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Is wine fake?

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Re: Is wine fake?

#441

Post by dejv »

heelix wrote: post #411
gerdesj wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all wines are the same! Some can benefit from aging but not all. The whole idea of "sealing" wine in a bottle is to keep it and not actually change it. It's a preservation method. However, the bottle is not really completely sealed and the small air gap at the top is not empty either. The cork might allow a tiny amount of air transfer too. The remains of the wine creation process might also leave some reactive co…

Haha. Rewinding back to my university days, I had picked up what I thought was a very nice bottle of Beaujolais. I put it above my fridge... and fast forward, opened it with my Bride of 20 years. Pure vinegar. I suspect that bottle had just about everything wrong done to it storage wise, outside of freezing solid.

There are very few wines that could be aged , most commercial bottles are good for 1 to 3 years bo matter how well you store them. Even wines from respectable producers are often going to start being broken in 10 years or so. Wine is living thing and the biological and biochemical processes are going to ruin the liquid at some point. Wines that could survive 20, 30 or more years are exception not rule and you need to know which one to pick.

Re: Is wine fake?

#442

Post by dejv »

base698 wrote: post #332
Bayart wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Luckily France doesn't have to pay $1 million an acre like a Napa winery.

Unless they are in Burgundy. 10million an acre for some nicer, but not top, parcels are not uncommon.

Re: Is wine fake?

#443

Post by Foobar8568 »

abandonliberty wrote: post #420
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…

In a similar vein, Best of Panama does a coffee auction where the highest rated coffee sold this year for $2000/lb. It's something like this each year, with a huge premium on first place. https://auction.bestofpanama.org/en/lots/auction/auction-202...

Look at Ninety Plus producer, these $2000 /lb looks like a bargain.

More seriously coffee can be as expensive as wine, and frankly speaking, for good reason. The difference between farms, fermentation process, roasting skills for a se varietal /region produces large differences, like for wine.

Re: Is wine fake?

#444

Post by Foobar8568 »

tracker1 wrote: post #408
NikolaNovak wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would personally put many things such as coffee and beer there - I've grown in cultures that have and consume them a LOT, but I'm 45 and still hate the taste of both. Acquired taste one way or another, and I never bothered acquiring it. (Interestingly enough though, two of my buddies also never had a taste for them, until in their late 20s they literally decided to "get into it". Boggles my mind if you're not caffe…

As to trying to develop a taste for things like coffee, beer or wine... I can only say culture is probably the biggest part of it. I tend to have coffee about once a week, mostly for the caffeine... if I have it more than once or twice a week, it doesn't work. But it really helps me get through being up earlier than I'm naturally inclined to for several days. I'd still like it to taste halfway palatable, so I tend to…

Coffee can vary largely in terms of taste, between pull lever ristretto and a French press, it can be considered as two different drinks. Drink a 100% robusta espresso (or a blend containing some Large amounts of Robusta) and then a anaerobic coffee from equador or Panama (gesha, Ethiopian hybrid varietal and the like), and one would taste like an Italian espresso while the other a fruity drink.

Same goes with beer or wine, quality goes up with price but in the end, it's all a matter of personal preference.

Considered what you wrote, your palate is looking for sugary stuff, and this wouldn't work for coffee, chocolate, beer or wine.

Sugar kills everything.

Re: Is wine fake?

#445

Post by masklinn »

antognini wrote: post #432
CSSer wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the privilege to get a behind the scenes tour of a winery once because a friend’s family were the owners. They had some pretty sophisticated lab equipment. You could drop in a sample and it could tell you all sorts of things about its chemical makeup (magic to me because I never took much Chemistry). I asked them what sample attribute had the highest correlation with sales and without even hesitating they told…

> I asked them what sample attribute had the highest correlation with sales and without even hesitating they told me it was sugar content. This was the cause of a big scandal back in the 1980s when it was discovered that some Austrian winemakers were adding antifreeze to their wines. The wines are tested for their sugar content, but diethylene glycol has a sweet test and wouldn't be detected on standard chemical test…

So that’s why it happened. I’d heard about the event but not the reason so I always assumed it had been some sort of contamination, or related to wine preservation. But no it was straight up devs bypass?

