Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is wine fake?

asteriskmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 559 posts

Re: Is wine fake?

#351

Post by acchow »

Tenoke wrote: post #242
acchow wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sure, there are thousands of different $20 bottles, but they barely taste unique. It's like cheap coffee. Sure, there might be minute differences between the hundreds of cheap brands but they are barely discernible

Re: Is wine fake?

#352

Post by bombcar »

mauvehaus wrote: post #340
bombcar wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people who regularly drink Coke might not notice the difference right away but for someone who drinks diet drinks, regular coke tastes like straight syrup now.

I noticed immediately. I find the flavor of artificial sweeteners (and some of the recent plant-derived sugar substitutes) as distinctive as you find sugar. I recognize the irony of including HFCS among the "natural" sweeteners. Isn't that just 10,000 spoons (of sugar)?

Yeah I suspect the “it all tastes the same” comes from people who never drink it.

Re: Is wine fake?

#353

Post by onecommentman »

shakow wrote: post #249
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.

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

Wagner Vineyards in upstate NY has ice wine for $30/375ml, $27 (12+) and $24 if you join their club (cult?). Depending on the exchange rate, that can be about 20 Euros.

Re: Is wine fake?

#354

Post by tguvot »

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.

Re: Is wine fake?

#355

Post by Alex3917 »

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 above $50 or so, you're no longer paying for higher quality, per se.

You can't walk into a grocery store and buy a tree-ripened banana no matter how much money you're willing to pay. This is sort of the proper way to think about high-end wines, as a vehicle that enables one to do something like this, but obviously with grapes.

Re: Is wine fake?

#357

Post by lotsofpulp »

CharlesW wrote: post #301
analog31 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have sometimes speculated that the purpose of the $50 bottles is to make you think that you're being sensible by buying a $20 bottle, when really the $10 bottle is just fine. A few people will certainly buy the $50 bottle, but the real money is in upsale at the lower end.

In case you haven’t heard the term before, what you’re describing is called “anchoring”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)

A corollary to this is a restaurant selling the wine that they acquire for the lowest price at the mid tier price to maximize profit.

A diner choosing a wine will most likely eschew the lowest price option, and obviously the highest price option will be out of most people’s reach, but customers will “spring” for the mid priced option.

Re: Is wine fake?

#358

Post by triceratops »

selimthegrim wrote: post #287
triceratops wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A residential landlord can't charge you much more than market rate because you could just move. At some price point a mover is going to be cheaper. Often there's also various rent control laws. Commercial landlords, especially of restaurants, have way more pricing power because the tenants can't just move. Their customers expect them to be there, or there's a ton of existing foot traffic - location, location, locatio…

And you haven’t even covered the magical world of triple net leases yet

I don't actually know what that is. Like I said, I've never worked in the restaurant biz. Everything I've written is just from reading random shit online.

Re: Is wine fake?

#359

Post by zetazzed »

Is housing fake? Most people can tell a $100k house from a $700k house, but there are exceptions. For instance, viewers who are not experts in the San Francisco Bay Area region of housing often could not tell whether this house (https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/261-Minerva-St-94112...) or this house (https://www.redfin.com/TX/San-Antonio/4924-Appleseed-Ct-7823...) is the most expensive option.

Some commentators claim that certain housing experts have "preferences" (or "things they like"), but several studies that concealed the exteriors of housing from participants showed that university undergrads unblindfolded for fifteen seconds could not judge whether they were inside of a townhouse or a single family home!

TLDR - wine is not fake. Some people like different things and are willing to pay for it. Article is pretty fair but underemphasizes diversity of preferences. Don't buy expensive wine or an expensive house just because it has a fancy label unless you know it has some feature that you care about. If it does and you can afford it, then sure, go have fun.

Re: Is wine fake?

#360

Post by hoorible »

FpUser wrote: post #328
bnralt wrote: post #304

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. But sitting on top of that there is a frothy market that is driven by fads, speculation, and hype. I'm sure there are people that can identify different tastes.…

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…

What’s the exchange rate on Canadian pesos?
Post reply on HN