Is there anything to wine pretentiousness or is it just for rich faggots?
>>7529834
I enjoy wine, though I rarely go out of my way to buy a bottle just for myself. I enjoy the process of slowly gazing through the aisles of different smooth bottles. It's fun to evaluate the tacky marketing and read the elaborate, sometimes romantic descriptions of labels. Or cool to ponder about the decades of decadence and family lifestyle left after the first French baron decided to bottle and cultivate his fermented grapes. The fun thing is also to discover an inexpensive but juicy wine that you can keep drinking. Although I've wasted a lot of time with shockingly bland South American wines.
I always find after the 4 glasses are done too - I have just enough (a little over a shot?) of wine to marinate a steak overnight. Butter in the pan, 2 minutes on each side and 13 minutes in the oven. Salt and pepper.
Lots of utility in a single bottle of wine compared to other alcohols.
I've never, ever sat down at a restaurant with friends to gush about the aromas or flavour notes of wine. I find the act of that in a public setting is usually posturing. Just sip it with your meal and enjoy. Perhaps the people who think it's necessary to always broadcast their opinion on whatever they drink are the ones who give the impression that wine drinkers are pretentious.
depends
I'm going to go with a tentative "yes".
>>7529834
It's a wonderful thing to get into. There's a lot of depth and knowledge to be had.
Just find something you like and don't be a douche about it. Have fun!
>>7529870
Is it wrong to want wine that's basically sour grape juice + alcohol? Because I feel that's how wine was had in antiquity (after being watered down)
>>7529834
Is there anything to beer pretentiousness or is it just for faggots?
>>7529952
It could be, but you cannot argue wine is moreso, mostly since it's abillity to age and it's association to "fine" dining.
I am drinking this.
Not because I am fancy, but because I like it
(Dog not related)
>>7529956
>it's
Fermented grape juice. Passing 10 bux the only difference is the fucking label
There is a very clear difference between good win and bad wine (when you're talking about a difference large enough to not include subjective elements), however the art of wine tasting in which the flavors are dissected down to the very finest detail is largely just meaningless faggotry.
>>7530699
>Passing 10 bux the only difference is the fucking label
poorfag detected
>>7529960
what the fuck? the middle of your dog is invisible!
>>7530703
>meaningless faggotry.
i almost killed a motherfucker for sipping a wine and having the balls to blurt out "2007? hrmph.. i guess that region didn't get much rain that year..."
Depends what you mean by pretentious. If you mean people who will only drink extremely expensive bottles then yes, there certainly is. People who actually know about what and what makes each style good can point you in the direction of a aid refuel $100 bottle as well as a wonderful $12 bottle. With wine price does not always equal quality but plenty of snobs will but the most expensive thing they can find and say it's the best ever.
>>7530726
I'm a faggot mobile poster if you can't tell by the auto correct. But it still mostly makes sense.
>>7530743
I'll have you know that I've done extensive wine tasting with the entire Yellow Tail line and most of the Barefoot line and have thus decided that wine is a meme.
>>7529949
>le wrong generation
people ate salted gruel and died in infancy in antiquity, why are you so nostalgic?
Why drink wine when you have vodka or Japanese sake?
>>7530759
Vodka is boring, and based on the fact that you mentioned it in the same sentence as sake, I can tell you've never had good sake
>>7529834
Depends where you live desu
>>7530769
what are some good brands of sake?
all the stuff I had taste like slightly sweet water you used to cook rice in.
>>7530822
unless you are japanese there is no good sake.
>>7530829
I lived in japan for 6 months little flyover buddy
There's perfectly good sake abroad, you just need to not live in a culturally deprived shit hole
>>7530835
Can you list me some good brands then?
I live in a major city, with a huge Asian population.
The $10 bottles of sake taste as bland and unpleasant as the $40-$60 shit.
I'm sure decent sake exists but ice yet to find it.
>>7531066
>bland and unpleasant
These are words that people with miscalibrated palates use, I'm just going to assume you're the aussie who can't stand the taste of whole wheat without drenching it in golden syrup
If you aren't, then brush up on your classificatoins (junmai, daiginjo, and so forth), and buy fresh sake (nothing more than a year old). You'll either find something to your taste, or you'll realize that nice things are a scam and let's just drink yellow tail moscato or whatever it is you bogans love
>>7529949
Good news! it exists.
