Top 10 Biggest Wine Misconceptions

I planned on waiting to start a wine category until I found out the results of my wine-al and had the credibility of WSET Advanced Certification. However, since they seem to be using ancient abacuses to calculate my score, I think I’ll have to begin posting without my certification. You’ll have to take my word for it that I know a thing or two about wine. Kicking off this category, I bring you the top 10 biggest wine misconceptions out there. Wine can be confusing and somewhere along the lines, people developed some pretty odd beliefs about it. I’m here to dispel all of that. Read on:

10. Winemakers add in flavors like cherry, strawberry and chocolate to their wine to give them flavor.

No no no! Any flavors or aromas in a wine come about from either the grape and the wine itself or the barrel that the wine was matured in. Wine is a fun little animal which can take on many different smells and tastes over time. However, these occur naturally and are never added to the wine.

9. Zinfandel is so gauche! Nobody drinks that if they know anything about wine.

There is a major difference between red Zinfandel and white Zinfandel. White Zinfandel is a blush wine which is made in large quantities and sold in jugs, boxes or cheap bottles. You wouldn’t spit it out in disgust but it’s a simple wine made for easy drinking. A favorite at frat parties across the nation.

Though red and white Zinfandel are made from the same grape, when Zinfandel is made into a red wine it is entirely different. Red Zinfandel is full-bodied, lush, and spicy. Red Zinfandel is one of my personal favorites. If you want to experience some serious Zins I highly recommend Seghesio, Ravenswood and Sin Zin. Added bonus: if you are particularly patriotic, Zinfandel is often called The American Varietal.

8. Red wine should always be stored at room temperature while white wine is stored at a colder temperature.

No way, jose! Red and white wines should actually be stored at the same temperature which is 55 degrees. It is when you serve the wine that you chill your whites and serve your reds slightly below room temperature. You never want your reds to be too hot nor your whites to be too cold as this will mask the flavors and aromas of the wine.

7. Obviously red wine is made from red grapes and white wine is made from white grapes!

Not true at all. When I used to give wine tours at Robert Mondavi, I loved stumping people with this one. This is a very common wine misconception. The color of a wine is imparted from contact with the skins during the fermentation and aging process. Thus, if you remove the skins before this process, you will always have a white wine! Many white wines are actually made from red grapes. Champagne is a perfect example. In the traditional method, champagne is made from three grapes: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. The first two grapes are black grapes. When champagne is made, there is never a period of skin contact (maceration), yielding a completely white wine.

Of the same token, blush or rose wines are NOT made from mixing together red and white grapes. To make rose wine, you simply have a shorter maceration period which gives less time for the skin to impart its pigment onto the wine. A perfect example is white Zinfandel, as mentioned above.

6. I always get headaches when I drink wine. I must be allergic to sulfites.

In most cases, this is completely false. Sulfites (sulphur dioxide) naturally occur in wine and are sometimes added to help preserve the wine as it ages. Virtually all wine contains sulfites- even organic wines. What many people don’t realize is that sulfites are incredibly common in many other types of food such as dried fruits and orange juice. If you were allergic to sulfites, you would have an incredibly long list of other foods that would cause you reactions. More often people are allergic to the tannins (chemical compound in the skins) of red wine or histamines used in the production process.

5. Red wines always go best with meats and white wines always go best with fish.

This is a general rule of thumb, but there are many exceptions. A lot of food and wine pairing has to do with preparation as well. Let’s take veal for example. If you were to have a veal osso bucco with a rich, stewy sauce you’d do best with a red wine. However, let’s say you had a lighter veal picatta, you could easily opt for a white wine and it would go well also. In addition, some fish may even pair well with red wine. Generally, steaky fish such as salmon and tuna can hold up to a light bodied red wine with the proper preparation. Lighter, more flaky fish such as halibut and sea bass will usually be best with white wine. These are just a few examples, but you get the picture.

4. A screw cap means a wine is cheap and not good.

You may have noticed that screw caps have become much more common these days. Does this mean that the quality of wine is going down? Certainly not. The major benefit of a cork is that it is permeable so the wine can breathe and develop over time as it ages. So, if your wine is not ageable, a cork serves no purpose but to inconvenience you. Many new world wine producing regions such as New Zealand are embracing the screw cap. Uncorking a bottle is romantic and all, but corks sometimes develop a mold called TCA or Trichloroanisole (sorry, had to flex my wine nerd muscles) which infects the wine and renders it undrinkable. Wineries waste tons of money every year on wasted bottles of wine with faulty corks. I predict that eventually screw caps will be used for all white wines except those of the highest quality, which have some time to age. This brings me to the next misconception

3. Smelling the cork is a great way to discover if your wine is faulty.

This is a pretty silly idea and all I have to say about it is- smell the wine, not the cork! I always find it amusing when waiters proudly pass me the cork from my wine for me to inspect it. Even if your wine happens to be corked (which happens about 5% of the time), it may not be detectable in the cork itself. Smelling the cork is pointless.

2. Anyone who likes sweet wines has an unsophisticated palate.

In no way, shape, or form is this true. There are tons of high quality, sweet wines! I happen to love a delicious late harvest Riesling or Eiswein. There is a whole German classification system devoted to sweet wines and based on quality. I won’t get into the logistics of that here but because the sweetest wines require special hand picking, great attention to detail, and impeccable weather conditions, the sweetest wines are sometimes considered the best!

1. It is impossible to find a good wine for $10 or less.

With the incredibly broad spectrum of countries producing wine these days, it’s rather easy to find a good wine without breaking the bank. I recommend trying some new world wines such as New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs or Chilean wines.

Any questions? Leave a comment or email me at Strumerika@gmail.com

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