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How to get the wine you really want

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Re: How to get the wine you really want

#81

Post by munificent »

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…

> The very idea of forcing myself to "acquire the taste" for alcohol seems distasteful in itself.

The logic of any acquired taste is simple:

It takes a finite amount of effort to acquire the taste.

In return, you get satisfaction for the acquired taste that is only bound by the length of your life. The sooner you acquire the taste, the longer you get to amortize the value.

I've taught myself to enjoy damn near every food and drink out there and I am immensely glad that I have—I now inhabit a world filled with delights.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#82

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #77
lisper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely. Since the infamous cab tasting we've done blind tastings of spirits with similar results. Our favorite vodka, for example, turns out to be Seagrams Extra Smooth, which is about half the price of a "high end" vodka. Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out that way. My favorite scotch turns out to be Lagavulin or Laphroaig -- I really like the smokey flavor of Islay malts -- both of which are rather…

Come on. No, it isn't. Nobody in the world is going to confuse Laphroiag with Glenlivet, let alone with Buffalo Trace. They're fundamentally different products: they have different mash bills (so comparing them can be like comparing a Barolo to an Oregon Raspberry wine), they're produced differently (the Laphroaig is peat smoked), and they're aged differently (the Buffalo Trace in new oak for a short time, the Glenli…

He's not talking about mixing styles, he's saying preference within style doesn't correlate with price, and I absolutely believe that holds with whiskey (cough whistle pig cough).

The difference between wine and whiskey is how few options you get within a style in whiskey tasting compared to wine. The options are small enough in whiskey that an amateur on a budget can memorize all of the flavor profiles relatively easily.

But that doesn't change the point that blind tasting whiskeys can give you interesting non-price correlated results.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#83

Post by tptacek »

eric_h wrote: post #47
lisper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely. Since the infamous cab tasting we've done blind tastings of spirits with similar results. Our favorite vodka, for example, turns out to be Seagrams Extra Smooth, which is about half the price of a "high end" vodka. Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out that way. My favorite scotch turns out to be Lagavulin or Laphroaig -- I really like the smokey flavor of Islay malts -- both of which are rather…

Personally, I find that whiskey, beer, tequila and mescal are the only alcohol products where price really does line up with quality.

The problem with wine is that the mass market products really do vary primarily in sweetness, spiciness, and viscosity. There are hundreds of different brands, but not really all that many variables to play with. What's worse is that wine distributors are expert marketers and cover the price spectrum, so you can pay a lot of money for something that is essentially a mass market product.

But go to an extremely nice restaurant sometime --- my revelation happened at Alinea in Chicago --- and get a tasting menu with a wine pairing. Clearly it is not the case that all wine falls within the parameters of mass market wine. You'll get glasses of wine that blow your head off. Frustratingly: they will probably be "conventional" wines: I still remember the Pinot Noir they served me, but I've had no luck reproducing any of that experience by shopping for Pinot Noirs at any part of the price spectrum at wine stores. The wines a place like Alinea sells are very difficult to source.

You're starting to see some of the same effect in American whiskey: the so-called "craft" distiller movement is really just an excuse for branding firms to stake out different points on the whiskey product price spectrum, and all of them taste either like Makers, VOB, or something in between.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#84

Post by kasey_junk »

eric_h wrote: post #47
lisper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely. Since the infamous cab tasting we've done blind tastings of spirits with similar results. Our favorite vodka, for example, turns out to be Seagrams Extra Smooth, which is about half the price of a "high end" vodka. Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out that way. My favorite scotch turns out to be Lagavulin or Laphroaig -- I really like the smokey flavor of Islay malts -- both of which are rather…

Personally, I find that whiskey, beer, tequila and mescal are the only alcohol products where price really does line up with quality.

I don't. There is a whole booming industry right now in relabelling mass produced spirits and marking them up.

Now older whiskey for instance is going to always cost more than younger, and its usually going to be better, but you can get similarly aged whiskeys produced with the same or similar mash bills from the exact same facility that vary dramatically in price.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#85

Post by tptacek »

kasey_junk wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. No, it isn't. Nobody in the world is going to confuse Laphroiag with Glenlivet, let alone with Buffalo Trace. They're fundamentally different products: they have different mash bills (so comparing them can be like comparing a Barolo to an Oregon Raspberry wine), they're produced differently (the Laphroaig is peat smoked), and they're aged differently (the Buffalo Trace in new oak for a short time, the Glenli…

He's not talking about mixing styles, he's saying preference within style doesn't correlate with price, and I absolutely believe that holds with whiskey ( cough whistle pig cough ). The difference between wine and whiskey is how few options you get within a style in whiskey tasting compared to wine. The options are small enough in whiskey that an amateur on a budget can memorize all of the flavor profiles relatively…

Oh: strong agree, especially for American whiskey, where there's an extremely drinkable "well whiskey" price range, and an extremely memorable and excellent "boutique" price range (taken up mostly by Buffalo antiques), and virtually nothing worth paying for in the middle, where everyone shops.