>>7529834
Sommelier in training here. Believe it or not I used to hate wine but have since opened my mind into the richness of its depth. While sure there are some wines that are definitely overpriced and anyone who gushes over their wine in public is a pretentious fag, wine is elaborately complex and there is a wine for everyone. Saying you dont like wine is like saying you don't like muffins: just becaue you tasted a bran muffin once and it off put you, doesn't mean you might not enjoy a blueberry or bannana bread one. Perhaps you like a classic oaky chardonnay, or a sweeter, almost juice like Riesling. Perhaps you're like me and rarely stray away from burgundy and deeper, astringent cabernet sauvignon or spicy malbecs. Exploring the world of winemaking is a fun and intricate undertaking and there are entry points for nearly all price points and knowledge levels. When you get to the really expensive bottles, you're paying for either branding, processing (some wines need to age for at the minimum of ten years, some blends, especially meritage can utilize grapes harvested hundreds of feet high in the mountains or sourced from multiple appellations from around the world) or legacy (brands exaulted in the wine world for their taste elegance or tradition). These are more of a splurge for those who can afford it. I serve these at work but rarely do I purchase one for myself, and never without inteneding to share it in a group setting with others who can appreciate it. A decent bottle of wine can be found for as little as 18 dollars, anything cheaper than that and you're approaching cooking wine territory: Pic related has been my goto for a nice affordable cab lately.
>>7530751
>>>7530743
>I'll have you know that I've done extensive wine tasting with the entire Yellow Tail line and most of the Barefoot line and have thus decided that wine is a meme.
>yellow tail
>barefoot
I wouldn't even make a pan sauce with this garbage. Is this b8??
>>7532192
you have very shitty bait detection skills
>>7532192
It was more sarcasm than it was bait, young padwan.
>>7529834
How is drinking wine pretentious? Sounds like old meme from a time before "meme" was even coined.
>>7533242
I've come to realize /ck/ doesn't really get sarcasm. Everything is either "bait", "trolling", a "meme", or "copypasta"
>>7533278
in flyover america, anything that wasn't done in your little fear-gripped rustic bubble is considered unmasculine and highly anti-american. pretentious just goes together with that since flyovers, deep down, believe that america is shit since they have been told since birth that they are the "real america" and, needless to say, if the shit part of america is the real america than america really must be shit.
it's pretty sad, but luckily they don't venture near the coasts because they are afraid of airplanes which are a form of witchcraft to them.
All day
>>7533294
My "flyover" state produces fantastic German style wine. We may produce the best US wine outside of the West Coast.
My guess is that you've never spent any real time in the interior and don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
>>7529834
>pretentiousness
You're making a negative assumption because you know nothing about wine and feel intimidated.
Maybe you could instead try learning something and evaluate the interest on the merits of how much you enjoy it.
>>7533348
>german style wine
I've had ohio wine, don't flatter yourself.
>>7533400
Arkansas, bitch.
>>7533401
Oh, well in that case, I've had arkansas wine and it was actually surprisingly good. You of course must understand that you are being ridiculous by pretending you can compete with germany, but yeah it's not as bad as ohio wine. But as a novelty, sure, no problem, I allow it.
>>7533415
Aber naturlich. It's not as good as German.
Californian wine isn't as good a French or Italian either (though they are getting there)
But we are far from the backwards simpletons that 'Coasters make us out to be.
>>7533425
I dunno man, I visited Little Rock for a week and, I don't know a nice way to say this, but the people were pretty backwards and simple. Very very nice people, but backwards and simple.
Also finger lakes makes the best approximation of German wine in the USA, you really should expand your palate more. I agree that California isn't as great as Californians actually believe.
>>7533348
>German style wine
>>7533415
If you ever get the chance, you should try La Row Red from Keel Creek. It's a Merlot with a Tabasco finish. (This one is run by a French gal and her Chemist husband)
It's a standard full bodied red, that is otherwise unremarkable, except that it has a pop of heat right at the finish that is very interesting.
>>7533430
Little Rock is transitioning. It will ge there. Give it a few more years.
Next time you're here, jump up to Fayetteville and the surrounding areas. I think you'll be surprised.
