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Is wine fake?

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Re: Is wine fake?

#291

Post by thrwy_918 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #258
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?

Perhaps regular people, many of whom don't drink much wine, prefer simple, unchallenging flavors that can often be found in cheap wine. Theres nothing wrong with this, but I don't think it necessarily means that wine "quality" doesn't exist.

Re: Is wine fake?

#292

Post by emmelaich »

lkrubner wrote: post #2

I worked at WineSpectator.com in 2012-2013. I'll say this in their favor: the wine tastings were blind. A bunch of interns would set up the wine tasting, pouring the wine into glasses and then hiding the bottles. Only after everything was setup were the editors allowed into the room. So when the editors drank the wine, they had no idea if they were drinking a $9 bottle or a $900 bottle. They had to focus on the taste…

While I don't doubt your story, to really eliminate any chance of cheating you need Amazing Randi levels of procedure and knowledge.

Re: Is wine fake?

#293

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

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…

I dated a sommelier with a physics degree for some time and this matches what I learned from her. She had the lesser certificate not the crazy Master one, but still her own kit for doing blind tastings and could reliably identify appellation and varietal if not the vintage and vineyard. Not perfect but right enough to know it wasn't chance.

For most people you really don't need to go above $20 for a wine that's world class in terms of quality. At the higher price points most of what you're buying into is the story and exclusivity. There are things you can taste but as you say, it's arguable if these are actually virtues beyond those two features, and it's doubtful if it outweighs the cost unless you have a lot of disposable income.

Re: Is wine fake?

#294

Post by School-Cotton »

Bayart wrote: post #205
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…

It's common wisdom in France. If you're paying more than 20 euros for a bottle, it's probably already too much. And it's very common for people to buy in bulk at the favour of seasonal discounts or from the producer. If you want to look smart at a dinner party, bring a bottle of something nobody's ever heard about that's remarkably cheap for what you get.

Wine is far more expensive in the US than in France, for various reasons.

Re: Is wine fake?

#295

Post by lazyant »

wmil wrote: post #112
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…

> He was of the opinion that generally speaking 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. I'm always amused when I hear this, because I live in Ontario. Our alcohol laws are set up to heavily favour local wines. Of course Ontario reds are consistently both more expensive and worse than foreign wines. High…

Yes, I just checked and LCBO's (Ontario province quasi-monopoly on alcohol) and the cheapest bottle of wine is CAD $7.25, an Ontario one so probably terrible. Gallo is CAD $11 which I guess is the US $5 option. Cheap wine bottles are around CAD $9.

Alcohol here is as expensive as in Hawaii (maybe a bit more), OTOH LCBO employs people and there's something to say about more expensive alcohol may prevent alcoholism/accidents etc.

Re: Is wine fake?

#296

Post by staticautomatic »

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…

I worked in the wine industry for a handful of years and wholeheartedly agree.

Re: Is wine fake?

#297

Post by munificent »

> Judges were most consistent at the bottom of the range—they always agreed terrible wines were terrible—and least consistent near the top.

A hypothesis to explain this: We've evolved a detailed sense of taste to help us distinguish harmful food (spoiled, inedible, etc.) from safe food. That would suggest that our sense of taste is most heavily calibrated to detect bad flavors since those are the actionable danger signals that tell us to spit something out.

Part of something tasting good is simply the absence of off-putting bad flavors. Then, once those are out of the way, you can have more interesting but subtle nuances that elevate it to something much better.

I suspect that it's easier to reach agreement on bad wine (or bad food of any category) because it's likely bad because of the presence of one or more wrong notes that most of us are sensitive to and dislike.

Once you've eliminated all of those, you have a wine that's good but perhaps undifferentiated. To go beyond that, though, you quickly enter the realm of personal preference. Because any flavor component that doesn't signal danger is equally as valid as any other and it may be mostly up to memory associations or other mostly arbitrary preferences.

Re: Is wine fake?

#298

Post by School-Cotton »

atkailash wrote: post #225
int_19h wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This depends on the specific kind of wine you're looking for, surely? It would be hard to find icewine for 20 euros, I'd think.

And 8 euro wine at Monoprix is better than some >$20 I’ve had in the US. My guess is in France competition is so high and it’s easily sourced that prices don’t necessarily correlate as closely to quality as it does in some other markets.

The US also has very high taxes on wine compared to the wine-producing countries of Europe (which AFAIK subsidize it).

Similar to how a pack of cigarettes costs $15 in NYC and $6 in Raleigh, NC.

Re: Is wine fake?

#299

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

2b3a51 wrote: post #152
wwweston wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm sure there's more to it and it could be great to know what some of the specifics are, but it also seems like someone who likes to cook is going to need to be present for a good restaurant

Perhaps a quick skim of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential might help. His position is that running a restaurant is very different from cooking for yourself and friends. But obviously many people do set up and run restaurants.

Not always successfully.

But... quoted industry failure rates are insanely variable - from 17% to 60% in the first year, depending who you ask. The variability possibly says something interest in itself.

Clearly a restaurant is literally a food production line. It has to run smoothly and efficiently across a wide range of circumstances and load factors. And it has to handle shortages and customers who may be overly demanding, drunk/high/irrational, or actively hostile, while keeping staff morale high.

I'd guess that being able to make something nice at home seems like a good start, but isn't necessarily the most relevant qualification from a business POV.

Re: Is wine fake?

#300

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

2devnull wrote: post #101
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…

Wine makers can easily pick out flaws of different sorts. Wine tasters and wine makers do not taste wines in the same way based on my experience. Some flaws, like Bret, can improve the score of wines given by tasters for certain styles, but wine makers generally scoff at such flaws.

Lol, the somme I dated loved bretty flavors, much to my (playful) annoyance.
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