The Wine Thread

[GAME05]

what, a beer thread but no wine thread? i've been moving away from beer some in favour of liquor and wines. i'm no wine snob by any means, but quality is quality. the $6 bottles are most always nasty, but i hesitate at paying $20+ for a bottle of wine that will only yield four glasses worth. if other people are in this same boat, maybe there are some recommendations that could help us all out. also, what goes with what? there's a lot of fish down here in Southern Texas, and i know enough to serve white wine, but what kind?

[logan82]

I don't like white wine. I prefer darker dryer wines like Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet, and Shiraz. Australia makes good wine that isn't too expensive. Rosemount Estate is a winery I like.

[TooLiveBrew]

Have to plug this one... haven't had it in a while, but it was great -- Layer Cake Malbec. I wish I could remember which vintage I had, because it was stunningly good.

 

 

the $6 bottles are most always nasty

 

Not necessarily at all. If you're lucky enough to have a Trader Joe's in your area, not only do they have great selection & prices, but their wine staff tends to be knowledgeable. Even without a Trader Joe's, you can easily find good wine under $10/bottle.

 

 

there's a lot of fish down here in Southern Texas, and i know enough to serve white wine, but what kind?

 

It really depends on personal taste, even with more formal pairing suggestions/'rules'. I definitely prefer a dry white wine (Sauvingnon Blanc, many times) to pair with seafood. But Sauv. Blanc is really good to pair with a lot of different foods... I guess I'd suggest starting there as long as you like it.

[LouisEly]

Try the Ferrari Carano Tresor and it will change your mind about paying more than $20 for a bottle of wine.

 

I'm a meritage fan, and if you want a good blend at a lesser price then try Ferrari Carano's Siena.

 

If you must go cheap, then I recommend Menage a Trois red blend. Can usually be had for $10.

 

Edit - if you're looking for a white wine, I recommend Conundrum. Best white wine I've ever had. I believe a little over $10 as well.

[GormanHarvey]

^If you like meritage, try Apothic Red. Fantastic

[Thurston Fluff]

My back hurts and it's damp out. why do I have to work today? ...oh wine as in the beverage.

 

A lesson learned recently is have a white wine if eating spicy food.

[GAME05]

thanks, TLB. you gave me more courage to try out some $6 wine. i'm currently having some Jacob's Creek chardonnay (Australian) and it's not too bad.

 

i got some local wines and maybe they'll be a higher quality for a lower price.

[rwa12]

Never a good idea to judge wine solely by price, many good values at low price points! We enjoy sweeter wines, there is a local Missouri wine, Hermanhoff Vignoles, that we enjoy.

[MJLiverock]

Ravenswood Vinters Blend is a decent $10 or less bottle of wine, especially the California / Red Zin and the Cab. My wife likes the Rosemount Estate Shiraz as another $10 or so bottle of Red. I'm not a huge fan of whites, but Sauvignon Blanc is probably my best bet for finding a cheaper bottle, a lot of the Chardonnay are either way to sweet or way to acidic for my tastes. I think it is either the Australian or New Zealand's Marlboro coast that is an up and coming producer of Sauvignon Blancs that are decent on the cheaper end.

 

I tend to stay away from the local Wisconsin wines as they are way too sweet for my taste. There a couple of southern WI wines I have had and consider them quite possibly the worst wine I have ever tasted.

[twobrewers]

So far my favorite has been the Kunde Cabernet Sauvignon - I think it runs around $20 a bottle.

 

I've heard very good things about Layer Cake as well.

[strawbossisevil]

Basically, no one should ever spend more money on wine...if professional wine tasters can't tell the difference, I doubt anyone here can...

 

http://www.huffingtonpost...sive-wines_n_849198.html

[logan82]

Wine really has reached a mass production scale at this point. Hopefully we will get the same thing for beer in the near future.

[Funketown]

Basically, no one should ever spend more money on wine...if professional wine tasters can't tell the difference, I doubt anyone here can...

 

http://www.huffingtonpost...sive-wines_n_849198.html

I'm not a wine guy, but I'll chime in and perhaps defend all you winos.

 

The tasters were "578 drinkers at Edinburgh International Science Festival". From what it looks like, these aren't professional tasters.

