Recently, I started a question on the diminishing returns of wine, which resulted in an answer that brought to light that any given wine is a 'work' dependent on a number of variables, such as, but not limited to:
- Producer Choices
- Weather
- Soil
- Breeding
- Harvesting
- Legal Obligations
The gist of the answer being that the production that has gone into the wine has a significant impact on the final product, with some production methods resulting in a high quality wine, and others resulting in a lower quality wine.
So my essential problem here is that if I go into a wine shop and am choosing from vintage wines where, grape variety, and sugar content are similar, how can I choose between two bottles in a non-arbitrary, and objective way?
- Should I be researching specific aspects of their production methods?
- Should I focus on who produced the wine?
- Should I focus on region?
- Should I rely on ratings of the wine?
Or is the process of selecting a wine a bit of a dark art?
Forgive me if my ignorance is showing here, I'd like to better understand the wine world and am starting from the bottom. I generally know which grapes I like and the differences between them, as well as sugar content I prefer, but in a nutshell I'm curious how one would choose between a set of different Cab Sauvs, or similar.