What makes a great wine and how can we simply choose the best wine?

Plus,what is the ideal percentage of alcohol in a wine for the wine to tastes great?And which is better,white wine or red wine?Thanks for answering.|||An old wine buff once told me that the best wine is quite simply the wine you like best. There are no rules for which wine to drink with what although of course common sense does suggest that a sweet dessert wine does not go well with fish, but it is at the discretion of the consumer at the end of the day.





I would say that wines between 12-max18% proof are good with meals, more than 18% they become too strong and overpowering, more like ports and sherries and not so great with food. Port and stilton are a good combination however. Anything less than 12% does not have much body and becomes watery.





Another thing to take into consideration is the vintage. Different years may be good and bad, always worth checking up. Some wines do not mature well either, for example South African reds are not worth keeping more than about 2-3 years, whereas French reds can keep for decades...





I prefer red wines, a chianti Collina Lucchese San Giorgio is a good one for example and also Aglianico. I don't like Italian primitivo as it is too strong and has a bad aftertaste in my opinion. I am not keen on Italian white wines, either sickly sweet or like acid. A good German white on the other hand is another question. I also like South African wines although they tend to give me asthma for some reason, a pity, I think it is the sulphur dioxide used as a preservative in some wines from hotter climes.





At the end of the day "de gustibus non disputandum est",. don't be fooled by wine snobs either, a 拢10 bottle can be as good as 拢500 bottle and both can be corked of course.|||Price is not an indication of how "good" a wine is. A $100 bottle of wine is not necessarily 10 times better than a $10 bottle, and I might suggest a Zinfandel that you find is heavy and leaden.





You have to go out there at taste them.





Places like BevMo have Friday tastings where, for a nominal fee, you can see what you like in a wine.





also consider that the same wine will taste differently under different circumstances and how YOU feel. I do enjoy Charles Shaw and that might be a good starting point