 

I don't drink a ton of wine, and I don't have much of a palette for wine. I have a pretty decent palette for food and beer, but I just don't drink wine that often. I personally don't think I would find an expensive bottle better than a reasonably good cheap bottle. Of course, this doesn't mean that there are not people who are passionate about wine who can tell the difference between a good wine and a bad wine!

 

Edit: Oh, and I'll chime in that I do have one strong opinion on wine: If you're cooking with wine, don't spend much more than a ten, especially if you're cooking for a long time. Most of the flavor compounds will die out anyways, and in cooking, I doubt that anyone can tell the difference between using a good $10 bottle for a beef burgundy and a $25 or $30 bottle. :/end rant.

[strawbossisevil]

A wine magazine did a similar study with professional wine tasters and they came up with the same results. I'll have to see if I can find the link for that...

Edit: This isn't it, but this article includes a study done with professional taste testers http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/24/fine-wine/ Essentially the professional taste testers were offered the same cheap wine in a bottle that looked cheap, and a bottle that looked expensive. And they rated the expensive looking one as the far better of the two. Even professional taste testers are deceived by the visual stimuli to the point where they are incapable of making objective evaluations of the quality of the wine.

 

Basically, with wine, if you drink Pinot Grigio, very few if any can tell the difference between a $5 bottle from Trader Joes and the $30 bottle. The fun with wine is trying the different varieties, Pinot Grigio, Reisling, Syrah, Merlot...etc.

 

But, when in doubt, unless you are confident that you have an ability that surpasses what the various studies have found (even among professional wine tasters), find a kind of wine that you like and buy the cheaper bottle.

[MJLiverock]

I've got some Cabernet's (maybe 6-7 left) that are probably in the neighborhood of $100 each retail, to $150+ in a restaurant based on when I've seen them listed and I can tell they are very good in comparison to a $10 bottle. I probably crack one a year at the holiday's and have to admit they are smooth almost velvety with none of the tannin or bitter taste in comparison to regular old cheap bottles that are also open and normally drank. These are early 1990's Private Reserve wines from a California Winery that a buddy out there got me a great deal on about 8 years ago. I always laugh that if I could afford it I would drink the good Cab's over the cheap ones all the time. It isn't that the cheap ones are bad it is that some of the expensive ones are so good.

[chuckiehacks]

I agree on Cabernets. For me, that is the one varietal (maybe Pinot Noir too) that I can really tell a difference between a cheap bottle and an expensive one. I'll spend more for those wines, but if I'm drinking Syrah, Pinot Grigio, Souvignon Blanc, or Petite Sirah I stay on the cheap end. Chardonnay is the other exception, but with that I'm more selective about where it's from, rather than price point - California vs. French.

[Funketown]

Strawboss, I agree that a huge amount of how much we enjoy wine/beer is due to expectations. When I (rarely) get to drink an expensive bottle, I find myself trying to tell myself it's far better than what I'm used to, although I usually admit I can't tell much of a difference. From what I've heard, it's not difficult to find a very good $15 bottle of wine these days, and there are lots of $50+ bottles that aren't that great. Of course, I won't argue too hard either way given my ignorance about fine wine.

 

GAME, do you have any suggestions for decent local wines in NC for around or about $10? I know you said there's a pretty good grape growing region in the West.

[GAME05]

sorry, Funketown, i don't really know enough about wines to say much with any authority. i just texted a friend who recently moved out of Raleigh to see what he knows.

[Funketown]

Thanks GAME. Maybe I'll actually have to learn a thing or two about wine now.

[JoeHova]

It's funny that in any thread like this, there is always someone who disclaims the very idea of quality. That is to say, according to them, there is no difference between something that is well-made by adepts using quality components and something that is cheaply made by cretins using whatever components they can get for the cheapest possible price. I'm not sure why this line of argument is so attractive to various people, even when it is self-evidently false in general and in particular. Perhaps the argument is made to provide cover for personal parsimony. Perhaps it is a reactionary response to the idea of "experts" (a response I empathize with to some extent). Perhaps it is a fear of being sold pyrite as gold. Whatever the reason for the argument, it is misplaced.

 

 

Anyway, I came in here to ask for Riesling recommendations. I like to cook with Riesling because Riesling often comes with a screw-top instead of a cork (apparently because that is more appropriate for bottle aging?), meaning that using the wine multiple times is easy and I don't have to hunt around for my replacement cork things. I don't like a super dry wine but one that is too sweet is also out because when it reduces, it will get even sweeter. So, any recommendations would be much appreciated.

