Buying wine

Let’s not kid ourselves: we all (also) shop by looks, because a nice wine label makes us happy. But what’s the point in nice packaging if the contents aren’t up to scratch? Now it might all sound like a bit of a lottery, because there are, of course, some stunning wines with stunning labels, but sometimes we could be leaving the very best wines behind on the rack. A scrutinising once-over of the label will offer you some important information to help you make the right choice.

Let’s look at an example.

• Wine name: Torcicoda (nice name, right?)
• Grape variety: Primitivo (this is the red flagship grape of Puglia, yielding fruity-sweet wines)
• Region: Salento (the sun-drenched wine region in the heel of Italy)
• Quality classification: igt (which means «indicazione geografica tipica» and protects the wine with geographical designation)
• Vintage: (the year the grapes were harvested)
• Producer: Tormaresca (the Puglian winery owned by the Antinori family)

You will find other information on the back label, such as the size of the bottle, the alcohol percentage, additives used (e.g. sulphur aka sulphite), whether the wine was organically produced etc.

So the easiest thing to do is to make a mental note of the grape varieties you like, or whether you prefer full-bodied wines with lots of fruit (usually from the hot south) or delicate varieties with noticeable acidity (more likely from the north). Or even better, come to a specialist retailer like, for example, our Bindella Vinoteca in Zurich, Bern or Ticino and let us advise you. We’ll let you taste all of our promotional wines free of charge and you can decide whether you prefer wine that is matured in wooden barrels (these normally have notes of vanilla, cedar, coconut) or if you’d rather stick with wines that captivate you with their crisp, unadulterated fruit. Plus, our wine experts also know which wine to pair with apéro crostini or with a Sunday roast, and are happy to give you some tips. Because food and wine pairings are a whole other world of their own …