11 Best Wines for Beginners Plus Tips on How to Start Drinking Wine

You might be thinking, “I don’t like wine, but I want to like it.” Well, before we get into the best wines for beginners, here are some tips on how to start drinking wine (and enjoying it).

Tips on how to start drinking wine

Always try something new

If you’re at a restaurant and you see a wine on the list that you don’t recognize, order it. You can always send the glass back if it’s really not your jam.

Try to evaluate the wine, though, and let the server know what bothered you about it. This will help them lead you in the right direction to find something you enjoy more.

Or if you enjoyed this new wine, pay attention to the flavors or reasons why you liked it and take note.

Speaking of…

Take notes

This is an important step. When you’re starting out on your wine journey, it’s hard to remember which wine you tried where. What was the name of that white wine I tasted and loved last month??

To avoid this, create a notes page in your phone, take photos of the wine bottles you enjoy, or use a tracking app like Vivino to keep your tasting notes handy (my personal favorite).

Note: Be wary of using Vivino as a way to see if a wine is “good” or not. I use the app to simply store images of wine labels, along with my personal notes. Remember, everyone’s palate is different, so a lower score on Vivino doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t like the wine. 

Ask questions

If you’re at a restaurant or a wine shop, ask the staff questions about where the wine came from, what grapes were used, winemaking techniques, etc.

The person helping you most likely knows more about the inventory at their store or restaurant than you do, so feel free to ask them anything – there are no stupid questions.

If you’re speaking to the buyer or sommelier, you might even get to hear a personal anecdote about the winemaker or the winery’s history, which is one of the coolest topics to explore in wine.

Attend wine tastings

Obviously it’s great to travel to wine country, but with the recent shift of IRL events going virtual, there are so many wine experiences you can attend, without even leaving your home.

Feel free to check out our upcoming virtual wine tasting events, or book a private wine tasting with me to help you get to know your palate and gain the skills and vocabulary to help you discover new wines you love. 

Explore different wine regions

If you enjoy a specific grape from one region, be sure to try it again from a different region. Due to climate, terroir, winemaking practices, and more, grapes grown in various regions will express unique flavors.

Exploring the same varietal wines from different regions can help you understand how all of these factors influence the wine in your glass. 

Relate a wine to your experience with that bottle

For me, wine is just as much about the setting you’re enjoying it in, as it is about what’s in the bottle.

Have you ever purchased a wine at a winery that you really enjoyed while sipping it and taking in the vineyard views, but when you take the bottle home and open it on your couch, it doesn’t taste as good as you remembered?

Maybe you had a wine you thought you’d never enjoy, but it was shared over a delicious meal with friends. Not only will the wine taste better in that experience, but each time you try that wine again, hopefully it will evoke those fond memories.

Tying a specific bottle or style of wine to an experience is one of the easiest ways to remember it. This ability to travel in through the glass is one of my favorite things about wine!

what are the best wines for non-wine drinkers?

Now that you’ve agreed to embark on this wine journey with yourself and find out which kind of wines you really enjoy, here are the best wines for beginners. 

How did I select these beginner wines? When you’re just beginning to drink wine, I believe it’s best to start out with easy-drinking wines that you can drink without food. 

These wines are fruit-forward, meaning they have more fruity flavors than earthly flavors, and they are overall easy-sippers because they are well-balanced. The acid is not too pungent, the tannins aren’t too drying, and the body won’t be overwhelming for a beginner’s palate. 

In my opinion, these are the easiest wines to drink and enjoy when you first start learning about and drinking wine. And don’t get me wrong, I still thoroughly enjoy these wines as a more “advanced” wine-drinker, but these are great wines to try if you’re just starting out.