Eureka Springs is also fun in a hippy throwback way.
>>7532185
>18 dollars, anything cheaper than that and you're approaching cooking wine
train more faggot
Most people who know their shit about wine because they love wine are prefectly pleasant people.
The ones who come into shops and act pretentious generally know fuck all about wine but know enough for the purpose of acting better than everyone when it comes to taste in drinks.
I worked in an off licence when I was a kid then got a taste for wine and craft beers and wound up getting promoted and going on all sorts of training courses.
You learn a lot of shit and it's actually really interesting, great way to learn about history of cuisine and enjoy a lot of different tastes and stuff.
People will come in and ask for a wine, naturally I ask red/white/rose and then direct them to the ones on sale. I'll sometimes pick out one of the cheaper ones that I actually like a lot, since price is actually not at all an indicator of quality with wine.
But they'll turn their nose up, scoff at me then grab the fucking £15 bottle of some french shite that tastes like bug spray just because it has a fancier label and looks vaguely vintage.
Wine snobs are fucking faggots, but getting into wine is genuinely a good experience OP.
>>7534448
>that high handed wine shop guy who thinks his tastes are objectively correct
Maybe your customers prefer a different style? This new guy at my local shop keeps pushing me on jammy new world plonk and got really butthurt when I declined to try his recommendation again. Maybe I'd rather have a grassy funky corbieres or something, rather than mega purple anonymous California crap. I'm judging the wine by the bottle because that's the correct thing to do, because I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to find inside.
>>7534489
Except judging by the bottle isn't really that safe an indicator because a £6 wine in a shitty store-brand bottle can be nicer than some hoighty toighty £12 bottle from italy or something.
If someone wants wine from category X and I have tried a wine from category X I'll suggest it. They don't have to take it but people who come in and act like obscure and expensive is always better are not only wrong but boring as fuck and the least pleasant people to be around with food or drink.
Also
>high handed wine shop guy
I worked in an off licence which was an extension of a chain of grocery stores, then for a shitty winemark in a council estate and THEN ended up in an actually nice or "fancy" Off Sales. No snobbery here, friend.
>>7534448
>price is actually not at all an indicator of quality with wine.
True.
>£15 bottle of some french shite that tastes like bug spray
That could be pretentious, or it could be a traditionalist looking for a safe bet. If you want a Pinot Noir in the classic style Burgundy is the safest bet, even though there aren't any bargains to be found there.
The French spent a long time developing classic regional styles of wine and they're pretty specific about which wines pair with which dishes. I drink well made wines from all over the world, with an eye to bargains. Last night the wife and I split a bottle of Greek wine that cost less than $10. It fir our meal, and we both enjoyed it. But tonight we're going to dinner at the home of some French friends, and there's no way I'd bring that bottle to them. They wouldn't get it. I already know what is going to be served and will pick up French wines that will match the food. Because I know that's important to my hosts, and showing respect to your hosts' taste is hardly pretentious.
At the highest levels the insane priced bottles are more about money laundering than taste, similar to art.
Anything over $100 a bottle is for showing off with clients or benefactors.
The best stuff for normal dinners you either buy for $40-60 already a few years old or get for $10-30 young and stick it in your cellar to age.
Also, there are some things that American climates have an advantage in. Missouri turns out some very nice ice wines some years, if you can handle the sweetness.
its an elderly women's game
>>7534508
no offense but you don't know as much about wine as you think.
most of the time AOC tells you a fair amount of what's in the bottle. grapes, climate, vinification. these affect the taste of the wine. I know you'd like to think that all wine is the same, but it's not. a pinot noir from sancerre isn't going to taste much like a pinot noir from south australia. a red blend from hungary will taste different from a red blend from sicily.
actually feel free to take offense, because I'm kind of annoyed that I got trolled into replying. you should really refrain from giving your customers any advice, as your understanding of wine seems to end at "price doesn't guarantee enjoyment", which isn't wrong, but it isn't especially insightful
>>7529834
It's less pretentiousness, more a hobby.
With experience you can learn to distinguish differences. Then through peer pressure, obstinacy or random chance and some self reinforcement you can learn to assign qualities to those differences (or pick something with qualities we appreciate instinctively, like sweetness ... but that's very pleb).
