Everyone who reads the Brief is probably more or less a wine enthusiast. We are, of course. We have been called geeks and it has probably happened to one or two of our readers as well. Where the line is drawn between an enthusiast and a geek is not clear to me. Is there anything wrong with being a wine geek, other than being a bore when talking about wines to non-wine geek friends? Maybe it is the obsession with numbers.
You can drown in numbers when it comes to wine. How many grams of sugar and acidity does the wine have, what is the pH, how big were the barrels the wine was aged in and for how many months has the wine been there, how old were the barrels, how old are the vines, how many milligrams of sulphites does the wine contain, what is the percentage merlot, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot (or any other grape varieties)? A non-wine nerd yawns and wonders why all this matters. But it is fascinating information. Numbers mark everything we learn about wine, from how many hectares the different regions have to the production of the last vintage.
Are wine lovers too hung up on numbers?
Numbers are important to the winemaker. The pH value shows whether the wine is stable, the residual sugar content, whether it is as dry as it should be, etc. Many numbers must be reported to the authorities. Winemakers are sometimes very precise. We met someone recently who wants 11.5% alcohol for the wines that are to be drunk young and a maximum of 13.3% for the more complex wines. But sometimes we must settle for a “it depends”. Sometimes they go by gut feeling. Sometimes they taste the grapes to decide whether to harvest them, instead of analysing and giving us an easy-to-understand number.
Perhaps we wine enthusiasts are exaggerating when we keep asking for more and more detailed specifications. Does it matter if it is 48% merlot and 52% cabernet sauvignon in a Médoc wine or vice versa? Not really, but still, it is useful to know. Wine is a large and complex subject and the numbers help us bring order to the chaos.
Young consumers today apparently just want to drink wine, not read about it. Wine is complicated, they think. There is a lot of speculation in the wine press about what it takes to lure them over from easy-to-understand beer to difficult-to-understand wine. Does it require glamour, celebrities, influencers or simply a different type of information with fewer numbers? Studies show that a back label with information about how the wine tastes is more appreciated than the number of months it has been in French oak barrels.
Not least, a sommelier must have a feeling for the kind of guests he is serving. No one wants to be fed (!) information they could not care less about at the dinner table. It is essential to know when it is appropriate to tell them that 50% of the wine has undergone malolactic fermentation and when it is more appropriate to tell them about the sheep that graze in the vineyard in winter.
Travel season
Now we have already made it through several tours, Champagne, Mallorca, Portugal, Austria and more. But it continues throughout October and ends in November with our new tour to the sherry district of Andalusia.
Winter wine tours
A tour that is really special is our South America wine tour that takes you to Chile and Argentina in January. It is perhaps our most exotic trip juxtaposing these two Latin American countries and also an absolutely fantastic journey over the Andes. If you want to come along, you need to act NOW. Book before 15 September. Booking extended to let more wine enthusiasts join: book now!
We have two other very special tours this winter. First, The Great South Africa Tour, which takes you to almost every wine region in South Africa. A unique insight into South Africa’s wines that no other tour can give you. Book before 15 October. Booking extended to let more wine enthusiasts join: book now!
The third winter tour is to New Zealand. I should probably also call it “The Great” New Zealand tour. From north to south over 16 days, you get a view of this new and modern but far-away wine country that few others have. Be one of the first to realise that New Zealand has so much more to offer than “just” sauvignon blanc. Not least nature and culture. A so charming wine country. Book before 15 November.
More info on our wine tours here. “World’s Top Wine Tours“. Tours with the people who know wine and who have an unrivalled experience of wine and tours.
Travel in wine regions with someone you trust.
Enjoy the Brief!
Britt & Per
Wine editors to the national encyclopedia, Forbes.com contributors, award-winning wine book authors, wine tour advisors to the UN and national wine organisations, wine judges … and, above all, passionate wine travellers.
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What’s on at BKWine Tours
BKWine is also one of the world’s leading wine tour operators. Here’s what we currently have on our scheduled wine tour program:
- Chile-Argentina, 13-26 January 2025
- South Africa, 14-24 February 2025
- New Zealand, 11-26 March 2025
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- Burgundy and the Rhone Valley, 17-25 September 2025 (program coming soon)
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We also make custom designed wine tours.
We’re different than most other wine tour operators. We are people who know wine inside out, who travel constantly in wine regions, who write award winning books about wine. Who do this out of passion. Our tours are different from others. More in wine tours: BKWineTours.com.
The chart below (and the lead picture) is from Google Trends. It shows how much searches were made for “Italian wine” and for “Spanish wine” over a period of five. years. There were more than double the amount of searches for Italian wine as for Spanish wine.
