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Is wine fake?

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Re: Is wine fake?

#541

Post by dejv »

denton-scratch wrote: post #505
dejv wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Napoleonic inheritance laws resulted in the continued subdivision of Burgundy landholdings, so that some wines come from tiny plots. There are lots of tiny wine producers in Burgundy. I'm surprised that plots appear on the market at all; I supposed that nearly all plots were kept in the family.

Inheritance tax force many to sell. Still it is not like a lot of plots hits the market.

Re: Is wine fake?

#542

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

petre wrote: post #453
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…

Which directly reflects the quality of the wine drinking public. I like the French approach better: educate your customers' tastes. In Russia they also drink sweet wines because most people there view wine as a juice that one puts in their vodka. The rich substitute the wine with very expensive champagne.

The Russian preference for sweet wine might be due to Stalin, actually:

> The production of Soviet champagne prioritized quantity over quality. Grape growers uprooted acres of indigenous vines from Moldova to Tajikistan and replaced them with durable, high-yield varieties that catered to Stalin’s sweet tooth.

> The result was Sovetskoye Shampanskoye, a cheap, syrup-sweet sparkling wine for the ordinary Soviet worker.

https://www.singaporewinevault.com/busting-the-myths-around-...

Re: Is wine fake?

#543

Post by Retric »

randomdata wrote: post #538
Retric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In antiquity it was more what we might call street food or fast casual. What really defines fast food is mass production and uniformity.

> In antiquity it was more what we might call street food In context, though, the original commenter considered things like street hotdog vendors to be fast food. That is not unlike the kind of delivery you would find in antiquity, even if the actual food product differed. > What really defines fast food is mass production and uniformity. Technically, what really defines a term is how it is used in a certain context…

From this post I assumed they agreed with me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33705493

> It’s a weird thing - people in the USA know what you mean by fast food and somehow McDonald’s under a heat lamp counts (rarer now but still found) but burgers at the gas station under a heat lamp don’t count.

Re: Is wine fake?

#544

Post by Bayart »

eloff wrote: post #376
School-Cotton wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The thing that blew me away about France is you could buy a bottle of wine in the supermarket for less than a bottle of coca cola.

That would be cooking wine. Please don't drink it.

Re: Is wine fake?

#545

Post by hnfong »

randerson wrote: post #373
etempleton wrote: post #121

Wine is just fermented grapes. It is not magic. Expensive bottles of wine may be better on average, but largely just because they put in even more quality controls and so deliver a more consistent wine. It is not magnitudes of a difference. People talk about wine like it is magic or high art. That there is something deeper to understand. There really isn’t.

It's not just grapes. Many wines technically aren't even vegan. Not uncommon for gelatin, egg whites, milk, or fish bladders and many other additives to be used in achieving the desired taste and color before the wine is filtered.

Curious, do you have a source for... "fish bladders"?

Re: Is wine fake?

#546

Post by teh_klev »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #533
teh_klev wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also minimum alcohol pricing in Scotland.

Just checked, what a rubbish law. Doesn’t affect the rich who drink expensive stuff while screwing the poor. In the name of protecting people as well.

Yep. It also made unnecessary busy work for UK wide online retailers such as Majestic who had to add a special case for sales to folks in Scotland.

Re: Is wine fake?

#547

Post by chris1993 »

gravelc wrote: post #327

My absolute favourite wine in the world is less than AU$30 a bottle - every vintage is spectacular. The winemaker wants ordinary people to drink his wines, so this is the price he sets. They are accordingly very difficult to buy - cellar door opens for just 2 weekends a year and supply is very limited. I’d back virtually anyone who likes this style to genuinely enjoy it, without knowing anything about its provenance.…

and what is this favourite wine?

Re: Is wine fake?

#548

Post by nkrisc »

heckelson wrote: post #226
dahfizz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got gifted a coffee subscription recently, and I was actually surprised how different each coffee was. I think almost anyone could tell the difference between different coffees side by side. I just don't think people are super focused on the coffee flavor when they drink their regular brew.

I've also heard that if the coffee is too hot, the flavours don't come out completely (heard it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo ), so maybe that plays into it too?

I’ve found that brewing my coffee in 190 F water in an infuser type pot to give the taste I prefer best. Just good coffee flavor with no bitterness and is also conveniently a temperature that is immediately drinkable by the time I pour it.

Re: Is wine fake?

#549

Post by KineticLensman »

betaby wrote: post #52
KineticLensman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Croatia many years ago, we ordered the cheapest bottle on the wine list. It was disgusting. The locals were amazed that we didn't know to water it down before drinking.

It is a tradition there? What is the name of that wine?

Yes, it is a tradition (see other comments here).

> What is the name of that wine?

Sorry, I just don't remember after all this time. Although IIRC the label's picture had a peasant sort of character who appeared to be holding a glass at arm's length (or at least that's how we interpreted it)

Re: Is wine fake?

#550

Post by greyhair »

I enjoy wine, I am not a connoisseur by any stretch, but I can differentiate enough that I know what I like, and what I don't.

Friends of mine have held two professionally run wine tastings over the years, and they were great fun, and very educational. The wines were all decanted, you could not see what they were, and it was interesting to see that every wine scored on a bell curve with the group. The scores were anonymous, so you didn't have to worry about how you felt about any given wine.

My favorite part is that in each of the two tasting sessions, the highest price bottle scored well, but not at the top. In each, the top white and the top red were both roughly $30 dollar bottles. Also in each, a couple roughly $10 bottles scored really well.

The other thing that I learned, and apply regularly, is that at the $20 price point, you are generally buying a good tasting bottle of wine. $16 to $24 seems to be a really safe range for my tastes

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