS be a wine for it. I just need to find someone who loves some well-made plush California Pinot; I’ve got a case or two that’s looking for a good home.
Before I go I’ll throw out a couple wine recommendations. I am always hesitant to do this as I have no idea where any of you live. I’m in Toronto, so there is a good chance if you live in, say, Vancouver you may have a harder time sourcing the exact bottle I’m suggesting. I will do my best to only mention wines with a large distribution or failing that hopefully you can find other examples that are close to what I’m drinking.
[Ed.: Check online for the private liquor systems of Alberta t0 find those hard-to-get wines too limited for the LCBO or SAQ. Many offer online purchase opportunities.]
I’ve been enjoying a couple South African wines recently. ‘De Wetshof Lesca Estate Chardonnay 2016’ is a gorgeous, full bodied Chardonnay that hits all the boxes for a well-integrated oaked Chard. Now it’s a bit pricy at $24.95, but good Chardonnay isn’t cheap and wines of this depth are usually found in Burgundy for more money.
On the red side I had this great funky Pinot Noir for under $20 called ‘The Winery of Good Hope Reserve 2016’. Tons of black cherry and earthy notes, this wine over-delivers.
If you’re looking for something different I was surprised to find such a dry and minerally Riesling from Long Island New York. I don’t know who the winemakers are at ‘Paumanok’ but damn they are hell bent on creating a Riesling that will remind you of the petrol-filled versions from Germany. This one goes for $20.95.
Finally let’s end on an inexpensive note. The ‘Fantini Farnese Montepulciano D'Abruzzo’ for just under nine bucks is further proof that Italy is the place to look for value. Happy sipping!
Matthew Cauz is a broadcaster and wine collector who lives in Toronto but drink the world.