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

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#131

Post by CaptSpify » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 2:16 AM UTC

tpeo wrote: post #16

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 wo…

I definitely enjoy video-game, and comic criticism from people I share opinions with, so I can see how someone would do the same thing with taste.

"This critic knows more than me, and tends to like merlots, maybe he'll suggest a reason why I like it, or a new wine that I'll like as well". Of course, taste is subjective, and that may never happen, but it tends to give people an idea of what wine/vidoe-game/comic they want to try next.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#132

Post by ArkyBeagle » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 2:29 AM UTC

The trouble I have with wine is that I pretty much like all wine. I don't like extremely sweet wines, or very light in color wines because they're usually too sweet. But in my range, I can't really tell the difference.

So the $3.00 WalMart Oak Leaf is just fine with me.

I've read wine snob reviews of it, and they tend to be "hey, not bad."

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#133

Post by ArkyBeagle » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 2:31 AM UTC

sampo wrote: post #35

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…

> the notorious two-buck chuck At least this year, the "two-buck chuck" (which, depending on your state, usually costs around $3 now) comes in 7 different varieties: 3 different reds, 3 whites, and 1 rose. https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/05/ranking-trade...

And for the sake of redundancy, try the Oak Leaf brand sold by Wal Mart, if that's an easier store to get to.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#134

Post by dpc59 » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 2:33 AM UTC

astrange wrote: post #113

ogig wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father has been a wine lover for all his, now long, adult life. He has an impressive cellar with some of the best wines of Spain and France. He was also fooled in some blind tastings, like believing a white wine was actually red. But he can also tell the difference between most of his favorite wines, and so do I. So this is not a black or white situation. While some blind taste tests are difficult, others are easy…

> You need to prepare a good meal or cheese to have that old wine with, a table and good people, time for the wine to breath, good glasses... a pleasure setting. Is there a wine for having with bad people?

prison hooch

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#135

Post by epitron » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 2:59 AM UTC

munificent wrote: post #94

> Instead of sampling different regions, grape varieties and vintages, they tend to order the same plonk every time they go out. Of course they do! The problem with wine is that the user experience of selecting one is shitty . If you study how users work, to get them to explore, you need a couple of things: 1. They need signals and affordances to give them hints as to which new actions are most likely to be what they…

Applying usability to wine is a great way to improve the experience. Great post.

Someone in Japan tried to tackle the problem by setting up a sake tasting room with 120 vending machines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM8pMZrBGRI (Japanese video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNRvfMihI0 (English video)

It solves a few of the usability problems: there's a top ten most popular sakes list on the wall, you're buying it from a machine which removes any peer pressure, each sake has notes on the front about the type and acidity level, and they give you a cucumber to cleanse your palette in between drinks.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#136

Post by jdavis703 » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:24 AM UTC

CaptSpify wrote: post #131

tpeo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

I definitely enjoy video-game, and comic criticism from people I share opinions with, so I can see how someone would do the same thing with taste. "This critic knows more than me, and tends to like merlots, maybe he'll suggest a reason why I like it, or a new wine that I'll like as well". Of course, taste is subjective, and that may never happen, but it tends to give people an idea of what wine/vidoe-game/comic they…

Exactly. And there are certain critics who happen to have the exact opposite taste of mine, which is also helpful if you just flip the recommendations.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#137

Post by jdavis703 » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:32 AM UTC

Singletoned wrote: post #101

CPLX wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. Yikes. Gonna have to disagree with you on that. The effect of a wine being aerated/oxidized after being opened and/or decanted is obvious even to a casual wine drinker. > 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…

I find it amazing that all restaurants open a fresh bottle of wine at your table, and never seem to offer a decanted bottle. If I trust you to make my food in secret, out of sight, I trust you to open my wine in secret, out of sight.

Is it really about the bottle being decanted, or being ensured you're getting the wine you asked for? If I order the vegetarian lasagna, but I get the beef lasagna I'll immediately realize something is wrong. I think that's less true for drinking wine, especially if you're not super good at sensing nuances.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#138

Post by jdavis703 » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:35 AM UTC

bjacokes wrote: post #128

lisper wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't make myself clear. I don't deny that decanting and/or aerating will improve many (perhaps even most) reds. But in my experience, for my own personal tastes, any wine that requires this very rarely ends up tasting as good as one that doesn't. > Reading those two comments of yours makes me seriously doubt your ability to make observations that generalize to other people. Two responses: 1. What I've said here i…

I'm not sure blind tastings with relative newbies gives the best signal here. If you give someone cocktails for the first time they'll probably like screwdrivers the most; if you let kids choose between doritos and oysters they'll pick the doritos. After having had a lot of moderately expensive wine over the past few years, I'm sometimes surprised when I go back to a $5 bottle that I like. Usually if I think about it…

I also find myself getting fatigued of "bliss point" snack foods. When I was young I could eat Oreos for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now I might have a couple of Oreos once a year just to reminisce about old times I suppose.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#139

Post by jandrewrogers » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:45 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #72

acheron wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, of course it doesn't work for vodka. The definition of vodka is to be odorless and flavorless. "High end" vodka is almost literally a scam. (Read up on the founding of Grey Goose... the business plan was basically "Hey, I bet if we charge way too much for vodka we can get gullible Americans to pay it!")

I used to think that too, but it turns out that vodkas actually do have distinctive flavors, some of which are better than others (to me). I was skeptical until we tried it, and it turned out that my wife and I could both identify many high-end vodkas very reliably in blind tastings. Ciroc is particularly distinctive.

Vodka is almost universally manufactured from the same high-grade industrial ethanol, which is essentially pure. However, you are correct that some of them taste different! You might be disappointed, though, to discover that these flavors are often introduced as a small quantity of concentrates added to industrial ethanol during the bottling process. Not every brand has a subtle character modifier added to it but many do.

I know the family that owns the bottling plant for most of the vodka brands sold in California, from premium to bum brands; they bottle everything from the same railroad tanker cars of ethanol from ADM. It was eye-opening to see but it makes sense; ethanol distillation is a highly refined, industrial scale process. Ironically, some of the cheapest stuff is the purest (it costs money to add adulterants to ethanol, after all). The industrial distillation columns are extremely efficient, so extra "distillations" don't buy much.

Re: How to get the wine you really want

#140

Post by wtvanhest » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:50 AM UTC

cloudjacker wrote: post #122

wtvanhest wrote: post #6

I have developed a new theory about wine and selecting bottles you/I like. The theory is that pallets for wine develop over time as you drink more, similar to how beer will change. When I was 16, all beer tasted terrible. Then at 19 we 'upgraded' to bud light. Now 15 years later I drink for taste and I like IPAs,or other non standard pilsner. For me, I'm a beginner wine drinker so I do not want the complexity of fanc…

There are also physiological changes that affect this and perception of anything (and our other senses affect taste). So really, you can just reduce it down to your age.

Good point.