How to Read a Wine Label
Let’s imagine that you're in the Fine Wine and Spirits Store
and you want to buy a wine that you haven’t tried yet. You have nothing to go
by other than the label. Will the label tell you anything you should know?
Many people wonder what they should look for on a wine
bottle, and there are whole books written about how to read a wine label. In a sea of wine labels, are there certain
things to look for across the board, or country to country? Here’s what to look
for and what to ignore. There are a million caveats and exceptions, but here's
some general advice:
Vintage
This is actually the first thing to read. You don't need to
have a vintage chart in your pocket or care whether 2010 was a better year in
the Chianti Classico region than 2012. The vast majority of wines at the store
are meant to be consumed right away, so you want to make sure the wine isn't
too old, particularly if you're buying it expecting lively, fresh fruitiness.
You will routinely see five year old Pinot Grigio and two year old Beaujolais
Nouveau at stores, for example. As soon
as you see that kind of age on wines like those, you know that you can skip
them and move on (and possibly not shop there again).
Alcohol content
Too many wines today have too much alcohol, which leaves
them unbalanced. Sure, there are some classic wines with fairly high alcohol
levels, but many of today's regular table wines (Merlot, Chardonnay, Shiraz, and
Zinfandel) have levels at 15% or above. Some of those might be terrific, but if
you had nothing else to go on, you should look for alcohol content at about 14%
and below.
Critter labels
In the past few
years, there has been a profusion of inexpensive wines with cute animals on the
labels. These wines are generally less attractive than the labels. Of course,
some good wines happen to have animals on the labels, consider Stag's Leap,
Iron Horse from California, or the famous Fattoria Due Cane, for instance. When
it comes to less expensive wines, however, the cute animal seems to be the main
point of the wine. An amusing tale about the animal is often a clue that this
is not as amusing a wine as the story.
Geography
The more specific that this information is, the better. A
wine that says it's from Napa is probably a better bet than a wine that simply
says it's from California. It's the same way all over the world. Unfortunately,
this will also probably be reflected in the price, so this might not tell you
much about value. There are fabled vineyards around the world, plots of land
famous for producing high quality grapes. If you care enough to know a few of
these, they might help you make an educated guess about quality.
Estate bottled
This means the people who made the wine also had a hand in
growing the grapes on their own land. Generally, you will find this a good
sign.
Reserve
On American wines, this doesn't mean anything, so ignore it.
There are various rules around the world concerning words like Reserva, but
there's no guarantee it means anything in other parts of the world. Unless you
know something about the rules concerning, say, Rioja, where it has genuine
significance, don't worry about it.
Old vines or vieilles vignes
Theoretically, older vines produce fewer, but more
flavorful, grapes, but the problem is that no one has defined what an "old
vine" is, so anyone can put this on the label. Again, ignore it.
A phone number
This will require some extra time, because we're talking
about tiny type on the back of a label, but you'd be surprised how many small production
wines these days include a phone number on the back and an invitation to call
the winery. You will find that this is a sign of a highly personal winery. It's
amazing how often the winemaker or winery owner answers the phone.
Details, details, details
There used to be a wine, Hanns
Kornell's Sehr Trocken, one of a handful of sparkling wines made at his
California winery. On the back label was a hand printed date of when the wine
was "disgorged," when the sediment in the neck of a bottle of bubbly
was removed and the temporary cap replaced by a real cork. On the front of each
bottle was this notation: "Naturally fermented in this bottle," which
is a big deal because that's the way real Champagne is made, with the final fermentation
taking place in the bottle and not in a huge tank.
Some wineries, like Forge Cellars in the Finger Lakes, still
give information like that, including the dates when the grapes were harvested
and the wine bottled. Details like these make the point that these things
mattered to the winemaker and that he or she understands that they have meaning
for the consumer, too. They add to the feeling of the wine's authenticity.
