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Is wine fake?

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Re: Is wine fake?

#241

Post by BashiBazouk »

noodlesUK wrote: post #3

I am no wine guru but I do know one thing for sure. There is definitely such a thing as bad wine. If paying a little more would guarantee not having a terrible bottle, that would make me pretty happy. In the real world I've not found that to be true though.

There is. My father was really in to California wines in the 70's and 80's. From my freshmen year of high school in the early 80's I was always served a glass of wine with dinner. A couple of years in to this my friends and I hit our peak drinking phase. One would come up with a gallon jug of Gallo or some off brand box of wine. I would take a sip and just no. I can't drink this, it's awful. Now beer I could drink some of the worst, 40's of old English 800 for example, but wine, ya it at least had to be palatable before I would touch the stuff. My friends thought I was a snob...

Re: Is wine fake?

#242

Post by Tenoke »

acchow wrote: post #162
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…

> But unless you're seeking out that particular flavor profile It's not just seeking out a particular flavor profile. If you want to experience something novel for your mouth and you've been drinking only $20 bottles for years, you will never encounter anything new. But if you try $100 bottles, you're much more likely to accidentally discover something new (whether you like it or not is subjective) Continuously searc…

I don't see how that follows. There's an enormous amount of different $20 bottles. There's probably enough different ones every year that if you try to you can have a different wine every single time you drink and still spend < $30 (to factor in shipping from further) per bottle - though going so hard on exploration without exploitation of the ones you find you like seems suboptimal anyway.

Re: Is wine fake?

#243

Post by tqi »

It's interesting to me that the focus of this question is whether or not Wine experts are full shit or not. I have no trouble believing that with all the differences in inputs and technique, the final products would have material differences, and that some individuals are able to distinguish the difference.

More interesting to me is whether with enough experience I (or most people) can develop into one of those people - ie whether it is more akin to learning to read or learning to dunk.

Re: Is wine fake?

#244

Post by girvo »

nitwit005 wrote: post #168
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…

But, there is the usual trick there. How do you transform your wine from a $5 wine to a $10 wine? Raise the price by $5. The assumption of quality is something exploitable.

There’s a better trick: chuck it in a blender for 30 seconds. Really softens the shitty flavours some cheap wines have haha

Re: Is wine fake?

#245

Post by jacobr1 »

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…

There probably are objectively 4 categories of wine that pretty much everybody will agree with when given a blind test:

bad - wine that actually has gone bad (skunked, turned to vinegar or some other faul)

low-quality - jug wine (high sugar and/or extremely high acidity and/or strong ethanol flavor)

average/meh - the wine is drinkable and nothing stands out

good wine - the wine hits all the key traits of its varietal

Those super-sensitive can get more fine grained, and anyone who doesn't hate wine will have a 5th "great" category based on their personal preferences. But those are replicable consistently across the population.

The average/good distinction is trainable for the average person with some practice.

Re: Is wine fake?

#246

Post by golergka »

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…

There's plenty more colas for more refined tastes, starting with Coca-Cola signature mixers. They were originally created for bartenders, but I think majority of people would pretty easily tell them apart from Cola and Pepsi in a blind tasting.

Re: Is wine fake?

#247

Post by jacobr1 »

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).

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

Re: Is wine fake?

#248

Post by coldtea »

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 also using sipping and the unblinded tests are using drinking.

Re: Is wine fake?

#249

Post by shakow »

int_19h wrote: post #209
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.

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.

According to Google Shopping, the typical price range is from 19€ to 50€.

Re: Is wine fake?

#250

Post by jacobr1 »

davnicwil wrote: post #123
lvass wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true in South america. I've had a ton of different sub-$5 wines. In my experience, if you randomly buy 20 bottles of $5 wines, one is better than a $100 bottle, plus you also get some 5 great wines, 10 good ones and the rest works for cooking. The best wine I've ever drank cost less than $3 and was produced in a tropical (21 South), 800m altitude region of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Never assume wine is bad bec…

> The best wine I've ever drank Do you remember what this was called, or specifically where? If I'm ever there I'd love to find this!

One of the big differences in this category (cheap wines) is consistently. You can genuinely find great wines, but there is much greater variance in the quality year to year, or within variety of the same winery. In other words, the following year might be a crap wine, good, or in-between.
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