5 Best Red Wines for Beginners | Wine Folly

so you've decided you want to get a little bit more serious about red wine but where do you start and what wines should you try okay so I made a short list of grape varieties that I think are perfect for people are just getting into wine the reason is they have focused fruit flavors which will help train your palette and you'll get to know which wines and styles that you like and don't like and the best part you don't have to spend a lot of money to find a great bottle so let's go buy some

wine you can see going to a wine store in one of two ways as a treasure Trove of Adventure or an island of intimidation when you see it as a treasure Trove it looks like an adventure of discoveries to be found and we found some incredible bottles today I think we did pretty good [Music] now these wines range from about $10 a bottle to $45 a bottle and I'll show you which ones which at the end but each of these wines will teach you something different about wine and something different about your own sense of

taste so stay tuned for all the finer details let's get tasting sarra originates from France but to today it grows all over the world and that's a benefit because you'll find it tastes different based on which place it comes from this wine comes from South Australia and I picked it because it's one of the warmest climates for growing this grape and that means the fruit flavors are going to be focused big and right up front and that's exactly what I promised you in the beginning let's see if this wine holds up taking a look at

the color wow that is a deep purple color and that means we have a lot of anthocyanin those are the color producing pigments coming through in the grap varieties that are going into this glass of wine right here so what do you smell when you smell a wine take a moment to see if you can find at least five flavors if you can find less it's not a very complex wine and if you can find way more it's probably pretty seriously complex let's give this a sniff I smell Blackberry Plum chocolate sauce a little bit

of violet and almost like a blueberry compot the fruit flavors are bombastic and huge this is definitely what I was hoping to get when I picked out this wine another reason I love SRA so much for beginners is for what you get on the palette you get an explosion of flavor up front front and then it Smooths on out in the finish this wine pretty much Nails it for me in terms of having exactly what I was hoping to get for a perfect beginner SRA wine now if you tend to like wines that are a

little bit more floral and complex and with more herbal notes you're probably not going to like a wine from South Australia you might try to find something from a cooler climate like in France how however if you think that this sounds like you I would highly recommend looking for SAS from warmer climates like Australia or South Africa or California these are great places to find this kind of fruity forward flavored wine okay so do we think this is the most expensive wine here are your Clues the producer is relatively famous Yola is definitely a producer

to know the region where this wine comes is a large region called South Australia and it's not a focus area on this wine I do get a lot of pure fruit flavors but I don't get too much mention of Oak those are your Clues so how much do you think this wine cost and now we have America sweetheart grape Zen fendel back in the late 1800 UND Zin fendel was actually one of America's favorite grapes and it was planted throughout California it wasn't until later in the 1990s when Dr Carol beredith proved beyond a shadow

of a doubt that zinfindel isn't actually American at all it's an immigrant like the rest of us and this one comes from Croatia it makes an amazing beginner wine and that's because it has a rich full body and it's one of the best valued wine varieties you can find out there taking a look at the color wow this looks to be again a medium to pale Ruby color not too much of interest there but if you give the glass A Sr and look at the tear that form on the side of the glass you can

see a lot of them and that's just an indication of how much evaporation is happening from the alcohol the high level of alcohol in this wine wo complex I get baked strawberry a little caramelized Peach cinnamon spice a touch of baking spices almost like a dry clay dust note and something kind of like Blackberry strudel on the palette Zin fendel hits you with a Zing one thing of note in high quality Zinfandel is the higher levels of tannin in this wine now when you taste Tannon it'll hit your pallet right in the center and you

will feel it when you touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth it will feel like this gripping astringent sensation now things that make tannin taste less intense include alcohol level higher acidity and those can help and if you like to pair red wines with food that will help as well the tannins scrape off fats in the foods that you eat which is one of the reasons why red wines pair so well with high fat Meats all right it's time for some Clues now this wine right here Brown estate is a single estate wine

and it comes from a very specific region Napa Valley and in fact it's growing on their own private estate and if you look at the bottle you'll see has been unfiltered by the fact that there's potassium bitartrate crystals on the top of the cork there so how much do you think this bottle cost granache or shall we say garnacha because as it's been determined the origin place of this grape variety is the Iberian Peninsula and most likely in northeastern Spain and that's exactly where this wine is from most people haven't actually heard of garnacha and

that's because it t tends to play a major role as a blending grape in some famous wines such as your shadon to pop or priot but I tend to find this grape stands on its own as you will so soon find out and it's for those people who love a super fruity upfront wine but are looking for something a bit different in the palette let's see how this wine does taking a look at the color wow I would say medium Ruby but this might be a pale Ruby color because I can see my hands through

it that tells us that ganache does not have as much anthocyanin as say sarra but that might not be what we love about this wine let's give it a sniff whoa I smell raspberries strawberries a little Ruby Red Grapefruit this floral note almost like gardinia and then a whiff of dust of some kind maybe a rock dust let's give it a taste the pallette of garnacha is where this wine really shines it hits you up front it sneaks along and then it goes pow in the mid pallet with this massive juicy flavor that continues and

it continues and it continues into the the finish and long after you've swallowed because this wine has higher alcohol you will tend to feel it in the back of your throat and it also is one of those grapes that performs exceptionally well in warm climates you'll find it in southern France and in Spain in parts of California and Australia and that's because we have enough sunshine and heat to get this wine ripe exactly where it needs to be so do you think you know how much this wine is let's give you some Clues first of