That's how we fill our meaningless existence.
>>7534704
Is it pure coincidence that sommelier contests never release the actual results of their blind tasting rounds?
>>7534769
I'm not a somm, you'll have to ask one of them. I just enjoy drinking wine
You know, denying that wines have distinguishable characteristics because of your own insecurity makes you one of those pleb customers you complained about. You are just as preoccupied with the sticker price.
Inverting an erroneous equation still doesn't make it right.
I've switched from craft beer to wine.
I pay somewhere in the 10-30 range for bottles. Mostly reds.
I'm enjoying it. I need to pick up some cheap shit from the supermarket to try that.
>>7534763
>sweetness is pleb
Spoken like a teenager who has only had blue nun, barefoot moscato, and grandma's dusty old bottle of Bristol cream
>>7534795
Differences in whines are relatively small though, see the whole white whine with food coloring fiasco.
If master sommeliers had to rely purely on taste in their exams I don't think any would pass.
>>7532185
>What is Beaujolais-village?
What is Cote Du Rhone?
You can have GREAT wine for cheap with a little knowledge on styles of wine. Its just about knowing a style then expanding on the nuances of that style/place through different tiers of price. Ive drank DRC Volnay and, Joseph Drouhin Volnay, doesn't necessarily mean I prefer the DRC, but the price of course reflects choice.
>>7533425
What is Judgement of Paris? shut your nigger mouth, California produces amazing wines. Don't be an old world nigger and claim that France and Italy is the best and California cannot produce phenomenal wines.
>>7534511
10/10
>>7534517
You don't just stick random wines in the cellar, anything worth storing long term should come from a great vintage or a grape that can hold out years and improve, i,e. Big Italian Reds, big Bordeaux wines, some Burgundian reds and whites. Big Cali Cab.
>>7534769
What your referring to is a CMS blind tasting, in which yes. The MS will know what he is tasting you on and can see how well your blind tasting. I may not have the best nose, but I can almost immediately take a Chinon on the nose.
>>7534823
True, but sweet wine is out of fashion at the moment, which is why so many classic German wines are undervalued. And that makes sense, especially in the US, where we look to the French as the ones to beat. The French do dessert wine, but aside from that they prefer their wines very dry. That's fine for most US wine drinkers because sweet wines have a stigma here - bums drank sweet fortified wines, and your trashy aunt drank white zin from a box at cookouts when you were young. As we mature as a wine drinking nation we ought to eventually lose this prejudice, but I don't see it happening next year, or even next decade.
>>7529949
Grape juice+alcohol actually exists and is a different thing, it's pinot (not pinot noir the cépage, just pinot).
It's made from young vines not good enough for vine, my father makes some. It's intresting as an aperitive but it's a bit sweet as a regular alcohol.
>>7534832
No, they are not
Differences between wines in the same style are relatively small, by design. Since plebs like you need to be told what's good, 100 point rating systems run by literally one guy cause market distortions, resulting in all $9 wines at the grocery store to try to emulate (with a fair amount of success, I might add) some style that consistently earns 90+ points from that guy
Try tasting an oloroso sherry next to a lambrusco and tell me they're the exact same thing other than the color
It's not my fault you have no idea what those are and your entire exposure to wine consists of bordeaux homages
>>7533307
fuck yes. I love the paisano.
Frenchfag here. I'm not very wine litterate since my parents made me drink a lot of it but I never bothered to remember the naes and characteristics.
Still, wines are very diverse. I've had stranger friends tell me they didn't like wine and found something they liked multiple times.
I'd like to get a little deeper into the rabbit hole but it's a bit complicated gotta admit. I'm limiting myself to buying some crates of the wines I like as an investment.
If you're a pleb or half pleb your best bet is to become a regular at a local wine bar and let the bartender help you.
Gotta thank my uncle too for bringing very good wines to my old drandmother's birthday or I would never have fallen in love with Corton-charlemagne.
At what age did you began drinking wine? It was my first alcohol and I was 12.
>>7534853
That's not the same scenario as the pinot noire and red whine blend differences I was originally replying about. That's the type of stuff the master sommeliers have to tell apart. Which they can do, barely, with a generous helping of visual identification.
