Wine Buying Tips & Tricks for the Holidays

Whether you’re traveling this Christmas or just cozying up at home, chances are you’ll probably need something to toast family and friends as you celebrate the holidays. If you’re anything like us, wine is the natural choice: delicious, food friendly, and meant to be shared. Unfortunately, picking a bottle you’ll actually enjoy can be a challenge for even the most avid wine enthusiast; we’ve all experienced decision paralysis when faced with the sheer number of options at the liquor store. Making a choice that agrees with both your palate and your budget often seems impossible.

This season, the EWL team would love to take a bit of the stress out of your shopping list by breaking down our best wine buying practices. These suggestions are the culmination of years spent navigating the wine industry on both sides of the divide, as employees and customers, and our aim is to shed some light on the process with as little jargon as possible. That said, for the nerdy and curious among us, we always recommend diving headfirst into wine’s nuances in all their complicated glory–the more you know, the more you’ll enjoy your next glass (besides, what other field of study encourages drinking your homework? Name one, we’ll wait). For everyone else just trying not to ruin upcoming Christmas parties and family dinners, this one’s for you.

Shop at places that actually specialize in wine

Other than getting to try the merchandise ourselves, the best moments of our wine bar days came whenever a new customer would sample a bottle and shyly admit, “I didn’t know wine could taste this good.” We mention this anecdote now to highlight a depressing reality in the wine world: too many consumers rob themselves of this epiphany by buying wine at the same place they get toilet paper.

Forgive us for stating the obvious, but if you want to buy something good, you have to go somewhere good.

Grocery stores have come a long way in recent years–anyone living here in Texas should definitely check out the selection at their nearest Central Market–but for the most part, wines that find their way onto grocery store shelves have quite literally been engineered for mass appeal. From a purely business perspective, it makes sense: different growing conditions every year ensure that no two bottles, let alone vintages, are ever completely identical. Yet industrial-level vineyards have a clear incentive to build a loyal following by creating a consistent product, so they supersede the challenges nature hands them every year, using additives to standardize acidity, alcohol levels, sugar content, even overall color. At best, the result is perfectly inoffensive (read: mediocre); at worst, we wouldn’t even recommend cooking with it.

If the idea of drinking fermented food coloring doesn’t appeal to you, take your hard-earned money elsewhere. The recent growth of the natural wine movement has seen many high quality wine bars and shops spring up throughout the country, with extensive selections curated by knowledgeable and thoughtful staff. You and yours deserve to drink something truly good rather than just good enough, so go support local small businesses and find a wine shop near you.

Ask for help!

It sounds silly, but too many people are afraid of asking for assistance when purchasing wine, whether out of a dislike for interacting with other humans while they’re out shopping (girl, we get it) or the fear of looking stupid (the retail equivalent of not wanting to stop to ask for directions when you’re lost, which…really?).

If you followed our advice above and have found a trustworthy wine shop or bar, a big part of why said establishment should have earned your trust in the first place isn’t just the exquisitely curated wine list but the staff behind it. Having been in their shoes before, take it from us: these people are trained and paid to care about wine. Unless you’re studying to be a sommelier yourself, it’s their job to know more than you–and that’s okay! So the next time you find yourself in wine shop purgatory about to fall in the Vivino trap of googling first and asking questions never, grab the nearest employee for suggestions instead. We guarantee they’ll be happy to put their knowledge to use, and all you have to do is give them a flavor profile and a price point, mischief managed. The only thing you have to do is open the bottle.

Buy with the context in mind

If working in the wine industry taught us anything, it’s this: we know firsthand that picking wine for other people is scary. The fear of choosing something they’ll hate is a rational response to so many options, especially combined with the desire to avoid wasting money on crappy wine…which of course is only heightened when you have no clue what they typically like to drink.

While you could pace up and down the aisle waiting for either divine inspiration or a sudden burst of ESP, we suggest simplifying things with a few straightforward questions: what is your relationship to the people you’re buying wine for, and what’s the occasion? Focusing on these details gives you achievable parameters to work with, rather than obsessing over the unknown. After all, the kind of wine you’d want to bring to a casual social mixer with friends–something lighter, refreshing, and easy drinking–should be different from a bottle selected for a formal holiday dinner with your boss–something a little more complex or expensive. When in doubt, go for crowd pleasers; for whites, anything that is light-bodied and unoaked but not stringently acidic; for reds, options that are neither too tannic nor alcoholic; for bubbles, anything brut will do; and rosés are a secret trump card, as they pair with most foods and have the best characteristics of whites and reds (not to mention the fact that everyone forgets they exist in the winter).

Since most of us are worried about seeming cheap in front of our loved ones, here’s a little secret:

If you want to get away with saving money when buying wine, pick cost effective but well-made selections from your local wine merchant instead of the cheap grocery store brands everyone recognizes.

