Now of course, white wine is a pretty broad category. But there’s a reason I’m not distinguishing sauvignon wanc and presling. There is simply no way I am going to review every slight fucking variation of white wine especially considering that there are hundreds of wineries for each wine. The $10 shit everyone in Dunedin buys is all the same wine with different labelling anyway. My respect goes to the goon companies that just get on with it and label their wine as either ‘red’ or ‘white’.
Being a sophisticated and cultured fourth-year and drawn in by the allure of free alcohol, I attended a wine-tasting pre-lockdown. Our team won, by the tried and true strategy of always picking the opposite answer to the other teams. After many congratulatory drinks I was black-out drunk for the second time this year.
The night ended with me throwing a vacuum cleaner and running halfway to UniPol before realising my flat was in the opposite direction. While I am certainly not proud of my actions, they are evidence of the potent hypnotic effects of wine and particularly the white wine that I had consumed in large quantities that evening.
In the fight for the supermarket golden ratio, white wine goon and NZ Lager are neck and neck. NZ Lager is substantially less punishing than goon. Having said that, there are many nicer white wines for about $12 a bottle which, with an average of 7 standards per bottle, puts them at a better price than most RTDs on the market. Because you can buy wine in smaller quantities, a bottle is the ideal option for a medium-sized night, which makes it perfectly suited to the bored alcoholism of lockdown.
On paper, white wine ticks all the boxes. It is not fizzy, it is high percentage, and it is incredibly cheap. But there is something missing that means it never quite leaves you as satisfied as other drinks. It is not as refreshing as beer or seltzers, and not as easy to keep down as many other RTDs.
At its core, the inconsistency of white wine keeps it from being truly good. There is no guarantee that the bottle of Hardys you bought at your last BYO will be the same as the one you buy the next time. It is hard to gain the level of familiarity that makes other beverages like beer and RTDs such go-to drinks in Dunedin. But at the end of the day, if you want to get buzzed in a cheap and not totally unpleasant way, you could do a lot worse than white wine.
Tastes like: Acid, sparkling grape juice (if you’re lucky), metal
Pairs well with: ABBA, diabetes, Diazepam
Froth level: The veggie drawer in the fridge
Taste rating: 6/10, you get what you pay for