How to choose a good wine: tips from a famous wine blogger

When most of you, dear readers, need to choose a good wine, you will choose a foreign one. It doesn't matter that in its price range it may be worse than the Russian one. The main thing is the cherished inscription on the label in a foreign language or a 'magic' mention of Georgia. Let's figure out how to choose a good wine and whether you can trust domestic winemaking. And in order not to be unfounded, we will ask a famous wine blogger – one of the first who began to write about wine in Russia in a blog format.

Meet Valeria Ivannikov. She is a wine guide, one of the first wine bloggers in Russia and has been writing about wine since 2007. The bowandtie.ru editors asked the expert to share the secrets of choosing wine on the shelf, and also conducted a small study as to whether a domestic product can be trusted and why Russian winemaking is sometimes attacked by some wine experts.

Our today's expert is Valeria Ivannikova

Valeria started writing about wine back in 2007. Then there were just over 10 bloggers who regularly publish materials about alcohol. Recently, the topic of 'writing about wine' has become a trend, and in those years new faces appeared slowly.

Valeria Ivannikova – wine guide and blogger

With the advent of Instagram, things went faster. True, 80% of wine neophytes have enough patience and strategic comprehension in maintaining an account for a short time, and in a maximum of six months, many end their creative activities. Today Valeria is not just a veteran blogger, but also a wine guide. She organizes tours for enthusiastic people to wineries and knows a lot about wine, if not everything.

Tricks and secrets to help you choose good wine on the shelf

Bowandtie.ru has put together three ways for you to choose a quality wine. The methods are simple, and the efficiency is close to 100%. Everything we love.

Vivino app

Vivino is the app for wine lovers around the world

The easiest way is to download the Vivino application to your mobile gadget and focus on the reviews of real people, the same consumers. The advantages of this option over the official sites of wineries – the manufacturer is not always objective, and a little more often than ever, he skips negative reviews. The disadvantage of the application is that there are wines that are not appreciated in an advanced wine party, but they come to inexperienced guys.

Thus, this method is suitable for people who value something simple, understandable and, if possible, accessible.

Wine Blogger Subscriptions on Social Media

A good option is to subscribe to wine bloggers and buy wines from their reviews. For example, Valeria's subscribers make purchases based on her reviews.

The advantages of the method are obvious. You get a ready-made recommendation on wine, method of consumption up to serving temperature and gastronomic pairs, and you are guaranteed to purchase a quality product. Minus – you need to find a blogger with whom you have the same tastes. But this is also an experience.

Results of reputable wine competitions

When it comes to domestic winemaking, two tasting competitions are held every year in Russia:

• in April – 'South Russia';
• October – 'Cup of SVVR'.

Check out the list of these wine competitions and buy wines awarded 'gold' and 'silver'.

Is it possible to buy a fake in an official store

In our country, there is very strict control by the inspection bodies for compliance with GOST and TU. It is almost impossible to buy bad quality wine with an excise stamp. Of course, the product can deteriorate if stored and transported incorrectly. But the control system itself in Russia is very harsh. No other country in the world has such a control system.

It is almost impossible to buy bad quality wine with an excise stamp

And to dispel the last doubts – the excise stamp can be read from a mobile gadget before buying alcohol. If the read goes through, there is no chance it is counterfeit.

Which quiet wine is cooler – dry or semi-sweet

If we consider the Russian reality, then most often semi-sweet wine is made by adding specially prepared dosage liqueur to dry wine. The method is used to make simple and affordable semi-sweet wines that are so popular in our country. Naturally, dry wine to which liqueur is added is not of the highest quality, because sugar hides flaws. Therefore, it makes no sense and is not economically profitable to transfer high-quality dry wine without flaws to semi-sweet.

Sugar hides the flaws of wine

Thus, cheap semi-sweet wine is for an unassuming audience. A discerning audience with a developed taste is brought up on dry wines – where sugar no longer hides anything, and the drink is as it should be in all its glory. With its own varietal characteristics and aromas.

Russian wine is 'bad', but there is a lot of it on the shelves – why (research by bowandtie.ru)

Now let's say goodbye to Valeria and talk about why foreign wine is not always better than Russian. Note that we do not call for a massive switch to a domestic product. We propose to take this text only as a reason to think.

The cozy statement 'there is no wine in Russia', having said that one could immediately pass for one in a number of advanced wine parties, is now at least 4-5 years out of date. Hundreds of Russian wine brands are represented in wide retail. Entering a supermarket belonging to any well-known retail chain, we will find there at least 10-20 domestic brands.

The whole point of most 'wine experts'

The theory that the popularization of domestic winemaking took place under the guise of a course on import substitution will come down only as an art performance for snobs. This has nothing to do with reality. Let's face it: the only thing we react to, not in theory, but in practice, is how good the contents of our glass are. Are there those among us who, together with a friend or in the company of friends, would like to pour themselves into alcoholic sour food while talking “you give us something domestic”? Exactly, guys, exactly. We will treat such swill accordingly, 'our' or not.

