Wine red flags

We all use shortcuts in life. One of mine for restaurants is if the menu has pictures, don’t eat there. I find there are also tips and tricks to avoid wines, particularly when you’re flying blind and don’t know the producer. Here are a few of my red flags:

Gold medal stickers. These are almost always fake competitions and when the wine is advertising it won one of them, run.

Food pairing advice. Most fine wines don’t have to tell you to enjoy it with chicken piccata or Parmesan crusted halibut.

Exclusives. I never understood this. Some stores advertise wines as exclusives as if it’s a good thing, but what it tells me is not that nobody else could get it, but that nobody else wanted it. There are exceptions, but they are rare.

What makes you run in the other direction?

A friend of mine once said, if someone advertises, it means their business is hurting.

I responded If someone is advertising, then it means their business is doing well, and has the dough to advertise.

This is Brooklyn logic.

Some of my ‘Red Flags’:

  • Alfred Wong 90+
  • Name is something too timely and topical, and the Producer/Company name at the bottom of the back label is the exact same name with LLC added. Such as “Election Year” by “Election Year Wines LLC” a Nevada company.
  • It’s prominently displayed surrounded by cheeses, in the cheese section of the supermarket (usually on an endcap of an aisle or the olive-bar, with the bottle standing on a wheel of cheese)

Anything involving a celebrity … Sofia Coppola, Brad Pitt, Greg Norman et al.

3 Silver Medals at the Erie, Pa. Wine challenge!!

Any wine with descriptors like ‘dark’ or ‘midnight’ in the name

I’ll give you one exception. Quinta do Noval’s “Black” Port. Horrible name but a really good sub $18 Ruby Reserve Port. Otherwise I pretty much agree with you.

What if the three of them collaborated on a wine?

Stella Rosa ‘Black’

Please at least tell me the label isn’t as bad as the other 2 :slight_smile:

These are very rough, and there are probably worthy exceptions.

  • Wines with a sticker on the bottle showing a critic’s score

  • Wines with a pun nickname, like ArtiZin and 7 Deadly Zins (it’s usually zinfandel, but there are probably others)

  • Opaque wine bottles

  • Wines being hawked by some person standing at a table inside the grocery store or Costco offering samples

  • Labels with cuddly animals on them

Also, most wines that reference pirates, prospecters or cowboys are either complete crap, or fantastic and ultra-expensive. There’s really no middle ground.

These aren’t real, but for example, here are names that, with matching artwork, would set off my alarms:

PIRATE ONES
Sea Wench
Headwind
Davy Jones’ Locker
Sea Legs Sauvignon Blanc (probably a grocery-store white sold near the seafood case)
Prow Pinot Noir
Starboard Syrah
Booty
Bounty
Doubloon Petit Sirah
Plunder
Mutiny Merlot
Scallywag
Blunderbuss Blend

PROSPECTER/COWBOY ONES (THEY OVERLAP)
Bonanza
Stagecoach Red (I bet this exists. Someone else can google it. I am already certain. And bet it’s crap.)
Paydirt
Motherlode
Horse Thief
Lasso

You get the idea.

Ha! Big +1

My flags -

  • James Suckling 98 points

  • Pinotage

A score attributed to Wine Enthusiast; more meaningless than almost anything.

I think you mean Wilfred. I might trust Alfred.

Anything with a shelf tag that says “makes a great spritzer.”
Anything not in a bottle, i.e, box or can.
Any large format under $40.
Anything with naked, skinny or fish in the title.
Anything on the end cap of the aisle.

They rook arike, and people confuse them all the time.

Fake reviewers giving lots of points. Like the guy from WTSO. He works for the seller, and pretty much every wine they list, he rates at 90+.

Licorice and leather in the descriptors tend to turn me off as well. That and maybe cat fur.

Any wine poured at a tasting at a local wine store over $16. Any wine poured at a tasting at a supermarket or big box chain, period.