Lift Your Spirits!
Wine is one of the crowning achievements of civilization,
a beverage that inspires poetic reverie, eloquent and show-stopping toasts, and the elevated conversation of feasting friends. While wine is often perceived as an unknowable, intimidating elixir, New Pioneer’s wine department provides both the friendly service and the education our customers need to get on friendly terms with their vino. Wine gurus like Robert Morey and Tom Caufield are here to help get you on familiar terms with our wide array of hand-selected wines, because wine is, after all, just smooshed, fermented grapes!
Why Drink Wine?
It is helpful to remember that the reason we drink wine in the first place is, ultimately, for pleasure. To us, the point of wine is to add pleasure to life, and specifically, to the enjoyment of food. We think that wine can improve people’s lives, and we’re here to help you pick the perfect accompaniment to your duck confit, your grilled Portobello mushrooms over pasta, your weeknight cheeseburger, or even pizza.
Can’t Remember What You Tasted?
Keep a wine journal! You can use any small notebook, or purchase an official wine journal, to have a record of just what made that ’05 Canon Fronsac so spectacular.
Get to Know Your Vino
The best way to learn about wine is by drinking it! The more different wines you taste, the greater your sense of its context, or in other words where it fits among all the other wines you’ve tasted. Be conscious as you’re drinking of the particular qualities of the wine in your glass. What makes it different from other wines you’ve had? Is it surprising? Does it seem representative of the grape(s) from which it was made, or the region where it was grown, or the year in which it was harvested? Such questions can add to the pleasure of your wine tasting, and can be the topic of lively table conversation, especially since the pleasure of drinking wine is amplified when you’re in the company of others.
“Learning by drinking” is one way to get started on your wine tasting adventure. We might also recommend signing up for one of New Pi’s stellar wine classes for additional insights into the characteristics of specific grape varietals, drinking wine on a budget, or the perfect seasonal choices (insert link to class sign ups here).
Another way to learn about wine is to study up a bit. If you cultivate an interest in wine, such study can be enjoyable. The English wine critic Jancis Robinson has an introductory videotape series about wine, and the tapes are fun, lively, and informative. Robinson is also the editor of the giant Oxford Companion to Wine, a comprehensive and useful reference. We might also recommend Kermit Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route as a great place to start a life-long love affair with wine.