It seems to be a common understanding that wine is a complicated and puzzling thing, carrying too much information from grape variety, cultivation method, mixture of different varieties, making process, aging, reserving to tasting. Each element can be a big question and a grand learning. But frankly, for normal mainstream drinkers (people like me), I don't really care much about how the wine is grown, selected, made, aged or storage. What matters to me is that savoring moment, the moment of leisure and happiness, the spiritual as well as physical enjoyment brought about by the richness of a good wine. That said, when I am making the purchase decisions, I am searching for the answers to these questions:
- Is this bottle gonna worth the money?
- Will this wine appeal to my taste?
- How much longer can I keep this wine before its quality goes town?
- What is the serving temperature?
- Can I pair this wine with my favorite dishes?
Luckily, you can make pretty accurate guesses for these questions based on the information on wine labels. BUT... I know what you are thinking. Here comes the big question again. How am I going to ever understand the all kinds of wine labels most of which are not even written in English?! Well, calm... I am going to provide you with just enough information to understand the wine labels of all the major producing regions. In this post, I will cover six regions including America, Australia, three noble French regions and Spain. Next Sunday, I will complete the list adding Austria, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, South Africa and Argentina and Chile. So stay tuned! And now, here come the the image illustrations:
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