90 Minute Thread: White Wine?

[August_West]

Mersault for me.

Great one

 

[8893]

I’m going to go outside the box here.

the best summer white are the Alsace wines.
A great Pinot Gris or Gewurztraminer chilled is delightfully refreshing.

Gruner Veltliner is my go-to. Great food wine and tremendous value.

Albariño from Spain also.

 

[Drew]

Went with the Sancerre. Thank you @8893 and @UConnfan4ever - absolutely fantastic recommendation.

Also scooped a Muscadet for later @Duncan Idaho. Will report back. Appreciate the feedback, I’m well versed in my knowledge and taste of reds but white wine is a very new area for me.

 

[8893]

Went with the Sancerre. Thank you @8893 and @UConnfan4ever - absolutely fantastic recommendation.

Also scooped a Muscadet for later @Duncan Idaho. Will report back. Appreciate the feedback, I’m well versed in my knowledge and taste of reds but white wine is a very new area for me.

If you like oysters, Sancerre and oysters is a match made in heaven. Any shellfish, actually.

I came to appreciate whites after reds, too. I knew and liked great Chardonnays, but nothing else. Then I got turned on to Italian whites and everything changed. You could—and should—spend the rest of the summer trying different ones and you will be amazed at how varied and inexpensive they are.

Gavi, as I mentioned above, is one of my favorites. I had a Falenghina last night. I could name another half dozen or more to try off the top of my head:

Verdicchio
Vernaccia di San Gimignano
Orvieto
Arneis
Greco di Tufo
Vermentino
Fiano di Avellino

And any Chardonnay from Piedmont is likely to be very good to great. If you see a Gaja, it will be great, but expensive.

 

[Huskybass]

For 99% of the wine drinking population, there's no difference from a 10.00 and a 150.00 bottle.

That's just so untrue. The leap in quality from a $10 bottle to a $20 ish dollar bottle is pretty large. I mainly drink reds, but at the $20 price point there is no shortage of really good options.

 

[Peacefrog]

I prefer crisp, acidic, refreshing whites so I don’t drink much Chardonnay. If you’re looking for something along those lines, I think New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs are among the best overall and best values. Mohua is my go-to if you can find it, $15-$20. I tend to find French wine to be a poor value personally.

Edit: and for one of the best values on earth, Costco has a Sauvignon Blanc called Ti-Point that is darn good for $7

 

[8893]

I prefer crisp, acidic, refreshing whites so I don’t drink much Chardonnay. If you’re looking for something along those lines, I think New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs are among the best overall and best values. Mohua is my go-to if you can find it, $15-$20. I tend to find French wine to be a poor value personally.

Edit: and for one of the best values on earth, Costco has a Sauvignon Blanc called Ti-Point that is darn good for $7

New Zealand puts out some really nice SB—more grassy to me. Great values. Some decent Pinot Noirs, too.

 

[Ewekon]

Mersault for me.

Hard if not impossible to find a $30 Mersault from anything other than a plonk vintage year, no?
If you have please share info.

 

[UConnfan4ever]

If you like oysters, Sancerre and oysters is a match made in heaven. Any shellfish, actually.

I came to appreciate whites after reds, too. I knew and liked great Chardonnays, but nothing else. Then I got turned on to Italian whites and everything changed. You could—and should—spend the rest of the summer trying different ones and you will be amazed at how varied and inexpensive they are.

Gavi, as I mentioned above, is one of my favorites. I had a Falenghina last night. I could name another half dozen or more to try off the top of my head:

Verdicchio
Vernaccia di San Gimignano
Orvieto
Arneis
Greco di Tufo
Vermentino
Fiano di Avellino

And any Chardonnay from Piedmont is likely to be very good to great. If you see a Gaja, it will be great, but expensive.

You have quite the discerning wine palate. Some excellent suggestions and some I'm not familiar with but will be soon. I have Arneis that I brought back from Piedmont last fall. We did a wine tour with the proprietor of Galarin vineyard. I will probably be opening that this weekend. Thanks for the insights.

