How to Choose the Best Wine for a Beginner – a quick buying guide

If learning about wine was a relationship status on Facebook (

remember those?

), it would be:

it’s complicated.

To the new wine drinker, the world of wine appears more complicated than Walter White’s moral compass. There are thousands of producers from hundreds of regions in places you’ve never heard of; it’s a bit like drinking water from a firehose. 

Knowing the best wine for a beginner can be overwhelming. 

Where do you even start? How will you know what to try first: red, white, dry, sweet — orange? 

Cue the questioning emoji.   

Your friends who “know” wine will encourage you to try what they’re drinking. But these drinkers have evolved palates. They’ve been drinking wine for a while. 

They’re a long way from considering what the best wine for a beginner might be. 

One misstep by your well-intended friend and you could be turned off from wine forever – or at least until you try something better suited to the tastes of a new wine drinker. 

What if they pour you a glass of a big-bodied, tannin-heavy Nebbiolo? What if they add something like, “look for hints of old leather and crushed roses in the glass”. Say what?!

We don’t know about you, but when we started drinking wine, if someone told us they were pouring a glass of wine that tastes like old leather and crushed roses (is it potpourri?), we’d probably have said, “No, thanks!” and grabbed a beer instead.

Don’t be the person who sips first and asks questions later!

Start off on the right foot, er, glass, and read on to learn which wines are the best wine for a beginner.