Favorite wine hacks! Select something interesting and good every time.

Pick the Spanish wine. It is normally on the lower side of the price range, and almost always interesting, and something you will like. It’s that simple.

I have lived by, and made this recommendation, more times than I can count. And it has yet to fail me. And I drink a lot of wine, and I talk a lot about wine.

Before I began exploring Old World wines, I had default selections, when in a restaurant or in a store. If the wine was white, it was Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. If it was a red wine, it was Cabernet Sauvignon, or sometimes Zinfandel or Merlot. Because of the Old World emphasis on location, I was unfamiliar with finding those varietals in European wine, and would simply avoid those shelves in the store, or those sections on a restaurant list.

I became familiar and comfortable with wine the same way that many craft beer consumers become familiar and comfortable with that category. They try beers from different styles and locations. IPAs, Pilsners, brown ales, stouts, Belgian Trappist or Abbey styles. Over time, they may be unfamiliar with specific producers, but an IPA drinker will be inclined to try an IPA from a producer they haven’t yet tried. 

With a small amount of exposure, I learned that I liked wines from Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, Austria, and Germany. Particularly with Spain, I randomly purchased bottles and increased my familiarity with Spanish wines. I would bring bottles to gatherings in friends’ homes; when in a restaurant, I would take the list and order the wines from Spain. And others at those gatherings found the wines to be good…and interesting, and different from what they had experienced. 

On a wine list, wines may be listed by location or by grape. In a store, the Spanish wine shelf is usually organized by location. Typical varieties you might see are below; most can be found under $20 in stores and in the $25-$50 range on a restaurant list.

Location	Grape
Rias Biaxas	Albariño (white)
Rueda	Typically Verdejo, sometimes with small amount of Sauvignon Blanc (white)
Rioja	Tempranillo, usually blended with varieties including Mazuelo, Graciano, or Garnacha (red)
Montsant or Priorat	Garnacha, sometimes blended with Cariñena, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, or Syrah (red)
Ribera del Duero	Usually 100% Tempranillo (red)

In the case of Ribera del Duero and Rioja, wines may also be listed as Crianza, Reserva, or Gran Reserva. These classifications provide minimum aging times in oak and bottle. 

There are other varietals, all worth trying. Those above are the ones most likely to be encountered. Ribera del Duero and Priorat can sometimes stretch into the pricier ranges, and the Gran Reservas from all regions almost certainly will be higher priced.

If you see a bottle of Priorat in a store for under $20, or on the lower end of the price range on a restaurant list, GET IT. Try it. This is a good find.

I ordered a bottle of Rioja at a business dinner with a consultant some years ago, who had previously been unfamiliar with it. He sometimes contacts me, to this day, telling me about ordering Rioja at other client dinners. That was when I realized the hack works.

There is also a similar hack for Italian wines. I’ll review this in a future post.

I am also working on a quick reference, formatted to be easily accessible on an iPhone or Android phone, and something that can quickly be a guide for someone who wants to explore imported European wine but unfamiliar with regions and types. Stay tuned.