Lack of familiarity gives the illusion of expense and exclusivity; industry studies and our experience have confirmed that people tend to assume good wine is more expensive when they haven’t been exposed to it before. Unless you tell them, your friends will never know you scored that amazing bottle at a great price.

Even for formal events where you’re wanting to splurge, it can be fun to flex your wine knowledge by converting friends and family to a new hidden gem rather than relying on tried and true big ticket items–unless, of course, there’s a tradition behind the bottle you’re wanting to uphold. In that case, if your family likes to ring in the holidays Queen Elizabeth-style with some Moët & Chandon, why not bring it alongside an equally tasty (but far less expensive; more on that later) sparkling option and compare the two? Set up your own blind tasting and see if you can turn the fam onto something most of us can afford without stealing the crown jewels.

Absolutely buy wine in bulk

Bargain hunters, rejoice; most wine shops offer a discount for buying in bulk, with a discount per bottle applied for every half case or full case (6 bottles or 12) purchased. Even better, the majority of establishments encourage you to mix and match to reach the necessary number, so you don’t have to buy multiple of the same bottle unless you want to.

With this in mind, if you have several different events to worry about, we definitely suggest buying all the wine you’ll need in one go to save yourself time and money up front.

If you’re in charge of buying wine for a larger event, however, there’s another way to save money while also making quite the impression on your guests: large format bottles. We all know and love the standard 0.75 liter bottle, but there’s so many other sizes out there if you know where to look, from barely larger 1 liters all the way up to insanely huge 15 liter Nebuchadnezzars. While it’s rare to see anything quite that big at your average wine shop, many stock magnums–1.5 liters, and yes, the dirty jokes practically write themselves–which are perfect for parties. Regardless of the size you pick, the important part is that the larger the format, the cheaper the wine inside is per ounce. It pays to buy a few big bottles rather than many smaller ones. Also, quite frankly, it looks badass to show up to a soiree with giant bottles of wine, so make yourself everyone’s favorite party guest and grab some of the big boys. Bonus party game suggestion: see if anyone can spell ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ correctly after drinking one.

PS: on the subject of size versus cost, if you’re hosting any events at a bar or restaurant, keep in mind that wine is almost always cheaper by the bottle than by the glass. Most beverage directors and sommeliers price a bottle at roughly the equivalent cost of 3.5 to 4 glasses of the same, meaning if you buy a bottle, you’re essentially getting at least an extra glass for free. Nurture some holiday solidarity–or unleash your inner Scrooge, whichever you prefer–and encourage your party to share bottles rather than ordering a tsunami of different glasses. Your wallet and your server will thank you.

Use the economics of winemaking to your advantage

As much as we hate to admit it, wine is a luxury good. The same factors that make a YSL clutch cost a small fortune–chiefly, name recognition and exclusivity as driven by limited supply–also apply to fine wines. The result is that famous, exclusive wine brands and regions with lower production levels will always be more expensive than their lesser known, higher volume counterparts. The upshot is that you’ll be rewarded with lower prices for taking a walk on the wild side and buying from less hyped regions and varietals.

There’s more to a wine than just the branding and production volume, however. Its aging regimen plays a huge role in final price: the longer a winemaker has to hold onto her inventory to age it properly, the higher the resulting price will be for her to break even. Additionally, aging a wine in new oak will always cost more; new barrels must be continuously replaced, and these days, only a few select companies in the world make barrels good enough for aging wine. Accordingly, younger wines stored in stainless steel–light bodied whites and reds–will almost always be cheaper than older wines done in oak barrels, everything else held equal.

If you purchase quality Cabernet or Barolo, you’re paying for not only the brand name and region but also the extra labor and time it took to guide those wines gracefully into old age.

The takeaway? If you want to find good bottles at more reasonable prices, avoid famous landscapes (Napa, Burgundy, etc.), big names (Stag’s Leap, anyone?), and, depending on your preferences, anything aged for extensive time periods in new oak. Our condolences to the Napa Cab lovers of the world.

Explore sparkling wines outside of Champagne

If you want a textbook example of the above, look no further than Champagne. It might be the holiday wine of choice, but this region/style hits every square on expensive wine bingo: famous names in a renowned region producing limited quantities of labor intensive wine with extended aging regimens. In fact, Champagne takes things to a whole new level of over-the-top; the best Champagne houses employ someone specifically to rotate each bottle in the cellar each day just so during the disgorgement process. Now you understand why Dom Perignon is so expensive.

All of this is to say, if you’re trying to be economical…don’t buy Champagne.

Plenty of other sparkling wines exist which are made exactly the same way–Franciacorta, Cava, and many different kinds of Crémant–at a fraction of the price. Which you should pick ultimately depends on which style of Champagne you’re trying to replace; we could write a whole post just on the intricacies of sparkling wine (and we probably will). But for now, all you need to know is that, if you want bubbles, you have options.

Our recommendation? Don’t overthink it. Pick something that says ‘Brut’ or ‘Extra Brut’ on the label, at a price point you can afford, and open it facing away from other people. Mission accomplished.