(What's worse is that a lot of brands want to claim a price in the boutique price range --- like WhistlePig --- and so you really have to know what you're shopping for if you want to pay extra for it).

Sorry, Ron! I'm knee-jerk about people comparing wine tasting to beer and whiskey tasting. :)

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#86

Post by takingflac »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #50
petters wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying the alcohol will be gone overnight? I doubt that.

if not completely gone, then dramatically reduced. source: have left a glass of wine on my nitestand before, and in the morning it was glass of sour grape juice.

70% of the alcohol will remains after overnight.[1]

[1] http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/ret... (see page 12)

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#87

Post by lisper »

tptacek wrote: post #77
lisper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely. Since the infamous cab tasting we've done blind tastings of spirits with similar results. Our favorite vodka, for example, turns out to be Seagrams Extra Smooth, which is about half the price of a "high end" vodka. Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out that way. My favorite scotch turns out to be Lagavulin or Laphroaig -- I really like the smokey flavor of Islay malts -- both of which are rather…

Come on. No, it isn't. Nobody in the world is going to confuse Laphroiag with Glenlivet, let alone with Buffalo Trace. They're fundamentally different products: they have different mash bills (so comparing them can be like comparing a Barolo to an Oregon Raspberry wine), they're produced differently (the Laphroaig is peat smoked), and they're aged differently (the Buffalo Trace in new oak for a short time, the Glenli…

> Nobody in the world is going to confuse Laphroiag with Glenlivet

Of course not. That's not what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that when I do blind tastings, sometimes the cheap stuff turns out to be my favorite, other times not. (And when it does, I'm happy!)

> vodka is a neutral spirit --- it's not supposed to be distinctive

And yet it is. If you don't believe me, try comparing Ciroc to Smirnov. You don't even have to do it blind. If you can tell the difference between Laphroaig and Glenlivet (a very low bar) you'll be able to tell the difference between those two.

> rum or gin

There is definitely more variation in flavor there. FWIW, my picks are Bacardi Black rum and New Amsterdam gin. If it's a special occasion I'll have a Hendricks cucumber gimlet :-)

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#88

Post by lisper »

tptacek wrote: post #85
kasey_junk wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not talking about mixing styles, he's saying preference within style doesn't correlate with price, and I absolutely believe that holds with whiskey ( cough whistle pig cough ). The difference between wine and whiskey is how few options you get within a style in whiskey tasting compared to wine. The options are small enough in whiskey that an amateur on a budget can memorize all of the flavor profiles relatively…

Oh: strong agree, especially for American whiskey, where there's an extremely drinkable "well whiskey" price range, and an extremely memorable and excellent "boutique" price range (taken up mostly by Buffalo antiques), and virtually nothing worth paying for in the middle, where everyone shops. (What's worse is that a lot of brands want to claim a price in the boutique price range --- like WhistlePig --- and so you re…

No worries :-)

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#89

Post by derefr »

bambax wrote: post #40
dajohnson89 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. I respectfully disagree. Basically I stick to cheap wines (for budget reasons), and my decanter will turn almost any unbearable red into acceptable. A newly opened red sometimes just needs to be smoothed out via air a bit -- at the extreme of things, if you leave a glass out overnight it will be flat (not to mention, the alcohol will have e…

> my decanter Myhrvold in Modernist Cuisine recommends to use a... blender. It really works ;-)

I can see what you mean—but in picturing it, now I'm curious what would happen if you ran some wine through a reflux condensation.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#90

Post by ythl »

Bulkington wrote: post #76
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…

Well, except that blending is a big part of what a winemaker does and, basically, it should be left to professionals. All else is monkeys and typewriters. If you can't tell the diff between a Barefoot and a Silver Oak, what do you think home blending is going to accomplish? Wine snobbery may be bullshit, just like jazz snobbery. But that's not the same as 'appreciation,' which requires some education and experience,…

> But that's not the same as 'appreciation,' which requires some education and experience, maybe even some aptitude.

OP's point is that without the information about the price and make of the wine, your brain alone can't "appreciate" anything not matter how educated and experienced you are. If someone tells you you are drinking a rare extremely expensive french 100-year-old vintage, your brain will "appreciate" it, even if it's actually cheap box wine.

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