all the wine itself it's not from a single estate from what I can tell it's from someone's selection of wines it also has no true designation of origin or estate Vineyard associated with it it just says Northeastern Spain now as far as the yeast and quality I thought it was quite good but I didn't get a sense of any Oak used in this wine so we're not spending any extra money on Oak aging those are your Clues so how much do you think this wine cost me this next wine you're going to either love or

you're going to hate and even if you hate it you're going to learn something valuable about what kind of wines you should buy and what kind of quality level you should be looking for in those Wines in order to get what you want carier this grape grows almost exclusively in Chile but it's originally from Bordeaux now we thought it was Mero for almost until 1995 when we discovered through DNA analysis that it's actually a very rare Bordeaux grape called Carmenere it was one of the grapes that was lost during a massive devastating thing to the

wine industry and that was filox a root Lae went and attacked all these Vineyards throughout all of Europe and the United States in the late 1800s and to this day there still is no cure for felox of course we've developed some workarounds but you get the idea taking a look at this wine wow that looks to be a deep almost Ruby purple color that shows us there's a lot of extraction coming through in this grape variety let's give it a sniff crazy right it smells like grilled shashido peppers or red pepper flakes with some rich

Cherry sauce and maybe some freshly wetted concrete you know like after a light summer rain and then I get this subtle note of ripe Saucy plums let's give it a taste wow is that not so balanced from the start all the way to the Finish we have this profile that grows and changes and then ends in this smooth magical way this is a bordo variety and this is what bordo varieties are famous for and you might not have heard of carier but you've definitely heard of the other grapes Mero Cabernet Savon Cabernet Fran malbeck this

green fruit characteristics whether it's bell pepper Mint or cocoa powder depending on what you buy in the quality level you're going to get that style and carier just happens to be the one with the most bombastic green fruit you will ever taste and that's why it's such a great wine to try so let's tally this wine up and I'll give you some Clues and you can make a guess as to how much you think this bottle cost me this producer cou is a single State producer they come from the region of Chile which is known

as a value region but they're from a single estate in a single wine region called kaga now kaga Valley in Chile is one of the most important regions for producing Bordeaux Blends and Bordeaux grape varieties like this carier wine this wine is also called gr Reserva and now that doesn't necessarily mean it has a quality level it is sort of an indication that this producer is saying this is one of their serious wines so with those Clues out there in the world how much do you think this bottle cost me now it's very hard for

me to put this as a best beginner wine because ponir is perhaps the most expensive variety you can buy the prices can get out of hand however as a smart Shopper you can find good stuff and because Pon Ward grows all over the world in multiple different climates you can also hone in on the style that you like this wine is very unlike the other wines that we've tried it's not about being the biggest brashest wine on the Block it has something else to offer so let's find out taking a look at the Color Wow

would you look at that that isn't a bold color at all it is a pale maybe Ruby Garnet probably Garnet color I can see all the way through this wine from that we can tell that this grape variety has very thin skins which do not have that much anthocyanin in them which is interesting because this is considered to be one of the finest most age worthy wines so it's interesting to see that color doesn't necessarily indicate quality on the nose H all right I smell sweet strawberries milk chocolate a cheery hearing with her a touch

of roses and then some all spice and vanilla notes and you know what that means Oak aging on the palette this wine isn't big it's delicate and smooth it's almost like strawberry in cream with this smooth creamy finish and not very high tannins in fact they're pretty low this is one of those wines for those of you who don't really want a bombastic red wine they want something fruity but they want something a little bit more subtle that's what ponir is all about in fact the thing that people love the most with ponir is just

smelling it in the glass cuz it changes from the moment you open the bottle till when you finish it now just like with SRA it matters what climate the grapes grow in this wine comes from California which is a bit of a warmer climate which means we're going to get lots of bold fruit flavors up front but if you're looking for more Savory notes you can look to cooler climates like in France or in Germany to go and find those more earthy not notes in this wine so let's dial in this wine and give you

some Clues so you can guess how much it cost me first of all this is an estate producer so these wine this wine was made with grapes from the property of the producer it's from Anderson Valley which is in mesino which is a less lesser known wine region in California this wine definitely had a bit of Oak aging I could taste it in the flavor of the wine and the smells of owl spice and vanilla so what do you think this wine cost [Music] me okay so do you have your guesses ready do you know

which wine cost me around $10 and which wine cost me 45 let's do the big reveal Tada honestly each one of these wines punches in way above their weight class each one was delicious for a unique and different region and had focused fruit flavors that are so helpful when you're just getting into wine plus the prices of these wines is outstanding honestly even this wine at $45 tastes like something that would cost $150 to $200 if it happened to be a different grape variety so don't be afraid when you're getting into wine and lean into

those alternative grape varieties or those alternative wine regions to find exceptional value and to have fun I hope you enjoyed this segment and encourages you to try some new wines if you'd like to learn more about wine subscribe it's the easiest thing you can do and it'll tell me that I'm on to the right track and in the meantime if you want to learn more about wine head over to wine.com and start your membership it starts free so what are you waiting for you'll get fun emails every week with a dollop of knowledge and inspiration

to help you on your adventure into wine until next time happy tasting peace out