A Young Person’s Guide to Wine

Tom Graham

Talk About Wine.

It is a well-documented, if maligned, tradition—perhaps as old as academia itself—for students to get on the piss. That’s not going away, no matter what the news or your parents’ friends might be telling you. Generation Z isn’t so into Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Napa Cab, and that’s not a bad thing; there’s a whole world of brilliant quality, sustainable practice, and funky fun to be had down here in the under, for some very decent prices. 

Like it or not, wine is the cheapest way to get drunk, and by the nature of the beast, is also very easy to pass around a circle. So perhaps we should take the example of our proverbial forebears and share our debilitating pleasures, because it’s community-building—it’s a revolutionary act in a world that profits from our disconnection.

This is a collection of affordable wines that are both accessible crowd-pleasers and deliciously complex in their own right. These are not snobby picks, nor are they condescendingly simple or overly sweet. They’re perfect to split with the flat, or serve at your next dinner party.

Vitis Vinifera

Vitis Vinifera produces the sweet, fermented blood of man: the last pleasurable refuge of the reliably sane (for one can never trust the good sense of an ascetic). The making of any extraordinary meal. It is at once anesthetising and aphrodisiacal, medicinal and fresh. It is Bach and Bauhaus and Bourdain and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. 

Wine (ɣwino in Old Georgian) begins at the footsteps of the Caucasus, presumably at the bottom of a neglected fruit bowl, spreading west like wildfire through Persia and the Mediterranean, and to the near east through the Magyars. Though its cultures, practices, and styles have shifted with the centuries, there is one philosophy that has never ceased to captivate the chauvinistic viticulturalist and judicious drinker alike: that within this glass is the clearest sensory representation of place and time.

How to Drink a Glass of Wine

Tasting a glass of wine is at once an exceedingly straightforward, and monstrously complicated affair. Simply bring the glass to your lips, fill your gullet, and swallow. But there is much more pleasure to be had in extending the tasting experience by its length and breadth. A typical introductory wine course will offer a process like this for getting more joy out of every glass or bottle:

Take note of the colour in your glass. It can tell you much more than you might think. It may be red, sure, but look closely. Turn your glass nearly sideways and see how the colour changes around the rim of the liquid. It may be brick-coloured, or it may well look like a purple jet-plane lolly. 

The colour of a red wine is influenced by its tannins (grape-skin and seed), acidity, age, and the pigment structure of its anthocyanins (phenolic compounds which causes red to blue colouration in plants).

As you examined your glass and took note of its colour, all around you the air began to fill with an invisible, gaseous, and mysterious vapour. A good wine will cast a spell; swirl it as though  stirring a witch’s cauldron. Take a long moment and pick out the sensations. They say it’s the smells you finally don’t forget.

Now for the fun. Raise the glass to your lips. Is it cool against your skin? Is it smooth against your throat? Does it remind you of anything? Is it light or full? There is only one question worth your immediate attention when taking a first sip: is it good?

All further analysis, while interesting, important, and beautiful, pales in comparison to that simple question. Is it good? Do you enjoy it? Do you take pleasure in it? Taste, like pleasure, like sex, is an intimate condition—and perhaps should be revered as such.

Consider your pairing, consider your table, consider your company. Wine is food; food is wine.  Both are community. To share a meal, a glass, a bottle, a table, is to care for someone in a way that is unreservedly human.

Dinner Party Picks (<$20)

These three wines are all relatively inexpensive but offer excellent quality, and environmental practice too. They’re perfect for a dinner party at the flat when you want to impress.

Black Cottage Sauvignon Blanc 2023 - $18.99 at Regional Wines

You can never go wrong with a Marlborough Sauvignon, we make it better than anyone, and this one is no exception. Think green apple, gooseberry, and apricot, with a bit of grassiness on the nose, and without being overwhelmingly acidic. It’s an absolute no-brainer for a curry, salad—or even a picnic when it starts getting warmer again.

Black Cottage got my vote ahead of the many, many excellent Marlborough wines for its commitment to the Sustainable Winemaking NZ programme, as well as a riparian planting scheme which promotes native flora growth.

Babydoll Rosé 2024 - $19.99 at New World

This is Wellington on a good day. You just can’t beat a fresh, fruity, floral, slightly acidic rosé when the sun is out. When spring comes around and you can start reaching over fences to rob the neighbours’ fruit trees—or the community garden above Fairlie Terrace—get a bit cheeky and pair it with a joint, some blue cheese, and a bottle of this. I promise you, it’ll make your week.

Farm Hand Pinot Noir 2025 - $15 at New World

This is a perfect introduction to lighter-bodied red wines. Totally fresh, fruit forward, and with a delightful spiced note. Expect cherries, cranberries, and vibrant red fruit with a whisper of cinnamon and anise. This will go perfectly with rotisserie chicken or even a roast if you’re feeling fancy.

I did mention that this would be a New Zealand-focused list, but I just couldn’t help myself from throwing in a couple cheeky Aussie picks. It’s just too good a synthesis of quality and affordability. It’s also fully vegan, fully organic, and is made with minimal intervention, meaning no preservatives except for a bottling sulfite.

Worth the Splurge (<$35)

I know we’re all on stretched student budgets, so I wouldn’t recommend anything I wasn’t absolutely sure about. These ones aren’t going to be everyday bottles, but if you’re having an anniversary date at home— or anything else that calls for something special—look out for these picks.

Pegasus Bay Vergence White NV - $28.99 at Regional Wines

If you want to impress a wino, get them a glass of this. According to the tasting notes, it’s “funkier than a night on the town with James Brown.” and after a few glasses worth of inspection (wink) I’ve got to agree.

It’s totally, effortlessly cool, it’s entirely unique without being all the way out there. It’s got body and nuttiness and tropical fruitiness and floral notes and playful acidity. Pegasus Bay have pulled off a kitchen-sink-throwing masterpiece here by just squeezing every good thing about white wine into one bottle, and I am SO here for it.

Doom Juice Rouge 2025 - $32.99 at Glengarry Thorndon

A devilishly drinkable bit of Aussie claret. Wonderfully juicy, red-fruit-forward, and with a bit of sour-cherry funk, this one is absolutely worth the splurge—and absolutely smashable. Serve it chilled, and prepare to find yourself with an empty bottle much sooner than you’d expected.

This is another fully vegan wine from across the ditch, fully wild fermented (no industrial yeast), unfiltered and unfined. Another bottle you’ll never have to feel guilty about splurging on.