I consider myself a wine enthusiast. It’s a moniker that used to be reserved for the elite but TPOL has broken through this glass ceiling by traveling far and wide in search of the best vino.
My wine tour includes:
- Stellenbosch, South Africa
- Yarra Valley, Australia
- Wellington, New Zealand
- Napa Valley, California
- Mendoza, Argentina
France, Italy, and Chile are notably absent but not for long. The tours help wine novices appreciate the process of how wine is made, stored, and distributed. At the same time, it makes purchasing wine once you arrive home less intimidating. This new-found knowledge is useful when ordering a bottle at an expensive restaurant or picking up a bottle at your local grocer.
The problem whether it be in a restaurant or at the store is determining if the mark up on that bottle is appropriate or obscene. Do the words ‘reserve’ automatically mean the $20 MSRP is warranted? Is the waiter trying to upsell a bottle because he spots your vulnerability?
I recommend Wine-Searcher which tells you the rating and average cost for the bottle. If you like the bottle, you can add it to your favorites list since it is next to impossible to remember the name, label, year of the innumerable vineyards. I shamelessly look forward to trying it at an upscale restaurant because the app also has a ‘read wine list’ feature.
For tonight, I’m satisfied that this 2010 Carmenere Reserva which I purchased for $12.69 was only $.20 higher than the average but let’s see how it tastes.
Cheers!
