By Tom Hollings
Tom is the owner of innovative online wine store, DifferentDrop.com, which sources and sells unique and small production wines from Australia’s best boutique wineries.
With the festive — and busy — season upon us, you’re going to have more people than usual who don’t know their way around a bar or your wine list. Tom Hollings gives you some tips on what to recommend.
Do you ever have customers looking through the strange, foreign sounding wines on your list and asking “what’s a barbera like?” or “would I like a torrontes?” Similarly, customers will regularly ask “I like shiraz (or sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, etc), what can you recommend that’s similar?”
Our wine landscape is changing rapidly and our customers are now confronted with an incredible choice of both local and imported wines, many of which are made from less common grape varieties and unheard of regions.
Helping your customers quickly decipher this option overload and quickly find a wine that suits their preferences is an important skill, and one that will keep them coming back! Here’s a few emerging alternatives to our most commonly enjoyed grape varieties:
Shiraz
If your customer likes a big full bodied South Australian shiraz, offer him an Argentinian malbec from Mendoza, an Italian primitivo (the same grape variety as the American zinfandel), or a locally grown durif or mataro (aka. mourvedre).
If it’s the more elegant, medium bodied style they enjoy, suggest any Rhone Valley red (often blends made primarily from syrah [aka. shiraz] in the north or from grenache in the south), or a tempranillo either grown locally or from either Rioja or Ribera del Duero in Spain.
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet sauvignon and blends made with the variety (known as Bordeaux blends after the region in which they originated) are usually big, tannic wines, so when looking to alternatives suggest things like a Chilean carmenere (also a Bordeaux variety), a premium nebbiolo from Italy’s Piedmonte region, or locally grown wines made from the often blended Bordeaux varieties of cabernet franc and petit verdot.
Merlot
There’ a lot of bad chat about Merlot ever since the movie Sideways. Suggest they instead try a medium bodied wine like a tempranillo, a sangiovese (either local or from Chianti in Italy) or a barbera from the north of Italy. Alternatively, find them a premium merlot based blend from either the Right Bank of Bordeaux or Hawkes Bay in New Zealand and show them how great the variety can be.
Pinot Noir
Pinot noir is considered the lightest of the mainstream red grapes. If they want pinot flavour but more body, suggest a nebbiolo, and if they want something else light look to a barbera or gamay, either locally grown or from Piedmonte and Beajolais (France) respectively.
Chardonnay
If your customer likes a traditional oaked chardonnay, have them try other full bodied white varieties like viognier, Argentine torrontes or Italian Soave (made from the garganega grape). If it’s the lighter unoaked style they like, try a pinot grigio or if you can find one, a sylvaner from Alsace (France) or Germany.
Riesling
Firstly congratulate your customer on being a riesling lover, and then recommend them other crisp, floral and pure fruited wines such as an Austrian (or Adelaide Hills) gruner veltliner, any white wines from Alsace (eg. pinot gris or gewurztraminer), a Spanish Albarino or locally grown savagnin.
Semillon
Young semillon’s firm acid backbone and medium bodied citrus characters can also be found in wines like local marssane or roussanne, Italian (or local) vermentino or fiano, and chenin blanc from the Loire Valley in France. If they like the softer, honeyed aged examples, point them towards aged wines made from riesling, chardonnay or chenin blanc.