Ready to venture outside your wine comfort zone? A few pointers
What kind of wine drinker are you? Some regularly search for an unknown and obscure wine; others prefer drinking the tried and true. I'm both kinds, depending on my mood and the situation. Sometimes I'll throw caution—and cash—to the wind and buy a bottle I know nothing about. Then again, on occasions when I can't risk disappointment (a dinner party, a gift), I'll fall back on old favorites.
Curious about how intrepid other drinkers might be, I talked to some wine pros about how they encourage customers to venture outside their vinous comfort zones. Their respective methodologies were remarkably similar.
When it comes to buying unknown wines, I have two key parameters: I'll rarely spend more than $30 a bottle (and often much less), and I will never buy more than two bottles of a wine I don't know. I overrode that second criterion recently—to my regret. I purchased a case of a certain rosé from California that I hadn't tasted in years, figuring it would be just as good as it had been long ago. It was not.
I'm always happy to take a recommendation from a retailer or sommelier, and my overall rate of satisfaction in such cases has been good: more than 50%. Furthermore, it's been fun to turn some new discoveries—Torrette from Valle d'Aosta, Italy, for example—into regular buys.
Wine lovers I know, ranging from casual imbibers to knowledgeable oenophiles, have their own parameters when it comes to experimenting. My husband, Roger, would never buy an unknown Greek wine: Their grape names are too perplexing, he says. My chef friend Mario, a native of Calabria, Italy, draws the line at wines from California: They don't go with Italian food, he contends.
My friend Neil is much more adventurous than the others. He will happily try anything from grand cru Burgundy to an inexpensive Albariño with equal pleasure. Sometimes his experiments are a great success—like the time he tried Kerner, the aromatic white from Alto Adige, on the advice of an American sommelier he met in Italy. He sought out the wine as soon as he got home and has been a fan ever since.
Of course, not all Neil's experiments end as happily as his discovery of Kerner. Neil's most memorable dud also involved a rosé bought in quantity, though in his case the wine was from Hungary. Neil made the purchase on the advice of a well-known New York wine merchant who had 'never" steered him wrong. The merchant had even labeled the producer 'The King of Rosé," which sealed the deal: Neil bought three cases of the wine without tasting it first. Big mistake. 'It was more like a herbal light red. Not at all what I was expecting," he said. Though it took some time to work through those 36 bottles, he still has faith in the store.
Nearly all the wine professionals I contacted agreed that customers might be willing to take a chance on a wine if they trust the merchant or sommelier making the recommendation, but that willingness has its limits—often geographical. If a sommelier is nudging a diner toward a different wine region, it helps if it's somewhat well-known.
With a little guidance, a California wine lover might be willing to be persuaded to try a wine from Burgundy or Bordeaux, said wine director Anthony Taylor of Cru Uncorked in Moreland Hills, Ohio. In the case of customers who are particularly articulate about their preferred sort of wine and confident in their preferences, Taylor might feel safe recommending a more-obscure region or grape, as long as it aligns with those preferences.
Alec Schingel, chef, owner and wine director of Robin Restaurant in St. Louis, doesn't go too far afield with recommendations to customers. He also tends to focus on value. Schingel said he might suggest 'Pinot Noir from a great producer in Irancy rather than Chambolle or Volnay." The first is a lesser-known and reliably more-affordable appellation; the latter two, pricier Burgundy precincts. 'I think the value is great, and it introduces people to something new but still relatively safe," Schingel explained.
Similarly, at Beaupierre Wines & Spirits in Manhattan, sommelier and restaurateur-turned-retailer Yannick Benjamin and his wife and co-owner, Heidi Turzyn Benjamin, suggest unfamiliar wines that aren't a great stretch geographically from those customers already know. They might prompt a white Burgundy drinker to try a wine made from Savagnin, a white grape of Jura, just east of Burgundy. 'I speak passionately about the magic of the Jura, having visited multiple times," Benjamin said.
While most of the professionals I contacted acknowledged the challenge of getting customers to try something truly unknown, Jeremy Block, proprietor of Some Good Wine in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, said he has no trouble suggesting wines from places lesser-known as wine regions, such as the Canary Islands of Spain. Block credits his location near New York University: 'We happen to be in the 10003 zip code with loads of NYU people and young people with lots of money, so getting [them] to try new things is very easy."
According to Harris Polakoff, owner of Pogo's Wine & Spirits in Dallas, his customers are willing to experiment only up to a point. 'We try and find what they normally like to drink and stay in that realm," he said. For a drinker of Sancerre, the Loire Valley white made from the Sauvignon Blanc grape, he might recommend a Sauvignon Blanc from California.
It makes sense to me that wine pros only encourage small steps outside their customers' comfort zone. Their rate of success is likely to be higher that way. But I couldn't help wondering what would happen if they chose something completely obscure.
I decided to put myself forward as a test case and asked two New York retailers I trust for something totally unexpected—as long as the wine was under $35 a bottle. I also asked them to limit their recommendations to white wines, just to narrow the field of potential candidates.
One retailer's choice was terrific. The 2023 Bodegas Los Bermejos Diego Seco ($29), from the Canary Islands, was a delight. I'd be happy to buy this minerally, citrusy, spicy, dry white with notes of herb again. But I'd take pains to avoid the other recommended wine, the 2024 Diamantis Magoutes Vienyard Siatista Vieilles Vignes Blanc ($25) from Greece. A white wine made from the native red Xinomavro grape, it was grippy, even rather tannic—intriguing on the first sip, exhausting by the third.
Although my experiment was not an unqualified success, I was happy to have tried both the wines and happy I hadn't spent too much money. I'd trust both retailers to propose future obscurities, though I might specify that the white wine should be made from a white grape.
Email Lettie at wine@wsj.com
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