Are you a wine buff?

Try as we might neither of us can recognise the experts' scents or tastes in wine, sadly. However we do enjoy an occasional bottle, tending to stick to the supermarkets' recommendations, very unadventurous I'm afraid.

The one I posted about was an M&S and very nice it was.

From where?

I have never succeeded in identifying the flavours and aromas that bottle labels and wine buffs go on about; I'm too busy enjoying the drink! When someone goes over the top in their analysis I have been known to mutter that I like my wine to taste of grapes.

The taste of peat in malt whisky is another matter!

Soleado from Chile.

Grumppa, I'm with you on that one! As for wine, the only flavour I've ever been able to pick up is a hint of vanilla in one or two wines - and I hate vanilla! We usually drink a bottle of red a week, mostly from the supermarket. We also occasionally make our own, which is mostly horrible, though one or two have been quite enjoyable! We have a friend who has a very large downstairs cloakroom, which also doubles as his wine cellar! The walls are lined with racks of bottles. He also supplies, therein, suitable wine related reading material!

Well I'm glad it was nice! Usually you can't go wrong with a Chilean Sauvignon - I do find some of the blurb on the back of bottles a bit

I have been on a few short wine courses and found that I like what I like. Trouble is that you taste a few and then are too tiddly to remember what's been said - such a waste to spit out.

I can sometimes pick up tastes and aromas but usually not what's written on the bottle.

I have a friend who serves a different wine with each course. I am happy with a Chilean red like GrannyTwice.

We used to go to a neighbours house for dinner when they would always serve white with the starter and red with the main course. If it was fish for the main,which often it was, I would ask to stay on white which I think they found odd. There was always plenty of wine and always good as they are generous hosts. As we are all older now we go out for meals with them although now DH does not enjoy socialising,sadly for me.

No I wouldn't call either of us wine buffs but we know what we like as they say. We like our whites very dry and our reds very rich and full bodied. favourites are a white Grenache from Sainsbury called Languedoc and Costieres du Nimes a Grenache and Syrah blend again Sainsbury. I only buy them when they are on offer at £6. My BIL considers himself a connoisseur of red wine and thinks nothing of paying £30- £60 a bottle. We have been the recipient of one of these and it was horrible but perhaps we lack the sophistication required or the willingness to spend so much.

I think there's still a misconception that the more you pay for a wine, the better it will be. I bought a very expensive bottle of a well known French wine when we dined My daughter's partner's parents for the first time. I thought it was awful and only drank one glass (unusual for me!). We were in a hypermarket in Boulogne prior to catching a ferry once and I was trying to choose some reds based on limited knowledge of Frnch wines. I felt a tug on my sleeve, and a little old lady beckoned me to a rack of bottles which were little more than a few francs a bottle. My French is poor but I gathered that this was "the stuff" so I bought a couple of bottles thinking at that price I wouldn't mind pouring it down the drain. It was delicious and I kicked myself that we hadn't bought more!

I have occasionally smelt some peach. And looked on the label and it did have peach.
And also, I have thought that a bottle was a bit fruity, and it did have fruits. Other than that, nothing really.

The nicest red wine we'd had for ages was from an Italian supermarket, straight from the barrel and about €3 a litre ..... Roll on a return visit to the Dolomites.
That included the cost of the bottle and refills were even cheaper!

The friend I mentioned previously is a member of a wine club that invests in wine. They had a champagne tasting evening and tasted them blind. The unanimous favourite was the supermarket Prosecco, thrown in for a laugh among the expensive Champagnes.

I seem to have a memory for tastes, I can recognise them. We went to a party once where they had lots of wines and we had to guess what they were, and I won. But I am no wine snob. I will drink anything except oaky wines - chardonnays, usually. Although some Shirazes are a bit oaky, and tempranillo types. I like rioja, and prosecco and merlot are good for easy drinking. Champagne is a favourite and I can tell them apart, I mostly know what I don't like rather than what I do, though.

DBH however is a real wine snob. He doesn't have the memory for tastes that I have, but he can taste a wine and say it has flavours, and then when you check the label, they are very similar to what is on the label. It's probably why he is a better cook than I am.