Is It Time To Change Your Wine Selections?

By TOM MARQUARDT and PATRICK DARR

When we go to parties, we often see people offering the same brand of wine they offered us a year ago. Most of the time it’s the same producer, other times it’s the same grape variety, but the comment is always, “I just like this wine.”

It’s not that we are unappreciative of a glass of wine being offered by a host or a guest, but we just lament that the world’s vast wine growing regions have so much more to discover. When we suggest to friends they expand their choices, they often say they don’t want to spend $20 on wine only to be disappointed. So, they retreat to a safe haven of Menage e Trois, Meomi, Barefoot or another market leader.

With a new year upon us, it’s a good time to reset our wine experience.

Making a cheap, quaffable wine for an American audience is easy. Just follow the recipe: extract the most flavor out of crushed grapes, add alcohol and grape concentrate, don’t barrel aging, blend varietals and source grapes from multiple wine districts across California. It’s what we taste from most cheap red blends – a patent formula created to appeal to the consumer’s baseline.

You don’t have to sacrifice quality or pay more to get a more balanced wine that isn’t dripping in residual sugar. Of course, our palates aren’t your palates. We like riesling with chicken and chablis with fish, but a lot of people don’t like those grapes – or white wine all together.

Nonetheless, here are 10 wine-growing regions we would like to see people discover:

• Etna, Sicily. Surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, this island benefits from a maritime climate. Although it has been producing wine for thousands of years, only recently have we seen much of it exported to this country. Grillo is a pleasant and unique white wine. Cattarato is an interesting red. But we really like the wines from the slopes of Mt. Etna. The crisp white wines are made from carracante grapes and the reds are usually blends of nerrello cappuccio and nerrello mascalese.
• Douro Valley, Portugal. This country has become a popular tourist destination and that may be why its wines are catching on. Like other wine regions, Portugal is benefitting from the fallout of high prices in Napa Valley and other parts of the world. Although the country is most often associated with port, there is so much more to get from Douro Valley, Dao, Alentejo and other regions. We enjoy the more complex wines from the northern regions, particulaly Douro. Here, you can find some terrific red blends of touriga nacional, tinta roriz, tinta cao and tinta barroca – hardly grapes you will recognize but nonetheless historic for this region. If white is your preference, try a vinho verde from northwest Portugal.
• Central Otago, New Zealand. People first think of sauvignon blanc when New Zealand comes up, but these wines can be too grassy and astringent for many people who prefer California sauvignon blanc. But the pinot noirs from Central Otago are outstanding. They are more austere than those from our West Coast, yet still fragrant and velvety.
• Paso Robles, California. Napa has priced most consumers out of the market with $300-plus wines, but you can find more reasonably priced wines in this huge wine growing region of the Central Coast. Wines from Booker, Saxon, Daou and Austin Hope can be pricy, but others – notably J. Lohr – make wines that exceed in quality their price points. We particularly like the Rhone varietal wines as well as the cabernet sauvignons.
• Campania, Italy. Get out of your chianti rut. Campania, located near Naples, is known as home to Pompeii, but the wine history is just as old. Some of the same grape varieties found in the ruins are grown today: fiano, greco and falanghina, for instance. You’re in for a treat with Greco di Tufo, Aglianico del Taburno and Taurasi. The wines are perfumy, crisp and dry. The reds, such as Mastroberardino’s Taurasi, are complex and ageworthy.

• Chinon, France. The sancerres and pouilly-fumes get all the attention in the Loire Valley, but around the picturesque village of Chinon in the central Anjou region, you can find spectacular red wines made from cabernet franc. These wines are typically medium-bodied and fruity, but well-structured and even tannic.
• Priorat, Spain. This small region focuses on grenache and carignan, but they are often blended with cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah.  These blends are inky in color, complex and hedonistic. Alas, it’s difficult soil, steep slopes and low yields drive up prices.  It’s hard to find any good wine under $50.
• Santorini, Greece. Not only is this island outrageously beautiful, but its wines please residents and tourists alike. Made to complement the local seafood, the white wines are simple, citrusy and crisp.  Santorini is known for its assyrtiko wines.
• Kartli, Georgia. We’re talking about the country, so don’t get excited if you’re from the peach state. We’ve been tasting a lot of Georgian wines recently and continue to be amazed at what we are finding. One of the oldest wine growing regions in the world, Georgia is known for making wines in qvevri vessels, which are like amphorae. Red varieties such as saperavi and rkatsiteli are impossible to pronounce but make complex and brooding wines destined for the cellar or alongside a beef dinner. They also make some interested orange wines, which is a white wine with a lot of skin contact.
• Swartland, South Africa. This country is probably known most for its pinotage and red blends from such regions as Stellenbosch, but quality has not been consistent enough for us. Instead, we like the white chenin blancs and red blends from this coastal region. There also are some good chenin blancs coming from the Stellenbosch region.

Wine picks

Ehlers Estate Merlot Napa Valley St. Helena 2021 ($80). Cherry chocolate nose and flavors with a hint of oak. Although certainly drinkable now, this wine can age.

Artesano De Argento White Malbec Mendoza Organic 2023 ($16-22). Green apple and citrus notes dominate along with zippy acidity. A delightful wine.

Argento Malbec Mendoza Finca Agrelo Organic 2021 ($40). A very intense malbec with bold berry and violet notes and mild tannins.