Happy Friday,

Great wine salespeople know how to do one thing extremely well:

Pick the perfect bottle for perfect strangers.

With Sherlock like abilities, they can combine the subtle clues of your desires and your personality. In doing so, they match you with the right bottle. It’s one you especially enjoy because you don’t feel like you overspent.

But that feeling of drinking something you like at a price you’re comfortable with is a skill you can can learn too.

Today, I want to show you how you can find your price for a good bottle of wine by learning your wine t-shirt size.

Understand Your Wine Budget: Your Average and Maximum Wine Spend

You don’t need a complete annual estimation of your spend on drinks, but you do need to ask yourself two fundamental questions:

1. What do you typically spend on a a bottle of wine?

Consider this a blended average of the bottles you drink during a typical year.

2. What’s the maximum you’d spend on a bottle of wine for yourself?

While this one is straight forward, think about the number where you’d get uncomfortable purchasing wine.

Write down these two numbers, they’ll be critical to the next step.

Learn The Wine Ranges: T-Shirt Sizing Wines Prices

There’s a number of ways to split wine by price, but I find this simplification to be helpful. These prices are all based on USD retail (international readers, let me know if you’re interested in a conversion).

XS – Under $10

Small -$11-$17

Medium – $18-$25

Large – $26-34

XL – $35-49

XXL – $50+

Given your numbers from the first section, it’s time to find your t-shirts:

1. What size is your average wine budget?

2. What size is your maximum wine budget?

It’s likely that your numbers are close in size, but if there’s a big difference we should chat.

So, now that you know your wine t-shirt sizes, it’s time to shop.

Navigate The Wine List and The Store With Your Sizing

When you know your size, you can narrow your focus on the areas of the wine world that best fit you.

With an XS size and Small budget, you can skip Burgundy if you’re looking for Pinot Noir.

If you wear an XL, you can cruise pass the nondescript wines at the grocery store and start going to a great wine retail shop.

I’d love to know what size t-shirt fits my readers, so hit reply and let me know which wine t-shirts you’re wearing.

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This Week’s Free-Run Juice

Free-run juice is a wine term for the grape juice that comes from their own weight prior to pressing. These are weekly tidbits that came out from my own wine exploring.

Worth The Squeeze – Vivino

Vivino has come a long way, and I gave it a second look after writing it off years ago.

My problem with the wine apps is that people are swayed heavily by others. However, the shear volume of data they’ve accumulated helps the numbers make more sense.

But ratings from internet friends and critics are completely subjective. 4.8 stars or 92 points doesn’t mean much to someone other than that person. It’s far more important to trust yourself and learn what you like.

That said, I think Vivino is great for discovery, but you need to rely on your own palate to define your journey in the wine world.

André Mack and Kevin Hart Drinking Cheap and Expensive Wine

Not unlike Vivino, I’ve come around the long way to appreciating Kevin Hart. When he was insanely popular, I was dismissive of his ability. Shame on me.

But, Kevin is insanely talented, funny, and hardworking. Everyone here loves when I share André Mack, so let’s do it again.

I like the sizing in this video too, but I’ve specifically narrowed the ranges in this email for beginning wine drinkers.