Why is California wine so overrated?

[nile455]

I love wine. Especially New Zealand and French. My friends swear by California wine, they win lots of awards, and yet I've never had a glass that I actually enjoyed. They taste cheap. Even the expensive ones just don't impress. What am I missing here?

 

[CT Yankee]

I agree you could do better, but you could do worse, too. Have your friends tried other wines, or are they just loyal to the California ones and have not tried others? There is so much variety out there from all over the world now. Curious what your take is on NY wines. I am partial to wines from the Finger Lakes area, but that could be more nostalgia than anything else.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I love wine. Especially New Zealand and French. My friends swear by California wine, they win lots of awards, and yet I've never had a glass that I actually enjoyed. They taste cheap. Even the expensive ones just don't impress. What am I missing here?

They taste fine for me, the few times a year I have a glass or two.

 

[Toolulu22]

Drink what you enjoy. There was a big Rose wine craze here last summer. I tried the “Summer in a Bottle” that was Selling out everywhere . Once was enough. Everyone has different tastes.

 

[dvcgirl67]

There are many, many wonderful wines from California....and also from Italy, France....etc.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I even like Australian stuff!

 

[tvguy]

Drink what you enjoy.

This is the most important thing to know about wine. Drink what you enjoy.
I do have to comment that the label "California Wine" is too broad to be helpful. There are 139 Appellations in California. All vastly different. Each winery in that Appellation is vastly different. Each wine at those wineries is vastly different.
I favor the Lodi Appellation, mostly because it is 40 miles from my house, we buy our wine at the winery (haven't purchased wine in a store in years) and often the person pouring in the tasting room in the owner of the winery. There are over 85 wineries in Lodi, most small operations.
I have been to Lodi wineries where there wasn't a single wine I liked. I have yet to be at a Lodi winery where I liked every variety they bottle.
And a dirty little secret and Napa wine, unless the bottle says "Estate" on it, the grapes likely were grown in Lodi.
And one California winery is probably responsible for more people getting interested in wine. That winery is Gallo. Most folks move on from Gallo, but their product and marketing have had a huge positive impact on world wine consumption.
Honorable mention to Bronco Winery from the Lodi Appellation, makers of "Two Buck Chuck" the highly drinkable and popular wine sold at 530 Trader Joes.

 

[_19disnA]

The title of this thread implies you have already decided you don't care for California wines. I agree with some prior comments to drink the wines you enjoy regardless of where they are from. Wines that are more expensive aren't necessarily 'better' and everyone has their own taste preferences.

 

[DLgal]

All wine of the same type tastes the same to me. I really don't understand what makes one better than another other than your preference for sweet vs dry. You can hand me a $100 glass of wine and a $5 glass and I'd probably choose the cheap one. This is one of those things I will never understand.

 

[georgina]

I have had wine I enjoyed from many places. Europe, South America, all over North America, including California, Oregon, Finger Lakes, Niagara on the Lake, will be trying some Virginia wines in a few weeks. There was a winery near our old house in the Pittsburgh area that made decent wine from imported juice.

 

[VandVsmama]

Just drink what you like and choose to not give a care what anybody else thinks.

 

[tvguy]

All wine of the same type tastes the same to me. I really don't understand what makes one better than another other than your preference for sweet vs dry. You can hand me a $100 glass of wine and a $5 glass and I'd probably choose the cheap one. This is one of those things I will never understand.

I'm no wine snob, but different vintage years of the same wine from the same grapes at the same winery can taste vastly different.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm no wine snob, but different vintage years of the same wine from the same grapes at the same winery can taste vastly different.

The way the wineries here have explained to us when we've done tours and/or samplings the particular season can affect the wine taste. Some years yield a more favorable wine once it's actually made that is, other years not as much. Even if they are going for the same flavor component for a particular blend little differences like how bad was the drought, was there a late cold snap or a late heat wave or was it a particularly wet spring or dry spring, etc impact the makeup of the grape.

 

[dvcgirl67]

All wine of the same type tastes the same to me. I really don't understand what makes one better than another other than your preference for sweet vs dry. You can hand me a $100 glass of wine and a $5 glass and I'd probably choose the cheap one. This is one of those things I will never understand.

For me, over the years, my palate has gotten "sophisticated" (I know...it's a loaded word in the wine world)....to most definitely be able to tell the difference between a $5 and $100 bottle of wine. I would want to dump the $5 glass on my salad...and enjoy the other .

In all seriousness though, one thing I look for in the wine world is for sales of wineries that we enjoy to larger conglomerates......and then see where the founder pops up. A lot of the time, they will sell, and then go off and start a new winery. One example is the B.R. Cohn winery....who makes a lovely Cabernet for about $60 a bottle. They were sold back in 2015....and Dan Cohn, son of the founder who took the winery over right at the end, went off and started his own winery. His Bellicosa Cabernet is a very nice wine that I have found in my area for as little as $16.99 a bottle. It "drinks" much more like a wine double the price or more. Larger wine stores in my area are still carrying it at that price, but I've seen it creeping up at smaller shops...as high as $30 a bottle, which tells me that people are catching on.

 

[fly girl]

I'm no wine snob, but different vintage years of the same wine from the same grapes at the same winery can taste vastly different.

YES! There is a Traverse City, Michigan winery that has lovely white wines. Last years wines tasted very different than the year prior. (we had a bottle of the old for comparison to make sure we weren't losing our marbles)

Last years was good, but the previous year was phenomenal!

 

[RedAngie]

Boone’s Farm is good enough for me.

 

[Moliphino]

All wine of the same type tastes the same to me. I really don't understand what makes one better than another other than your preference for sweet vs dry. You can hand me a $100 glass of wine and a $5 glass and I'd probably choose the cheap one. This is one of those things I will never understand.

Yup. My sister and I were in St. Emilion this summer trying to pick out wines to send home to our mom and wound up picking three somewhat at random. There were slight differences in taste, but not enough to set anything apart. As my sister and I like to say, "It tastes like wine".

We enjoyed the €3 bottles of wine we got at the grocery stores in France just fine.

 

[Praying Colonel]

DW and I were on a cruise and went to a wine tasting thing they were putting on. We were just trying to learn the basics--we knew red and white and that was about it. There was 1 guy who kept saying things like, "I'm picking up notes of melon and toast," etc. We tried very hard not to laugh. It was tough.

 

[FlynnRiderSwitch]

I love wine. Especially New Zealand and French. My friends swear by California wine, they win lots of awards, and yet I've never had a glass that I actually enjoyed. They taste cheap. Even the expensive ones just don't impress. What am I missing here?

What kind of grapes do you like to drink? Pick up a bottle of one of the more popular Cali cabs or merlot of Kendall Jackson, Josh, or Rodney Strong, these are all 20 or less a bottle and are great wines.

 

[MillauFr]

There are many great wines from California. Just avoid the garbage like Meiomi, Silver Oak, and Caymus.