Because Wine Not?

By Victoria Gilbert

“My slogan is ‘you don’t have to know wine to drink it but you have to drink wine to know it,’ which means to start at point zero and the sky is the limit.

Some people might see firefighters as “beer types,” and they might not be wrong. However, even beer types can benefit from showing up at home with a nice bottle of wine to surprise their spouse. It’s an easy way to score some points; one of those “little things” that show the special someone that you care about them. Add it to a nice dinner together or a shared movie, and it’s definitely a nice touch.

If you’re not the wine type, picking out a bottle of wine might be a bit daunting. There sure are a lot of choices. It’s good advice to make sure that the wine you pick out costs more than milk, or doesn’t come in a six-pack, but that still doesn’t narrow it down much. So, we turned to wine educator Denis Davicino for some advice on how to pick a decent wine.

On store shelves and on wine lists, wines are becoming easier to select than ever before. All those colourful, sometimes quirky (Fat Bastard), sometimes downright strange (Cat’s Pee on a Gooseberry Bush) are easy to pronounce, but according to Davicino, there is only one way to understand wine: drink it.

“From the beginning, I very much recommend, get a good corkscrew and go to the store and buy some wine,” says Davicino who left France and came to Canada in 1980 and has been educating new and experienced wine drinkers ever since. “I help people to like wine and for others to like it even more,” he says with his thick French accent. “It doesn’t matter how much you know or do not know about wine; it will come down to two things; either you like it, or you don’t.”

Part of Davicino’s education about wine has to do with letting go of any preconceived notion that wine is for snobs, is confusing, or is overly complex. Davicino claims no one is an expert on wine and abhors the term “wine snob.” He is genuinely excited to speak about wine; a passion he has been igniting in Canadians from his home base in Niagara-on-the-Lake for two decades. 

“I would invite newcomers to the wine world to not feel any kind of intimidation,” he says. “Wine is food, and it is something you should look at like bread, vegetables, fruits, it is definitely something that can also belong to you. Once you pass that stage about it not being intimidating, then you start. Wine may seem complex but so is everything in life – cars, relationships, taxes, art, sports.” 

According to Davicino wine can be understood relatively quickly by following these simple steps:

Number one 

Your nose will tell you a lot. Meaning if what you smell is not pleasing, don’t drink it. 

Number two 

The approach on the palate; a wine should taste good.  If it does not, this usually means the wine is unbalanced, the alcohol is not well integrated in the wine or combined with high acidity makes it unpleasant. 

Number three 

After ingesting wine, the taste that remains on your palate should be of something you don’t want to stop tasting. A good wine should linger and in a pleasant way. 

Davicino suggests starting with white wine because it’s an easier wine to understand than red. As far as the type of white wine, which means, the grape used to make the wine, Chardonnay and Riesling are great choices for newbies. “I tell people to try them all. The most common one is Chardonnay; it is the most planted grape in the world. You can start with a Chardonnay from where you live and then explore the world; a Niagara Chardonnay to a French Chardonnay from Burgundy or an Australian Chardonnay. Riesling is also a good choice.”

“My slogan is ‘you don’t have to know wine to drink it but you have to drink wine to know it,’ which means to start at point zero and the sky is the limit. It also means I do not believe in learning about wine with Google or books – that comes after. The very first step, in my experience, is to drink,” recommends Davicino.

Above all, Davicino stresses staying away from bad wine but admits that for a beginner, it’s going to be very difficult to know which bottles are good or not. “If you ask me what kind of wine I would recommend, my answer is very simple; it’s the one you find you and your partner like.”

Photo by Daniel Vogel on Unsplash