The reason for the strengthening of the position of Russian wine on the shelves is very commonplace – the quality is competitive, and the choice is wide. There are no conspiracies between the manufacturer and the Legislator, who in fact does not give, but takes – in the form of taxes and excise. Nothing at all. In these conditions, adherents of beliefs in bad domestic wine and numerous sublime snobs who prefer foreign by default, were forced to reflect. This is how the statement “there is no QUALITY wine in Russia”. This is not true.

Will an expert distinguish a Russian from a foreign one?

As Joseph Stalin said: “The people who do not want to learn their own history” will learn someone else's “. And this is exactly what happens: many sommeliers and wine course hosts behind all their 'Rhine Rieslings' and Bordeaux often forget to mention, and sometimes they just slyly keep silent about the glorious victories of Russian winemaking.

We keep you informed: in 2017, one of the Russian wines was awarded the Platinum Medal and the title of 'Best Red Wine of Central and Eastern Europe' at one of the coolest Decanter wine competitions in London. During a blind tasting – when the tasters do not know what kind of wine they drink – it has bypassed foreign wines.

Spoiler alert: will distinguish, but it's good

So what does it do? They tell us here on the Internet that Russian wine is not very good, but international wine experts have taken and awarded it first place? Exactly. And in fact, this is only one of hundreds of victories, just a landmark event – the first platinum medal in the history of this country. Agree, the example of the absolute victory of Russian wine at least gives reason to think: is it worth overpaying for foreign wine if we have a high-quality and cheaper one?

In terms of price and quality ratio, Russian wine wins. Import customs, logistics and other regional nonsense are all unnecessary figures in the price tag that do not reflect the quality of the product. The liquid, which is presented on the shelves in Russian supermarkets as foreign wine for 500+ rubles, can be sold at home at a price of 2 euros per bottle.

Do not create an idol for yourself – why are experts in these your Internet dangerous?

As Bismarck used to say: “We will only be able to bring Russia to its knees when the Russian people are drinking foreign wine.” There is such a profession – to spread rot on Russian wine in spite of everything and in spite of the above facts. Who are these people, and how are they dangerous?

Have you heard about the experience with a basin and water, which is used to check the quality of wine? A whole sect of underexpert video bloggers parasitizes on it. If not, google it, it's pretty funny. Especially when you consider that in fact this is an experience from the school curriculum in physics, demonstrating extremely different densities of liquids and nothing else. We understand that the last time the average Russian came across all kinds of schmizism and other “pseudosciences” was at school, but this in no way negates the fact of the low educational base of those “experts” who operate with such experiments. This is the first thing.

Second, the goals of the 'experts', who, succumbing to the indomitable desire to share infinite wisdom, begin to defile blogs and forums with their thoughts and conclusions, themselves raise many questions. A classic example: straining to squeeze wit and even sabotage out of themselves on the Internet, 'experts' try to assert their individuality in a legion of other completely identical 'experts', which in turn causes non-illusory 'expert' wars in blogs about and without. What for? Just because they can, that's why.

Trust your own experience and don't be afraid to discover Russian wine.

Numerous “experts”, sometimes inclined to aggressive and categorical, and sometimes to soft, insinuating and derisive instilling an opinion about the absence of quality wine in Russia, intentionally or unintentionally influence ordinary consumers. People are not looking at the topic – there is a person on the Internet, is present in all blogs, quotes someone or something in professional slang, an opinion is expressed everywhere, probably by some expert, says that Russian wine is not very good, probably it is.

The desire to appoint authorities for oneself and then act under their influence is natural, but this does not question the value of one's own experience. They say loudly that domestic wine is inferior to foreign wine. But if you try to understand what drives the speakers, and why they need it, you get either 'nothing personal, just business' (some of these' experts' are directly related to the foreign wine business), or a solid writer Istarkhov or singer 'Spider' Troitsky – ' because the dark forces, for example '.

Don't be afraid to discover new things

The propagandists of foreign wine out of self-deception are half the trouble. The real trouble is the people who are drowning in foreign money and doing this foreign business to the detriment of us – ordinary lovers of good wine at an affordable price. How can you tell them apart?

People from the wine scene already know. For the rest, it is enough to remember: if we start to trust the poorly educated 'experts' with basins, engage in polemics and play these games, then you and I will lose. Which is quite ironic, because no one even plays with us. The asshole hangs up noodles and leaves to cut money on the converts of the foreign, and we all have to live with it. “My eyes don't need experts.” Trust your own experience and don't be afraid to discover Russian wine. It's cool.

Friends, what do you think about Russian wine? Please share in the comments. And if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them. We will definitely find a knowledgeable person and get an answer for you.