461–470 of 559 posts
I suppose wine snobs also enjoy wine for their own irrational reasons, and that's ok with me.
Santé !
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…
A joke in the UK is that the unofficial slogan of Pepsi is 'yeah fine whatever mate' because when you order Coca-Cola in a pub and they (for some reason) stock Pepsi instead they always have to ask 'is Pepsi ok?'.
1. If you doubt high end wine exists (e.g., it's all BS above $20 or whatever people say) and you have the means, find a bottle of Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage (the Syrah) of any vintage. Enjoy it at your favorite Italian / French restaurant. If they know wine they'll be happy you brought it. The Chave is far from cheap but it's affordable for what I call superwines (get it, like supercars?) and it really is something you'll never forget.
There is a quality with great red wine that in indescribable -- I've never even met a wine person who can describe it -- but it's undeniable when you experience it. I've experienced it with great wines like that Chave and occasionally with (lucky) midrange wines.
2. The rest of an enjoyable relationship with wine is mostly avoiding bad ones. But you develop strategies for this over time. It's very easy to get a red wine that's harsh or a white wine that's too sweet. These won't be fun to drink and will pair poorly with food if you're eating. Some tips:
- If you need a white to drink or eat with, favor Sauvignon Blanc -- it's not too sweet, it usually hasn't been oaked to death and apparently pretty hard to screw up. Get Marlborough if you want something fruity and anything French if you want something more laid back.
- If you're eating red meat favor Napa Cab. It's really hard to go wrong here.
- If you're in France or Italy just get anything. That close to the source + a strong wine culture you'll rarely be disappointed. This is a good time to try new wines.
- If you need a Champagne, it's Billecart-Salmon without question. It's one of the smaller Champagne houses who isn't caught up in prestige-pricing, glamour Champagne fashion BS. Affordable and excellent.
Things to avoid:
- Bordeaux -- now, I drink this a lot but I have experience. If you really need to (it's sounds cool) favor the left bank wines. They're generally higher value. I say avoid because the market is full of crappy, low cost Bordeaux that just takes advantage of the label.
- Burgundy -- just say no. Burgundy is arguably the best red. But not the bottle you're going to buy. You have to really know what you're doing here or be willing to spend a lot. I've gotten lucky once with a cheap bottle of Burgundy and when I say cheap that is relative.
- Pinot in general. Burgundy can rarely pull it off, no one else can either.
- Chardonnay -- tends to be too oaky or too sweet.
- Pretty much any other white, for the same reason.
- Sparkling wine. See Champagne above. Prosecco is too sweet and pretty much everything else is a crapshoot.
Wash:
- Italian reds are my favorite and they can be equally good and affordable but it's a bit of a crapshoot. Look for things that are 100% Nebbiolo, Sangiovese or 'Super Tuscans' which are basically the same blend as Bordeaux (but usually better at the same price). For the most part, avoid the other stuff.
- Montrachet -- arguably the best white (Chardonnay) that can be had but they're pricy and still hit and miss.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 o…
Nevertheless, the effect of sugar is more complex. For example, I do not like cocoa alone or in too high concentration, as too bitter. Sugar is pleasant, but when alone I do not care about it, I prefer most food with no sugar at all.
On the other hand, I find addictive the combinations of sugar with certain flavors, e.g. sugar + cocoa or sugar + vanilla. So, at least for me, the combination of sugar and cocoa has a very different effect than each component alone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in wine country. Used to have winemakers in the school PTA, so I got to know some of these folks... I'd completely agree with your professor. I'm not a "serious" wine drinker, but with a couple pointers you can pretty quickly start telling the difference in quality. One of our favorite "party tricks" is to set a budget ($10, $15, $20, etc) and buy a handful of bottles - turns out there's a lot of very enjoyabl…
> but with a couple pointers you can pretty quickly start telling the difference in quality Interesting, for most other things I can taste, nobody has to teach me to identify quality. Either it tastes better or it doesn't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
(...) some wines would be presented to the panel three times, poured from the same bottle each time. The results would be compiled and analysed to see whether wine testing really is scientific. The first experiment took place in 2005. The last was in Sacramento earlier this month. Hodgson's findings have stunned the wine industry. Over the years he has shown again and again that even trained, professional palates are terrible at judging wine. "The results are disturbing," says Hodgson from the Fieldbrook Winery in Humboldt County, described by its owner as a rural paradise. "Only about 10% of judges are consistent and those judges who were consistent one year were ordinary the next year.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-wine-econ...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-wine-econ...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-wine-econ...
Heck, they can't even distinguish wine with artificial coloring from actual red wine:
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I think you are saying the same thing the original comment was saying.
I argue that this doesn't make sense as an explanation, as blind vs unblinded testing is orthogonal to sipping vs drinking.
So, if this is the explanation, they'd have to set the testsa very particular way, for seemingly no reason (expept, perhaps, such manipulation of results).
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…
Well that spoils the next tastings. You can remember what the expensive wines taste like and score them higher in the future.