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Is wine fake?

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Re: Is wine fake?

#521
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been a lot of blind wine tastings done and the results are always interesting. Sometimes cheap bottles score as high, or higher than vintages. Other times people can spot the cheap "carton" wine easily. My wife and I love to cook, have discussed opening our own restaurant, have eaten at lots of very expensive "haute cuisine" restaurants and have tasted lots of wines. Part of the "problem" is that taste is…

You seem very experienced at wine and food, so I hope you know this. I can taste a wine and like it just fine if I haven’t eaten or drink anything else. But if I eat anything, even just the tiniest bit, the wine to me just becomes sour and I can only taste the alcohol. This completely ruined wine for me. Is this common?

The phenomenon of one flavour "colouring" another is perfectly normal. So that in that sense it is "common." I've not heard too many people say that food will "ruin" wine for them, though.

Wine "pairing" is a whole thing. Certain wines go better with certain foods. A good sommelier is expected to be an expert in wine pairings and will recommend wines based on your food order.

The principle is what chefs think of as "balancing" flavours. There are 5 recognized basic flavours: salt, sweet, acidity (sourness), bitterness and "umami" (savoury).

When learning to cook creatively aspiring chefs will think about balancing these flavours, as each will affect your perception of the other. Salt will "neutralize" / "tame" bitterness, sweetness will do the same for acidity / sourness and vice versa.

If what you find is that your wines taste sour after eating a food, then you are probably sensitive to sweetness and / or sourness. Most people can experience what you are describing by eating a bite of something really sweet, like cheesecake, and then tasting a dry wine. It will taste VERY sour as a result because your taste buds have just been desensitized to sweetness based on the really sweet food that you just ate, so the sweetness in the wine will not be perceived, leaving only the acidity.

It just sounds like in your case this phenomenon has been dialed up to 11.

Re: Is wine fake?

#522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if I buy a 2022 wine today and store it for 5 years? Will it be the same as buying the same vintage in 2027 from the wine seller? I guess what I'm asking is if there's some special storage requirements which can't be met at home?

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…

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Re: Is wine fake?

#523
post #369

Wine quality = 12.145 + 0.00117 winter rainfall + 0.0614 average growing season temperature - 0.00386 harvest rainfall This is the formula developed by Orley Ashenfelter to predict the quality of wine, as described in the book Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres. It is the Moneyball of wine and he claims it does just as well as experts.

Sahara will easily top this, no?

Re: Is wine fake?

#524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, I think it's a bit rich to call it the origin of fast food. Particularly when we just got finished talking about fast food in antiquity. I suppose that explains why nobody said such a thing.

I made a specific response then expanded to a general point. What point does your comment make other than bickering?

Why would there be a point? If there was a point it would be presented to the real world where it would provide value, not a meaningless text box on a website made to provide entertainment. What is to be gained from looking for something that doesn't exist?

Re: Is wine fake?

#525
post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I normally only drink beer but the guy at the bottle shop knows me. He recommended a wine to me the other day, $10. He was right. I grabbed a case for $8 a bottle.

I don't mean to sound patronising but my take on this is simply that he's a good salesman who levered up the personal relationship he's established with you

So? “Knowing a guy” is always about buying stuff

Re: Is wine fake?

#526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been a lot of blind wine tastings done and the results are always interesting. Sometimes cheap bottles score as high, or higher than vintages. Other times people can spot the cheap "carton" wine easily. My wife and I love to cook, have discussed opening our own restaurant, have eaten at lots of very expensive "haute cuisine" restaurants and have tasted lots of wines. Part of the "problem" is that taste is…

>My wife and I love to cook, have discussed opening our own restaurant, have eaten at lots of very expensive "haute cuisine" restaurants and have tasted lots of wines. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking “I like to cook” means “I would like to run a restaraunt”. They’re two completely different things.

Agreed and you don't need to tell me that. I have experience in food service, my extended family has also owned multiple restaurants. I personally spent 15 years running my own business, though not hospitality so it's not quite apples and apples. While we haven't taken the plunge I am putting it mildly when I say "like to cook" and did not feel it necessary to go into my background and knowledge about what goes into the food service industry.

Re: Is wine fake?

#527
post #515
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frequently the wine seems hyper local - what I was there in a restaurant we often just ordered the house wine. If you talked to the waiters or owners it was frequently made locally and including by the owners grown in backyards of the hole in the wall places. I think it cuts out a lot of costs - and there was not a bad wine among them.

I always thought that "house wine" is just an euphemism for "whatever we could get our hands on" - a workaround for the restaurant so that they do not have to list a specific brand on the menu.

That is likely true from time to time, but most restaurants seems to keep it fairly consistent as far as I can tell. I think it’s more often a choice of taste on the part of the restaurant for a less expensive but decent wine.

Re: Is wine fake?

#528
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?

Yes, you definitely have to brew your coffee correctly. Honestly, I've found regular cheap coffee makers are acceptably good and consistent. They are designed to drip water that is the right temp.

Where you have to be careful is when boiling the water yourself for a chemex or aeropress brew. Done right, those are better. But I can't be bothered most days.

Re: Is wine fake?

#529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adding sugar to wine is considered a great offense, and is not only illegal in France, but a disagrace. That's not true. Adding sugar is even part of some AOP. It's used to regulate the amount alcohol in the finish product.

It was a simplification on my part. If you want to be precise, then chaptalisation (the process of regulating alcohol quantity using sugar) is illegal in south of France vineyards, forbidden everywhwere when mixed with acidification processes, and allowed but under very strict conditions otherwise in "septentrionales" vineyards (which I have no idea how to translate in English).

> and allowed but under very strict conditions otherwise in "septentrionales" vineyards (which I have no idea how to translate in English).

Northern / northerly?

Re: Is wine fake?

#530
Expensive wines are expensive because they are rare, not because they are better. If you value your money its not for you. The same is not true of beer, I can't really say with liquor
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