Re: Is wine fake?

#446

Post by Foobar8568 »

matwood wrote: post #363
FpUser wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tasted some sparkling wines that to me were way better than Dom Perignon. And Pino Noir (forgot particular brand) I get for 20 Canadian pesos again tasted to me way better that some wine I bought for $120 to check why the fuck does it cost so much. So yes I am pretty sure that some wine is objectively better than sulfuric acid but the rest is just a matter of individual taste. It does not matter that the tester can…

> I tasted some sparkling wines that to me were way better than Dom Perignon. The thing about champagne is it produced using the traditional method [1]. As long as other sparkling wines are also made using the same method, they can be quite good. My favorite non-champagne sparkling wines are Crémants[2]. Much cheaper than champagne, but as good or better depending on your personal tastes [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/…

Créments tend to be much sweeter than Champagne, hardly comparable, not like I enjoy either. To me, Champagne is basically a nostalgic drink at this stage.

Re: Is wine fake?

#447

Post by masklinn »

lisper wrote: post #59

As someone who ran a wine-tasting group for several years I can tell you this: there are definitely discernible differences between wines. What there is not, however, is any kind of absolute standard for what constitutes a "good" wine. Different people like different things. There are two things that makes wines expensive, and neither of them necessarily correlates with whether a particular wine will taste good to yo…

> Old wines cost more because you have to pay for the storage.

And loss. A bottle of wine is not a lug nut, it does not sit nigh imputrescible.

Re: Is wine fake?

#448

Post by hot_gril »

This is how I know it's not fake: I was fortunate enough to taste very expensive wines repeatedly as a teenager, not understanding their significance. Yeah I thought the whole thing was snobby, but the wine just tasted so good! When I bought mid-tier wine for the first time at age 21, it tasted "hot," like rubbing alcohol. Same with all the others from the grocery store. I still buy it but often leave it sitting for hours before drinking it, even though I haven't tasted any expensive wines in several years. My friends always say I have low standards for living conditions, which maybe I do, but when it comes to wine, seems like I'm permanently spoiled.

Re: Is wine fake?

#449

Post by mlyle »

coldtea wrote: post #248
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #213

Two scientific points to bring up about this article: 1. When the author talks about Coke vs. Pepsi, he comes to the conclusion that the reason people prefer Pepsi in blind taste tests but Coke in unblinded ones is "Think of it as the brain combining two sources of input to make a final taste perception: the actual taste of the two sodas and a preconceived notion (probably based on great marketing) that Coke should t…

> so if you're just taking a few quick sips (as most taste tests are set up), you may prefer the sweeter taste of Pepsi because it stands out more, but if you're drinking a whole bunch, the sweeter taste of Pepsi can feel cloying. This is not about drinking or sipping though. This is about people prefer Pepsi in blind tests and Coke in unblinded tests. So this explanation would only make sense if the blind tests are…

> So this explanation would only make sense if the blind tests are also using sipping and the unblinded tests are using drinking.

The blind tests are using small, sipping quantities.

People purchasing soft drinks for at home generally are drinking them.

The article draws a distinction between blind taste-test ("Pepsi Challenge") behavior and consumers' purchasing habits/general preferences.

Re: Is wine fake?

#450

Post by Foobar8568 »

tguvot wrote: post #354
femto wrote: post #78

It's fun to do a "blind tasting party". Get a bunch of friends to each bring a bottle. Maybe give a criteria, like a price range, so people don't feel obliged to impress with the price tag. All bottles are delivered to the kitchen at the beginning of the night, where the host puts each in a numbered paper bag. Each attendee gets a score sheet. Start serving, either by pouring or just putting a few bottles on the tabl…

I played a more "advanced" version of this. There was roulette like table. you could bet on drink name/type (type of wine/whisky/rakia/vodka/etc..), country of origin and what it's made from. Dealer was pouring under table from covered bottles.

Omg I would use so many fun spirits on that one. Any aged barrel rum or tequila would make most people so confused.
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