Lisica Pinot Noir, Štajerska Slovenija (Lower Styria), Sanctum, Slovenia, about $22 (US importer Vinum).
SOMETIMES I LOOK FOR a bottle of wine that’s wholly unfamiliar, pretty much a shot in the dark. I don’t go for an expensive wine, and I choose a shop where I’ve had luck in the past. I check labels for clues. I avoid alcohol higher than 13 percent, because I can usually taste the heat and the fruit flavors are often less fresh, sometimes cooked. (For a time, all wines seemed headed for 14 percent and higher. Now, especially in shops that stock more “natural” wines, the pendulum has swung the other way, maybe too far. Below 12 percent gets experimental — how ripe were the grapes?) There are skeptics who distrust the alcohol figures printed on labels, but in my experience they’re a fair guide. A back label is marketing, but it may say something about outdoor or indoor methods, such as being organic or biodynamic. There might be references to new oak (for me, undesirable in a wine meant to be drunk young) or aging in another material — older wood, concrete, stainless steel, ceramic. Any of them can be good. It depends partly on the wine, although for reds I’m drawn to large, previously used oak casks or vats. I also notice the name of the importer. A few are highly reliable, some are the reverse, and there are a lot of names I know little or nothing about. I don’t get into the quicksand of looking anything up on my phone.