What is the definition of Fine Wine?

Yesterday, one of the Tongham Tasters asked me what the definition of Fine Wine is. This set me thinking as to what the real definition is, as I have seen it used in a number of contexts. A bit of research quickly showed that there was no generally agreed definition of fine wine but that definitions tended to fall into 4 main camps:


1. INVESTMENT WINE
Very often now days the words Fine Wine are used to denominate those wines that are worth investing in. However, as Fine Wines must have existed before wines looked like a good bet to invest in, this doesn’t appear to be a very satisfactory definition. Another problem with this definition is that investment wines are mainly from Bordeaux which suggests that they are few other Fine Wines in the World. I was very pleased to see in the Financial Times the other day that Fine Wine Investment is now not looking particularly good as an effective investment diversification strategy – perhaps prices will start coming down.

2. WINES ABOVE A CERTAIN PRICE
Many retailers tend to use price as a definition of Fine Wines ie Fine Wines are any wine above say £15 or £30. There was quite a rumpus recently when someone suggested that Fine Wine was anything above £10, but for most consumers who normally get 2 or 3 bottles for that price it is a potential definition. I certainly know many people who would never spend over £15 on a bottle of wine so again that leads to another possible definition. One of the problems with the price break definition is that it is not generally agreed and will change over time.

3. WINES OF A CERTAIN QUALITY
Many people use Fine Wines to describe wines of very good quality ie. those that have a good nose, a good taste, great balance and length etc. Very often included in these criteria will be the ability of the wine to improve with age and last for say 10 years or more. However, this is quite subjective and what about producers who produce a good wine every now and again or only in a good year? Occasionally, a relatively cheap wine can be as good as the famous wines of the world but does this make it a Fine Wine?

4. WINES THAT COME FROM RECOGNISED PRODUCERS IN CERTAIN REGIONS AND ARE CONSISTENTLY GOOD AND THUS DEMAND A PREMIUM
If we discount all of the suggestions above but combine the best parts of every one of them, what do we get? Essentially, a fine wine is a wine that demands a premium price because it comes from a producer that is consistently good and aims to produce a quality wine that does not need to be drunk young and is aimed at connoisseurs rather than a product aimed for the mass market and is from a wine region that is regarded as producing excellent wines such as Bordeaux or Burgundy and in more recent times California.  

If we include this last definition in a general classification of wine for Tongham Tasters, what to we get.

1. Plonk – those wines that we would prefer not to drink and are only good for bringing to parties where the host doesn’t see what we have brought along.
2. Everyday wines – the sort of wines we drink everyday and are not so expensive so as to blow our budget.
3. Weekend wines – those wines we might serve at a dinner party or if we cook a special recipe at the weekend with quality ingredients.
4. Special Occasion wines – Those wines we might serve for a birthday or anniversary or other celebration or if we really want to impress someone.
5. Fine Wines – Those wines that we rarely have as we can’t really afford them and where the prices have become inflated because of investors and increased demand from the nouveau riche of Russia and China.

At our Tongham Tasters' events we tend to have a mix of everyday wines and weekend wines.  This way we all get to discover the bargains and good value wines.

Buying and drinking fine wines

A colleague at work this month got bought a very expensive £85 bottle of Burgundy white wine (a Batard-Montrachet Grand Cru) this month for his birthday and didn’t enjoy it – he doesn’t enjoy classic oaked chardonnay although he loves Chablis which is another Burgundy white. Such a waste! It just shows that you need to develop some knowledge of wine before buying fine wines either for yourself or as a present and also know the taste of the person you are buying for. Joining a wine group like Tongham Tasters and coming along to other wine events such as our Tongham Village Hall wine tasting dinners will help you gradually develop that knowledge of both your taste and of wines.

Having bought a fine wine, one also needs to treat it with care and consideration when storing, serving and drinking it. On Christmas day I served a 2004 Trimbach Cuvee Frederic Emile Alsace Riesling white wine. This is a lovely wine but initially I served it too cold and it tasted very ordinary indeed. However, after an hour it gradually warmed up and tasted wonderful. So be very careful with wine temperatures and read your wine book for the ideal temperatures and invest in a wine bottle thermometer in order to serve correctly.

Good wine glasses also make a difference and I really love my Riedel glasses, even though they represent quite an investment and are only for when Jane and myself share a really good bottle of wine. Whatever, you do need glasses which are quite thin and a reasonable shape to enjoy good wine.

Also take care of your wines when storing as they should avoid extremes of heat and cold and also rapid temperature cycling. Thus a car garage or loft or by a radiator are not good places to keep wine even for a short time.

Finally, be careful when pouring the wine as a young wine might need aerating to get the best out of it and with an older wine might need decanting to avoid a mouthful of sediment.

To learn some of the rudiments do go to a really good website such as The Wine Doctor