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Is wine fake?

asteriskmag.com

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Re: Is wine fake?

#251

Post by coldtea »

antognini wrote: post #49

One of my professors in grad school was really into wine and every couple of years he would put on an after-hours wine tasting class for a semester. One of the points he made was that there are absolutely wines which are objectively better and worse and that experts can reliably tell them apart. He had met enough experts who could identify a vineyard and vintage blind to know there was something to it. But sitting on…

>One of the points he made was that there are absolutely wines which are objectively better and worse and that experts can reliably tell them apart. He had met enough experts who could identify a vineyard and vintage blind to know there was something to it.

Identifying a specific wine is easy, even non experts can learn to do it.

What experts have shown to fail is telling good wines from bad wines, cheapo wines from expensive wines, and so on, in blind tests.

There they are not asked to identify a label and vintage they already known and are familiar with (because they drank it before), but to detect quality.

Re: Is wine fake?

#252

Post by Narkov »

Maybe this supports the articles theory, but I feel wine is more of an experience more than just the chemical composition of the drink. After all, wine isn't consumed just for it's nutritional content.

You can get a good story from a bottle of wine - particularly around the vintage. Things like weather conditions in the years leading up to the pick and then right at the pick, volume of grapes and maturation method.

Re: Is wine fake?

#253

Post by jacobr1 »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #160
pas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also big brands usually deliver on consistency. Making the same (or very similar) wine year from year on the order or hundreds of thousands of bottles ... yeah, that takes some skill, and favorable location doesn't hurt either :) For example see the big wineries in New Zealand. But usually if you want something that's exceptional you have to spend a lot on throwing away the unexceptional parts. Not every year will be…

I assume the big brands get part of the way there by mixing old and new wine, though.

Not mixing between years, but you can mix between different vineyards of the same year. As long as the wine comes from the same region you can keep the branding. There are plenty of contract vineyards that sell to different wineries to enable these mixes.

Re: Is wine fake?

#254

Post by erik »

shrubble wrote: post #134
tomcam wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next time I'm in the pen expect a call from me for that recipe

Obligatory Pruno link from Modern Drunkard magazine (some profanity) : https://drunkard.com/11-03-jailhouse-3/

I hadn't read that before, thanks for sharing it!

I had expected your link to be the classic Steve, Don't Eat It! Prison wine story. So here is the obligatory link to that: http://www.thesneeze.com/2005/steve-dont-eat-it-vol-8.php

Re: Is wine fake?

#255

Post by dragonwriter »

coldtea wrote: post #251
antognini wrote: post #49

One of my professors in grad school was really into wine and every couple of years he would put on an after-hours wine tasting class for a semester. One of the points he made was that there are absolutely wines which are objectively better and worse and that experts can reliably tell them apart. He had met enough experts who could identify a vineyard and vintage blind to know there was something to it. But sitting on…

> One of the points he made was that there are absolutely wines which are objectively better and worse and that experts can reliably tell them apart. He had met enough experts who could identify a vineyard and vintage blind to know there was something to it. Identifying a specific wine is easy, even non experts can learn to do it. What experts have shown to fail is telling good wines from bad wines, cheapo wines from…

> There they are not asked to identify a label and vintage they already known and are familiar with (because they drank it before), but to detect quality.

No, they are asked to detect price.

Re: Is wine fake?

#256

Post by selimthegrim »

bombcar wrote: post #163
randomdata wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't present day Carl's Jr. just Hardee's by another name? Hardee's began as a burger joint as well. According to research from the University of Guelph, hotdogs are comparatively uncommon in fast food because hotdogs are harder to cook consistently and have a shorter window of enjoyability which makes them less suited to fast food than hamburgers.

Yeah, I was thinking of the ubiquity of "street food hot dogs" which are now basically gone (Costco still has hot dogs, however, and baseball stadiums are required to have hot dogs).

Lucky Dog in New Orleans would like a word.

Re: Is wine fake?

#257

Post by LesZedCB »

nkrisc wrote: post #41
Stratoscope wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I roast my own coffee and buy most of my green beans from Sweet Maria's. Maria's husband Tom writes the tasting notes for each variety, such as... Rwanda Dry Process Macuba "Berry notes, floral impression, ripe blackberry, blueberry, fruited acidity, darker roasts tie in delicious bittersweet undertones, like strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce." Yemen Al Qafr Hawari "Sweet, somewhat rustic, notes of pistachio coo…

I don’t think I could ever tell two different coffee varieties apart, but I can definitely tell good coffee from bad coffee. Though that’s probably mostly about the roast and freshness more than anything. So there’s probably something to it but I imagine most of it is unintentional bullshit.

you need to try them next to each other.

here's james hoffmann's guide to cupping coffee at home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSEgP4VNynQ

Re: Is wine fake?

#258

Post by TulliusCicero »

antognini wrote: post #49

One of my professors in grad school was really into wine and every couple of years he would put on an after-hours wine tasting class for a semester. One of the points he made was that there are absolutely wines which are objectively better and worse and that experts can reliably tell them apart. He had met enough experts who could identify a vineyard and vintage blind to know there was something to it. But sitting on…

> the quality of a typical wine increases monotonically with price up until around the $40 range with the big steps around the $5, $10, and $20 price points.

How does this jive with the studies showing that, if anything, regular people have a slight preference for cheaper wines?

Re: Is wine fake?

#259

Post by jacobr1 »

78124781 wrote: post #180
taneq wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. I live in a wine region and an $8 bottle from the local booze shop can sometimes be found in restaurants on the other side of the world for $50+. Is not just that cheap wine is often as good as expensive wine, sometimes it’s exactly the same thing.

I once met a local winemaker from a tiny winery in a foreign country who was proud to say that their wine was being served a restaurant in the US. I asked them how much they thought the wine would be priced at given that it was their entry-level wine. The winemaker estimated $20-25. We looked it up--it was $60.

That is standard restaurant markup over retail: 200-300%. So a $20 wine you get a wineshop should be priced $60-80 in a restaurant.

One secret is that most nicer restaurants allow you to bring your own wine, provided you pay a "corkage" fee of usually $10-40. So if the wine is say, $30 retail + $20 corkage, you are better off than paying $90-120 for the same bottle at the restaurant.

Re: Is wine fake?

#260

Post by bombcar »

jacobr1 wrote: post #247
bombcar wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was thinking of the ubiquity of "street food hot dogs" which are now basically gone (Costco still has hot dogs, however, and baseball stadiums are required to have hot dogs).

How much of that is health code enforcement rather than demand?

That’s just it - health code enforcement got better and now you can’t feed people sawdust and rat.
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