There's a couple of people like Richard Juhlin in this world, a lot of Sommeliers which can't get remotely close to him ... and then there's most wine drinkers, who can't tell red wine from white wine with food coloring.
>>7534853
>style that consistently earns 90+ points from that guy
Which is almost always a wine big enough to seem noteworthy after you've tasted a bunch of other wines at a tasting, and your palate is half shot. People started buying wines based on Parker scores, and just assumed a "good" red was at least 13.5% ABV, fruit forward with heavy tannins.
What Parker ignored was typicity in his rating system. He liked what he liked, and didn't give a fuck about whether or not the wine was a decent representation of the established style it purported to be.
There was a famous fight between Parker and Jancis Robinson over a 2003 Ch. Pavie from St.-Emillion. Parker called it "Off the chart - a brilliant effort... ...tannic, but the wine's low acidity and higher than normal alcohol suggest it will be approachable in 4-5 years".
Robinson's comments: "Porty sweet. Port comes from the Duoro, not St-Emillion, Ridiculous wine more reminiscent of a late-harverst Zinfandel than a red Bordeaux."
Parker loved the wine because it was in line with his personal taste. Robinson hated it because it wasn't what a St.-Emillion was supposed to be. Two very different reactions to the same wine, even though they were more or less in agreement on the details of how it actually tasted. Two different worlds.
>>7534903
So because experts get tripped up by mind games invented by other experts to challenge assumptions, oloroso is the same as lambrusco and anyone who suggests otherwise has gotten the wool pulled over his eyes.
>whine
You might as well just start saying "sheeple" and "christfag" at this point, are you expecting to be taken seriously or just trolling for (You)s?
I'm not super experienced with tasting wine, and yesterday I had a Chardonnay at my parent's house that tasted a tiny bit like aged cheese. It was really fucking good though, I had like 3 glasses.
Are my taste buds not working correctly or is this something that actually happens? I thought it might be a mental thing, since I associate cheese with wine, but when I googled it nothing came up
>>7535199
You might have had a stroke.
>>7535199
Possibly malolactic conversion gave you the creamy/buttery flavors, and partial oxidation (probably unintentional) or wood influence made it taste more like aged cheese.
Or, all wine is the same and you were being hoodwinked by jews.
>>7535171
> oloroso is the same as lambrusco
That's still not the same scenario as the pinot noire and red whine blend differences I was originally talking about.
> a pinot noir from sancerre isn't going to taste much like a pinot noir from south australia. a red blend from hungary will taste different from a red blend from sicily
>>7535241
But all of those are true, are you actually arguing that they taste identical? Or are you saying that experts will not necessarily be able to reliably pick them out, especially when they've been tampered with and the experts are given misleading information?
I find it strange how people will argue for hours over Coke vs Pepsi but as soon as wine comes up they'll cite something they read on Buzzfeed triumphantly, as if it defeats all wine (sorry, "whine") forever.
>>7529834
My comprehension of wine is way beyond your understanding
>>7534901
>started drinkng at 12
what the fuck is wrong with you?
>>7530714
No you didn't. At most you gave him a dirty look. And even then, only for a moment.
>>7537520
More likely, the story never happened
/ck/ believes anyone who enjoys the taste of wine must be wearing an outfit like this, talking like a French movie villain, and pretending* to enjoy wine based on how much it costs, much like how anyone who enjoys the taste of vegetables has a huge PETA poster on their wall and has actually firebombed a slaughterhouse at least once, and anyone who enjoys authentic food hates America and wants to wipe all white people off the face of the earth
>*no one sincerely enjoys anything except tendies and ranch because this is impossible
>>7535268
> But all of those are true, are you actually arguing that they taste identical?
No, not when tasted side by side.
> Or are you saying that experts will not necessarily be able to reliably pick them out
Yeah, especially if you take the visual component away they'll be lost. Even if you call them X and Y on the first day and gave them only a single day in between I doubt most experts could identify X/Y purely by taste (this opinion is based on the test of wine rankings being pretty much random from one day to another with the same tasters).
I find it strange how some people think the placebo effect is only strong for other people ... most cola drinkers can't identify pepsi from coke either.
Has anyone had Trump wine?
>>7537538
>No, not when tasted side by side.
