Select White Wines

Series Summary

No other alcoholic beverage has made quite the cultural impact on history as wine. Wine's history is thought to date back over 8,000 years. As the millennia have passed, the knowledge of making wine has also progressed. Those that make wine are part of an elite few, and understanding their grand creations takes a good bit social and sensual knowledge. There are many connoisseurs of wine that love talking about the beverage. In this free video series on wines, let a wine connoisseur explain the many facets of wine. Learn about selecting white wines, wine glasses, red wine health benefits and how to choose a quality wine. Next, he discusses choosing organic wines, red wines, choosing the right wine for a gift, dinner party and special occasion like a wedding. Finally, he describes what makes a wine vintage, how to serve, store and taste wine and different red, white and rose wines. Avoid the lengthy trek to a vineyard! All the wine knowledge needed is located right here!

Video Transcript

"Choosing a white wine. Choosing white wines depends on again how you're going to use your wine. If you want something fairly easy drinking, just for drinking, chatting to friends, you would choose - from any country - a light wine, in this case I've got a Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. Light, fruity, very easy drinking, very pleasant. Low in acidity, more fruit coming through, so typically a wine that's enjoyable across the board for most people, including fine wine people. Now, if you're not using your wine for easy drinking and perhaps you wine for a meal, then there you would choose carefully in terms of the level of alcohol, whether it's a rich wine or a light crisp style wine like a Riesling in this case. It's a lighter, crisp, and often dry style wine in many cases. Riesling from the New World, Australia and New Zealand are coming forward with beautiful wines, and wines from Germany and Alsace. You could go for classic wines in choosing a white wine you could go for Burgundys, many people talk about Burgundy wines and everyone knows Chablis. That's a lovely wine to choose for dinner, when you're having fish, chicken or when you're giving a gift. These sort of wines work beautifully because they - everyone recognizes the particular styles. You could be adventurous in choosing your wines. You could go for some of the beautiful Spanish wines coming out at the moment, from Rueda in this case, and this is Verdejo Viura, great light, crisp, very aromatic. Again when you're choosing wine, and in this case white wine, think about what you like particularly, think about things you don't like in a wine. If you like wines that are big in - that are fruity, expressive and aromatic, go for slightly warmer climate wines. If you like finesse, sophistication and maybe this expression terroir showing differences of the same grape variety in different areas, you go for something like a Burgundy. White wines come from all over the world and it's just a case of the styles you like. One of the popular wines certainly here in England at the moment is a Pinot Grigio. Normally Pinot Grigio we think of it is a wine from Italy, however some great areas are producing Pinot Grigio. This happens to be one from Australia. The difference between something like an Australian Pinot Grigio and an everyday Veneto, Italian Pinot Grigio, is that this has much more finesse, more aromas. And obviously you're paying a slightly higher price, something like that will set you back about ten pounds, ten pounds fifty. Whereas a nice easy Veneto wine will set you back at about five or six pounds. I would always, when I'm going to dinner go to a wine merchant to get guidance on the style of white wine I'm going to choose, if I know what I'm making for my guests I can get a range of white wines to use to the meal. You don't only have to have one type of white wine for a meal. You could start off with something light and crisp for the first course. A salad or fish dish, something like that. And then you can go on for something richer like the Chablis or indeed other parts of Burgundy as you go further south, the wines become more expressive, much warmer region, and much more rounded. You could choose white wines with oak or without oak, the without oak promotes lots of easy drinking style wines or wines that need a very clean taste to go with very natural flavored foods. If you go for a richer wine like a nice Mercel which has got lots of oak in it, or even an Australian Chardonnay from the Margaret River, which is again the beautifully balanced much more powerful Chardonnay, you can go for stronger foods, anything from chicken to tuna to even some red meats will work with some Australian Chardonnays. So generally, think about what you like in style, think about what your guests like, and also have in mind always the level of alcohol in the wine. Because if you're going to have it at lunchtime try and stick to wines that are very light, like the Chilean Sauvignon and the Rieslings are examples, but all regions again do have light wines, and then if you're having your wine with food, you can afford to have a richer, a heavier wine. So that's how we choose white wine."