How to get the wine you really want • Hacker News Board

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#11

Post by dspillett » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #3

Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between w…

It is amazing how much apparently unrelated information can sway out impressions of the taste of a product, hence the infamous "dyed white wine described as you would a red by experts" experiment - the visual cue can have a massive effect on how the wine tasting experience was reported.

Another classic example is many people not being able to distinguish between the small of parmesan and vomit, how they rate the smell of either being affected by what they are told it is (in this case the key molecules that the nose picks up on are the same, or at least similar enough to activate the same receptors, so the subconscious bias caused by other verbal or environmental cues is enough to sway the perception one way or the other).

The results of such priming experiments are notoriously varied though - reproduction is often unreliable.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#12

Post by dejv » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

hyperbovine wrote: post #5

dejv wrote: post #2

Winemaker here. I would like to try those wines, but I don't think you will get good results out of it. Taste of wine is mostly structural thing: it is created during fermentation by polymerisation of different compounds. Even mixing different wines don't give you good results, unless you fiddle with different ratios (I do as much as 10 for cuvee of two wines, trying to find sweet spots) and then letting it settle fo…

If I understood the article correctly, this machine will probably not create wine that you (dejv) will actually like, but may well succeed in doing so for the >99.9% of people who are not winemakers :-)

Well, I am sure given enough time I will likely find some ways to get good enough results out of it.

The quality of end product will be mostly determined by quality of base wines. But the problem is that wine is multidimensional => say you want sweeter wine for which they use Muscadet. This wine is not just sweet, you are also adding whole set of new tastes to the mix: there will be some acidity and different set of smell.

Will this taste good? I don't know, you might get lucky and find good recipe or you might mix some weird combination. The thing is that taking 100 ml of light body wine and 100 ml of heavy body wine will not give you 200 ml of medium body.

Anyway, I think they will get enough customers just for novelty of it and some wines might even taste good.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#13

Post by phmagic » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

The article mentions the customer configuring 3 sliders of wine characteristics, that might be too much decision making for me at a restaurant.

I'd still ask a sommelier standing nearby to pick something for me.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#14

Post by Ntrails » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #3

Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between w…

> Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it.

Could you go into a bit more detail on this? The very idea of forcing myself to "acquire the taste" for alcohol seems distasteful in itself. I've got additional reasons for choosing not to do so, but I'd be interested to hear another point of view and why you'd want to make a fairly drastic change.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#15

Post by djrogers » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #3

Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between w…

> We tried the notorious two-buck chuck and thought it was absolutely horrible

Then you should try it again! Not only are there many varietals, but they change far more year over year than your traditional wine would as it's basically a blend of whatever was available as overage from many different California wineries. Some years there is a bit of a hidden gem worth spending a few bucks to find.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#16

Post by tpeo » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 5:07 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #3

Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between w…

I don't quite understand why you winos take your critics so seriously in the first place.

Critics are just people with opinions. Sometimes they can provide good justification for why whatever they're reviewing is good or bad. But not one of them is impartial enough that their opinion can be taken at face value, specially if you're not into the stuff they're pushing.

This is more obvious with film and videogame. It wouldn't matter at all if a critic I liked ever said that there's this one Adam Sandler movie that everyone should totally watch. I'm not into that crap.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#17

Post by kahrkunne » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 5:07 PM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #14

lisper wrote: post #3

Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between w…

> Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. Could you go into a bit more detail on this? The very idea of forcing myself to "acquire the taste" for alcohol seems distasteful in itself. I've got additional reasons for choosing not to do so, but I'd be interested to hear another poi…

It's just learning to appreciate something. Like how most people have to learn to appreciate coffee, olives, blue cheese and so on

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#18

Post by lisper » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 5:07 PM UTC

altm wrote: post #8

lisper wrote: post #3

Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between w…

Former wine store worker here. Was it the case that the Silver Oak bottle probably needed some time to open up? Still, I agree with your general thrust. I find that my favorite wines, especially per dollar spent, are between $8-20.

> Was it the case that the Silver Oak bottle probably needed some time to open up?

This was a long time ago so it's hard to say. But I've had plenty of reds that tasted great straight out of the bottle, so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. Also, while it is absolutely true that the taste of a wine will change over the course of an evening, it's far from clear how much of this is due to the flavor of the wine changing and how much due to your perceptions changing. Taste buds can get fatigued (I get "wined out" after trying 5 or 6 different wines) and food makes a huge difference too.

My bottom line: I now know plenty of wines that reliably taste great (to me) straight out of the gate and keep tasting great through the whole bottle even if I keep it for a couple of days, and which cost a lot less than Silver Oak. So I just drink those :-)

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#19

Post by crispyambulance » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 5:10 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #3

Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between w…

Point-of-sale wine blender, the time has come!

I agree it is best to not to depend on price, score, or reviews when finding a good wine. Its all about your own senses.

The best advice I ever got at a wine tasting was, actually, tasting advice. Basically just savor a glass of wine and develop a memory of the sensory experience. If one takes the time and attention to do it right the mind will automatically tuck that away and recall it for comparison when tasting other wines months or years into the future.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#20

Post by lisper » Fri, Nov 04, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

dspillett wrote: post #11

lisper wrote: post #3

Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there was very little correlation between w…

It is amazing how much apparently unrelated information can sway out impressions of the taste of a product, hence the infamous "dyed white wine described as you would a red by experts" experiment - the visual cue can have a massive effect on how the wine tasting experience was reported. Another classic example is many people not being able to distinguish between the small of parmesan and vomit, how they rate the smel…

> hence the infamous "dyed white wine described as you would a red by experts" experiment

That turns out to be somewhat of an urban legend.

http://sciencesnopes.blogspot.com/2013/05/about-that-wine-ex...

> The results of such priming experiments are notoriously varied though - reproduction is often unreliable.

Yes, this is why it's important for everyone to just do these experiments for themselves and decide what they like, and not bother with what anyone else thinks.