So your argument seems to come down to "if you can't unerringly identify the exact wine down to the maker and grape with your nose pinched and your eyes blindfolded with no other context whatsoever, all wine is a scam"
What's the point of wine for you? It seems to be to impress strangers
>I find it strange how some people think the placebo effect is only strong for other people ... most cola drinkers can't identify pepsi from coke either.
If you can taste the difference between coke and pepsi side by side, then it isn't a placebo. What the fuck do you think "placebo" means?
>>7537538
>purely by taste
bad start, wine is not just about the taste
>>7537552
>So your argument seems to come down to.....
This is 4chan, bro. There's no room here for rationality or logic. Polar extremes are the only choices here.
>>7537552
Sorry, my mistake. I meant flavor, not taste.
>>7537552
>If you can taste the difference between coke and pepsi side by side, then it isn't a placebo.
Do you understand the difference between resolution and repeatability?
We can determine there is a difference tasted side by side, but the qualities most of us assign to those differences is placebo. Because we can not actually identify those qualities any more without the label shown (ie. without the label shown and without a known reference immediately before the tasting we can't tell coke from pepsi).
>>7529834
There is something to it, but it's also for rich faggots. The way wine is made does give it variety, but the terms people use to describe that variety are some of the gayest on Earth. I guess I don't go out of my way to buy wine, but it's nice stuff.
>>7537538
>most cola drinkers can't identify pepsi from coke either.
But not only can you do that, you can do it with the varieties of Coke and Pepsi and whether those varieties came from powder, glass, plastic or a can, you fucking plebian.
>>7537641
I have no idea if I could identify coke vs pepsi in a blind test because I drink coke maybe 6 times a year and I can't remember the last time I tasted pepsi.
I can tell you that I rotate between basically the same 3 bottles of pinot noir and I would put a decent sum of money on the results of a blind test between those three bottles, starring me, and I'm not a sommelier, just a regular wine drinker.
No, you can't just give me, or anyone, a random pinot noir and expect them to tell you the GPS coordinates of the vineyard and the harvest date. That's anime wine reality, not reality.
>>7537471
Not him, but I had my first glass of wine at 12 as well, during dinner at the home of some Italian American neighbors. To this day I can't imagine enjoying a plate of pasta and red sauce without a glass of wine. It just seems wrong without it.
>>7529834
My friends and I like to discuss what we're drinking, networking and sharing experiences allows us to strive for the better life.
For me the fun in wine is more about exploring. I find a lot of joy in understanding the rule and regulations of different wine producing areas and tasting my way through them. Now my gf and I will definitely open a bottle at room and talk to each other about what we are tasting and it's interesting to see where we pick up different things. In public however we'd might quietly say how much we like the wine or ask if the another tastes x or y in it, but we would never make a spectacle out of it. The fun is in trying new things and figuring out which you like more. As far as price I've had great $12 and $60 bottles, price doesn't necessarily indicate quality.
>>7533493
i want to argue with you so bad, but unfortunately, yes, wine is the western equivalent of saki. it literally has a history and culture.
>>7529956
With wine, there's a lot of real terminology and tradition due to the closer connection between growers, producers, vendors, and consumers, developed over thousands of years. Contrast that with beer which is made with commodity agro products (no one asks where the grain was grown).
Then you have these insecure, generally younger beer drinkers who think beverages are a zero-sum game and there can be only one. They stumble across things like specialized glassware, people distinguishing between aged and fresh wine, and people thinking about what wine goes with what food, and instead of asking "hmm I wonder what lessons can be learned here", they do two things:
One, they cluelessly ape some of these traditions in an effort to seem "classy", like using the term "vintage" for a grain beverage, while, out of the other side of their mouth, screaming that "vintage" with wine is just emperor's new clothes.
Two, they desperately cling to anything that seems to prove that wine is some kind of conspiracy to make them look uncultured. See: these people who think that the purpose of wine is to take sips and spit into a bowl and take notes, and if those notes contain any errors whatsoever, it shows that those meanies who drink it are just trying to make me feel dumb but they don't know anything anyway, you're not my real dad!
So without question, beer is more pretentious than wine, if we go by the dictionary definition of pretentious: attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed
>>7537761
>they desperately cling to anything that seems to prove that wine is some kind of conspiracy to make them look uncultured.
