5 TIPS FOR CHOOSING A GOOD WINE

1. BUY YOUR WINE IN A WINER

 If you are lucky enough to live in a wineproducing region or to stay close to a winery, go directly to the producer who will advise you with expertise, experience and passion, while letting you taste his wines. Delphine Sayag the manager of the Domaine Bertaud Belieu wine cellar never fails to point out the major asset of an independent winemaker. "We target your requests in an ultra personalized way, on a case-by-case basis, we propose food and wine pairings, we propose vintages according to the type of request, a wine for the aperitif or for the meal, a gift... The interest of receiving a customer in a tasting cellar is to adapt the advice to each person. The best advice we can give to our customers is to taste before buying because each palate is very different!"

2. BUYING WINE FROM A WINE SHOP

This professional will not fail to target your tastes and expectations to select the appropriate references. For Stéphane Luciano, owner of the Le Pas Sage winery in La Croix Valmer, there are three good reasons to go to a wine shop: discovery, advice and good value for money. "The wine merchant will offer the customer a beautiful diversity of products, some of which are very atypical, some rare and sought-after wines, a selection made upstream with winemakers and sommeliers... For my part, I prefer my selection from the winemakers. When I sell a wine that is close to my heart, I tell the story of the estate, I present exclusive products and my favourites, of course..."

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5. FAVOUR THE WINE AND FOOD PAIRING AND SEEK ADVICE FROM A SPECIALIST

Choose your wine according to the meal. Once again, ask the producer or the wine merchant for advice. The golden rule says that the heavier the meal, the lighter the wine should be. Memorize the essential pairings: red meat, cheeses - red wine, fish, shellfish and crustaceans, white meat and light - white wine; the very fresh rosé ideal as an aperitif goes well with starters and certain fish... In the restaurant, don't hesitate to ask the sommelier for advice and he will select the bottle best suited to your desires, as Bernard Neveu, director of the sommelier's office at the Hotel Bristol Paris, explains: "The first thing is to identify the customer's tastes by asking targeted questions and of course to know the choice of his dish, for example a white meat such as free-range chicken with a cream sauce will go well with a white wine with a little age and roundness, whereas a grilled or matured red meat will go well with a red wine... The accompaniment of the dish is also very important. A spice can reverse the trend! It's all about balance! Ideally a sommelier tastes all the dishes on the menu so that he can advise the customer in the best possible way. The key is the balance of tastes and flavours. There are also other parameters that come into account, the moment of opening the bottle, the temperature... Moreover, we must not be afraid to dare certain associations that can prove to be magnificent!"