[Polish Falcons]

$3 buck chuck at trader joes is probably my fave. Used to be $2 buck chuck, now $3

[MJLiverock]

I don't know where you live JoeHova, but in the Madison area Steve's Liquor stores had some very good German Rieslings last time I bought some. Riesling is my wife's favorite white. I just picked a bottle and when I checked out the clerk told me it was the best Riesling they had, I know it was under $20 but I can't remember the name, I have to check and see if we have any left.

[strawbossisevil]

It's funny that in any thread like this, there is always someone who disclaims the very idea of quality. That is to say, according to them, there is no difference between something that is well-made by adepts using quality components and something that is cheaply made by cretins using whatever components they can get for the cheapest possible price. I'm not sure why this line of argument is so attractive to various people, even when it is self-evidently false in general and in particular. Perhaps the argument is made to provide cover for personal parsimony. Perhaps it is a reactionary response to the idea of "experts" (a response I empathize with to some extent). Perhaps it is a fear of being sold pyrite as gold. Whatever the reason for the argument, it is misplaced.

 

 

Anyway, I came in here to ask for Riesling recommendations. I like to cook with Riesling because Riesling often comes with a screw-top instead of a cork (apparently because that is more appropriate for bottle aging?), meaning that using the wine multiple times is easy and I don't have to hunt around for my replacement cork things. I don't like a super dry wine but one that is too sweet is also out because when it reduces, it will get even sweeter. So, any recommendations would be much appreciated.

Part of the point is that price is not necessarily equal to quality. Price can be dependent on a variety of things 1) supply 2) reputation 3) marketing 4)location of the grapes used 5) or just plain price gouging. Just because a bottle is expensive, doesn't mean the wine is any good. And just because a wine is cheap, doesn't necessarily mean it is bad.

It wasn't all that long ago that Consumer Reports (if I remember correctly) voted Yellow Tail as one of its top wines (and I would call them experts as well).

 

In addition, there may have been a day when the quality of cheap wine and expensive wine was vastly different. But with modern day development within the wine industry much of the difference has been minimized and will continue to be even more minimized as the wine industry progresses.

 

Finally, part of the reason I even brought it up is because this is exactly what behavioral scientists are finding (who are "experts" in their own rite). Whether a wine be cheap or expensive, the average person, or even a wine expert may not be able to tell the difference. My argument isn't at all misplaced, I merely trust one group of experts (the social scientists) more than another group of experts (professional wine tasters), you apparently trust the later more. I won't disrespect your opinion by calling it misplaced. It is possible that the objective truth may be somewhere in the middle.

So, point being, if you are on a budget or have limited funds and enjoy wine. Don't feel like you have to go expensive if you want good wine. The scientists claim you will be just as likely to find a wine that you enjoy amongst the cheap wines as you will among the expensive wines.

[logan82]

There is a really good wine store in Oshkosh, Appleton as well. McKnight & Carlson. I have not been there in a few years but they used to have a really good selection of wines in the $10-15 range. They know their stuff too. You can go in and let them know what you like and they will point you to several similar wines. They used to give case and half case discounts as well. You could mix and match to get a case. I still want to find something similar in the Madison area.

[JoeHova]

The reason your argument is misplaced is because if you subscribe to the idea that there is no known way to to tell whether one thing is "better" (whatever that may mean) than another thing, than any distinction between things of the same type is lost.

 

And then you mention that Consumer Reports likes Yellow Tail. By your standards, so what? According to you, any distinction between wines is meaningless, so what does it matter that one testing group likes the wine? This seems to be a case of you favoring a reviewer who has a favorable view of a cheap wine that you like, or, in other words, confirmation bias, the same thing you are accusing the wine tasters of.

 

I also don't really understand the idea that wine is the one thing that

is going to get better and better as it gets cheaper and more mass

produced. Every other product's quality suffers (at least to some extent) when it

undergoes that process, but for some reason, wine will be the exception.

 

 

As to the overall talk of experts, when you start to discredit the work of the entire body of experts in one subjective field, you sort of necessarily cast doubt on the idea of experts in any subjective field (again, not a view I am totally unsympathetic to). So, I don't see why you would hold the work of social scientists in any greater regard than you hold the work of oenophiles (in other words, none).