To be fair, many things with a high cost of entry can be viewed this way, because the culture around them still bears the marks of class distinctions from the past. You see this in fine dining as well.
But part of what sounds ridiculous when it comes to the vocabulary of wine in English is that much of it is directly translated from French. Using lots of French words in English has always been viewed as Upper Class or pretentious, depending on the viewer. Hell, maybe a quarter of the wine tastings I go to here in NYC are conducted at least partially in French (with less than fluent me hanging on for dear life).
Some French concepts with regard to wine sound simply ridiculous in English. A couple weeks ago my wife gave me shit for using the term "typicity" when describing a beautiful Mâcon-Villages I came across. Because in English typicity sounds like a stupid, kind of pretentious word. But in France typicité is a very important characteristic of a good wine. How well a wine conforms to the established regional style is very important. People buy a Mâcon-Villages expecting a very specific kind of wine - a Chardonnay that picked up a hint of roundness and creaminess from partial malolactic fermentation and a short time on oak, but still evokes the minerality you'd find in a Chablis
That last sentence might sound pretentious as hell to many ears, but that's the language we have to work with in wine.
>>7530711
I think is the back of the back label appearing to be the white floot
>>7537894
This is maybe why japaneses produce so many good eonologists. They understand the subtleties of language, while anglophone countries just stigmatise it.
>>7537988
Is this a thing? The only Japanese wine personality I know of is pic related.
But yeah.
>"Umami"
>WE SHOULD HAVE DROPPED MORE BOMBS
Typical thread on /ck/
>>7537988
Better than the French I hope, the white whine with red food coloring experiment was done with French Oenology students,
>>7537988
They also place a very high value on aesthetics and refinement. They're all about subtlety and nuance.
But definitely our language lets us down talking about wine. I just read my description of the Mâcon-Villages above to my wife and she thought it sounded pretentious as hell. Then I said the same thing in French and it sounded perfectly natural to her.
>>7538005
France wine producers sent them a bunch of barrels from big producers in the scope of a cultural exachange. I saw them when I visited.
They are in a park near arajuku in front of the best sake barrels exposed as offerings to an enshrined emperor in the park (the barrels are empty).
I've been told they caught the wine bug after that.
>>7538033
Now the Chinese have caught it in a big way. A quarter, sometimes a third of the wine drinkers at the place I work for are youngish Chinese with money to spend.
And I don't know if anyone follows the really high end stuff, but the already very expensive grand and 1er cru Burgundies have massively shot up in price over the last decade, taking most red burgundy along with them. Unlike many of their compatriots the wealthy Chinese are not looking for bargains - they're looking for prestige, and they've started buying a lot of wine.
>>7529834
>>7529834
>is it just for rich faggots?
No, expensive wine can sometimes be worth it, but I've had $14 Chilean bottles that were on par with a $24 bottle from napa valley, and the $11 bottle of Luc Pirlet from France was equal to both.
I LOVE finding a good drinking wine for less than $10/bottle. I agree with several other posts about language and such in wine, but good wine is certainly not just for the rich.
>>7538111
>good wine is certainly not just for the rich.
You got that right. Now is a great time to be drinking wine, because the standards on the cheap stuff have gotten really high (as long as you stay away from critter and cupcake wines). Like you I take a ton of pleasure finding something really good for under $10 a bottle. (Of course in many European supermarkets they have good wines for almost half that price). Modern winemaking has given us great examples of relatively simple wines that drink well young, and that's what most of us are drinking. Some of them even show a surprising amount of nuance for what they cost.
But the really complex wines that benefit from a decade or two of aging are still out of the common man's reach. Then again, they always have been. You need a decent amount of fuck you money to maintain a serious cellar. The only individuals I know who do (outside of people in the industry) are successful businessmen and Wall St types. The cost of entry is just too high for the rest of us.
But being on the edge of the industry and having a few wealthy friends has allowed me to taste a little bit of what I'm missing. Pretty much it's subtlety, complexity and much longer finishes. Often really impressive, but not exactly the kind of stuff you'd pine for when opening a bottle for dinner on a Tuesday night. And really only worth chasing if you have the money do it easily, because no matter how many bottles you have in your cellar the enjoyment of each is an expensive and very ephemeral pleasure.