 

[Drew]

If you like oysters, Sancerre and oysters is a match made in heaven. Any shellfish, actually.

I came to appreciate whites after reds, too. I knew and liked great Chardonnays, but nothing else. Then I got turned on to Italian whites and everything changed. You could—and should—spend the rest of the summer trying different ones and you will be amazed at how varied and inexpensive they are.

Gavi, as I mentioned above, is one of my favorites. I had a Falenghina last night. I could name another half dozen or more to try off the top of my head:

Verdicchio
Vernaccia di San Gimignano
Orvieto
Arneis
Greco di Tufo
Vermentino
Fiano di Avellino

And any Chardonnay from Piedmont is likely to be very good to great. If you see a Gaja, it will be great, but expensive.

This is incredible. Thanks for sharing and for the recommendations. I’m a big fan of most shellfish but I live in Charlotte (~3 hours inland from the coast) so have to be selective where and when I purchase seafood.

This started as a 90 min thread but would love to keep it going if others have recommendations/pairing suggestions. Again really appreciate it @8893

 

[Jaker]

Hold on, let me go ask the women in the room.

 

[UConnfan4ever]

Hold on, let me go ask the women in the room.

Well that sums up everything I need to know about you.

 

[Caronimo]

They all taste the same. Get Kirkland.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

This is incredible. Thanks for sharing and for the recommendations. I’m a big fan of most shellfish but I live in Charlotte (~3 hours inland from the coast) so have to be selective where and when I purchase seafood.

This started as a 90 min thread but would love to keep it going if others have recommendations/pairing suggestions. Again really appreciate it @8893

Muscadet is also great with oysters. Save the lemon. The better ones come from the Maine River which is a tributary of the Loire. No more than 3 years old. Should have said that earlier. 93 sounds like a great resource as are others.

 

[methodology]

Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio

Alto Adige, Italy- This dry white wine has a straw yellow color. Its clean, intense aroma and bone-dry taste (with an appealing flavor of Golden Delicious apples) make Santa Margherita's Pinot Grigio a wine of great personality and versatility.

www.totalwine.com

 

[8893]

Hard if not impossible to find a $30 Mersault from anything other than a plonk vintage year, no?
If you have please share info.

Agreed. That was not a suggestion for the OP, but a reply to @August_West 's white Burgundy preferences. I love Mersault but I've never found an inexpensive one.

Best values I've found in Burgundy generally have been from Joseph Drouhin, but they're still not cheap.

That's why I like the Italian whites, Gruner Veltliner and Albarino--much better values imo.

 

[8893]

Hold on, let me go ask the women in the room.

Hold on to your hat, because I actually drink more rosé wine than anything else at this point.

Yes. A man. Drinking pink wine.

 

[Deepster]

That's just so untrue. The leap in quality from a $10 bottle to a $20 ish dollar bottle is pretty large. I mainly drink reds, but at the $20 price point there is no shortage of really good options.

Nonsense. Go read any of the thousand articles where experts struggle to tell the difference and the untrained pallette of Joe Lunchpail has no idea on how to pick out the nuances of more expensive wines.

This one took me 3 clicks.....

"In particular, Robin Goldstein and a team from the American Association of Wine Economists wrote a paper about the issue called “Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better? Evidence from a Large Sample of Blind Tastings.”

The experiment was conducted in 2007 and 2008 and led to the findings in the paper I mentioned, as well as a book by Goldstein titled The Wine Trials: 100 Everyday Wines Under $15 that Beat $50 to $150 Wines in Brown-Bag Blind Tastings. Goldstein now also writes for the Freakonomics blog.

Over 500 people tasted wine flights composed from 523 different wines ranging in price from $1.65 to $150. They then answered the question “Overall, how do you find the wine?”

The bottom line is that in blind tastings of regular people, there is no correlation between the wines they like and the price of the wine. In fact, the paper found a slightly negative correlation, suggesting that regular people actually prefer cheaper wines."

 

[Peacefrog]

If you like oysters, Sancerre and oysters is a match made in heaven. Any shellfish, actually.

I came to appreciate whites after reds, too. I knew and liked great Chardonnays, but nothing else. Then I got turned on to Italian whites and everything changed. You could—and should—spend the rest of the summer trying different ones and you will be amazed at how varied and inexpensive they are.

Gavi, as I mentioned above, is one of my favorites. I had a Falenghina last night. I could name another half dozen or more to try off the top of my head:

Verdicchio
Vernaccia di San Gimignano
Orvieto
Arneis
Greco di Tufo
Vermentino
Fiano di Avellino

And any Chardonnay from Piedmont is likely to be very good to great. If you see a Gaja, it will be great, but expensive.

Great rundown here. I spent three years in Italy and would say that Gavi di Gavi and Vernaccia di San Gimignano are two of the more consistently good Italian whites. They can be challenging to find stateside. I like Vermentino as well and recently had an excellent one from Texas. Yup, Texas.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Hold on to your hat, because I actually drink more rosé wine than anything else at this point.

Yes. A man. Drinking pink wine.

I am a recovering. An ex smoker, an ex of many things. I have heard pink is becoming a thing?

 

[Huskybass]

Nonsense. Go read any of the thousand articles where experts struggle to tell the difference and the untrained pallette of Joe Lunchpail has no idea on how to pick out the nuances of more expensive wines.

This one took me 3 clicks.....

"In particular, Robin Goldstein and a team from the American Association of Wine Economists wrote a paper about the issue called “Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better? Evidence from a Large Sample of Blind Tastings.”

The experiment was conducted in 2007 and 2008 and led to the findings in the paper I mentioned, as well as a book by Goldstein titled The Wine Trials: 100 Everyday Wines Under $15 that Beat $50 to $150 Wines in Brown-Bag Blind Tastings. Goldstein now also writes for the Freakonomics blog.

Over 500 people tasted wine flights composed from 523 different wines ranging in price from $1.65 to $150. They then answered the question “Overall, how do you find the wine?”

The bottom line is that in blind tastings of regular people, there is no correlation between the wines they like and the price of the wine. In fact, the paper found a slightly negative correlation, suggesting that regular people actually prefer cheaper wines."

As usual, you are full of bs. Put a nice bottle of $20 to $30 Cabernet in front of me and I will instantly know the difference between it and a $10 bottle of poularly priced swill.

By your logic, a delicious microbrew would be no more desirable than Bud Light, which is also simply untrue. The chart below will help you see the general distinctions between wines at various price points.

 

[Deepster]

As usual, you are full of bs. Put a nice bottle of $20 to $30 Cabernet in front of me and I will instantly know the difference between it and a $10 bottle of poularly priced swill.

By your logic, a delicious microbrew would be no more desirable than Bud Light, which is also simply untrue. The chart below will help you see the general distinctions between wines at various price points.
View attachment 56060

I'm not full of BS. Robin Goldstein and a team from the American Association of Wine Economists are the ones you need to take it up with.

 

[dvegas]

a nice Cortese di Gavi from Italy. Great summer wines.

Good call. If you want to go a bit more inexpensive for a light, dry white, try a bottle of Frascati ($10-$15) Grapes grown right outside Rome near the Pope's summer retreat. Make sure it's a 2019 vintage, and dream about the porchetta you can get at a roadside stand there but not anything close in the US

 

[Zissou]

90% of our buys are bottles $25 and less. This has been a frequent topic around our table.

We always enjoy the house wines in Italy. Good values, so we have gravitated in the Tuscan red direction over the years at home. We still enjoy everything though.

A professional wine friend (commercial winemaker, winemaking professor, wine selector) told me “drink what you like - you can have a full selection of really great wines at $20 and under”.

Try NY whites! Rkats, Gruner, Dry Riesling, Gewurtz... I mentioned Dr Frank earlier - that’s a good place to start.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Use to buy alot of young reds like Napa cabs for $20 and hold til they were 5-6 years old. Kept them at my grandfather's house 90 minutes away.