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Former wine store worker here. Was it the case that the Silver Oak bottle probably needed some time to open up? Still, I agree with your general thrust. I find

by altm 10y ago

Former wine store worker here. Was it the case that the Silver Oak bottle probably needed some time to open up? Still, I agree with your general thrust. I find that my favorite wines, especially per dollar spent, are between $8-20.

lisper 10y ago
> Was it the case that the Silver Oak bottle probably needed some time to open up? This was a long time ago so it's hard to say. But I've had plenty of reds that tasted great straight out of the bottle, so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. Also, while it is absolutely true that the taste of a wine will change over the course of an evening, it's far from clear how much of this is due to the flavor of the wine changing and how much due to your perceptions changing. Taste buds can get fatigued (I get "wined out" after trying 5 or 6 different wines) and food makes a huge difference too. My bottom line: I now know plenty of wines that reliably taste great (to me) straight out of the gate and keep tasting great through the whole bottle even if I keep it for a couple of days, and which cost a lot less than Silver Oak. So I just drink those :-)
- CPLX 10y ago
  > IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. Yikes. Gonna have to disagree with you on that. The effect of a wine being aerated/oxidized after being opened and/or decanted is obvious even to a casual wine drinker. > I now know plenty of wines that reliably taste great (to me) straight out of the gate and keep tasting great through the whole bottle even if I keep it for a couple of days And, by the same token, the taste of red wine degrades fast and is generally completely unrecognizable within 24-48 hours of opening, even if it's well kept with a fancy stopper. Reading those two comments of yours makes me seriously doubt your ability to make observations that generalize to other people.
  - ogig 10y ago
    Exactly this. There are a huge range of wines that need to be decanted. The effect is not only obvious but marvelous, how they start smelling and evolve into something much deeper, specially on the oldest bottles. Same with the degradation. I have a vacuum pump for the bottles I left open and the degradation is still obvious.
  - lisper 10y ago
    I didn't make myself clear. I don't deny that decanting and/or aerating will improve many (perhaps even most) reds. But in my experience, for my own personal tastes, any wine that requires this very rarely ends up tasting as good as one that doesn't. > Reading those two comments of yours makes me seriously doubt your ability to make observations that generalize to other people. Two responses: 1. What I've said here is not based just on my own experience, but also on the firsthand observations of other people who have participated in blind tastings along with me. And... 2. The general impossibility of generalizing one's own subjective experience to other people when it comes to wine is kind of my whole point.
    - bjacokes 10y ago
      I'm not sure blind tastings with relative newbies gives the best signal here. If you give someone cocktails for the first time they'll probably like screwdrivers the most; if you let kids choose between doritos and oysters they'll pick the doritos. After having had a lot of moderately expensive wine over the past few years, I'm sometimes surprised when I go back to a $5 bottle that I like. Usually if I think about it harder, I find that I'm enjoying a combination of sweetness and oak that are pleasant, but not really that fun to dwell on. It's similar to that balance of salt, sugar, and fat that snack foods use to be broadly liked but not have much depth. Not to say that such wines are bad, but I think you're missing the point to say that expensive wines are supposed to be appreciated by the masses.
      - jdavis703 10y ago
        I also find myself getting fatigued of "bliss point" snack foods. When I was young I could eat Oreos for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now I might have a couple of Oreos once a year just to reminisce about old times I suppose.
      - lisper 10y ago
        > I'm not sure blind tastings with relative newbies gives the best signal here. Sure, that's why we repeat the experiment regularly (though less formally than we used to). In fact, we just did it a few weeks ago with a friend who is a really hard-core wine snob. He has a 10,000 bottle collection in off-site temperature controlled storage. And he's not just a rich asshole showing off his wealth. He's upper-middle class and really passionate and knowledgeable about wine, as is his wife. Both of them rated the Barefoot cab very highly. No Silver Oak in the lineup this time, but some very comparable bottles, like a Franciscan and a Veeder Reserve, alongside a few other varietals (we were actually trying to see if we could pick out varietals blind). The Barefoot didn't come out on top, but it made a very respectable showing. One of the things we rated the wines on was, "How much would you guess this wine sells for?" My friend gave the Barefoot a $50 rating, and his wife said $130.
  - Singletoned 10y ago
    I find it amazing that all restaurants open a fresh bottle of wine at your table, and never seem to offer a decanted bottle. If I trust you to make my food in secret, out of sight, I trust you to open my wine in secret, out of sight.
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      Is it really about the bottle being decanted, or being ensured you're getting the wine you asked for? If I order the vegetarian lasagna, but I get the beef lasagna I'll immediately realize something is wrong. I think that's less true for drinking wine, especially if you're not super good at sensing nuances.
    - twoodfin 10y ago
      Better restaurants serving older vintages will definitely decant, though I agree it's rarer than it should be. I've seen a few use those aerating pourers, which is better than nothing.
- dajohnson89 10y ago
  >so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. I respectfully disagree. Basically I stick to cheap wines (for budget reasons), and my decanter will turn almost any unbearable red into acceptable. A newly opened red sometimes just needs to be smoothed out via air a bit -- at the extreme of things, if you leave a glass out overnight it will be flat (not to mention, the alcohol will have evaporated of course). edit: not sure if "evaporate" is the right scientific term
  - bambax 10y ago
    > my decanter Myhrvold in Modernist Cuisine recommends to use a... blender. It really works ;-)
    - derefr 10y ago
      I can see what you mean—but in picturing it, now I'm curious what would happen if you ran some wine through a reflux condensation.
    - caf 10y ago
      The Vinturi aerators are pretty good.
  - petters 10y ago
    Are you saying the alcohol will be gone overnight? I doubt that.
    - dajohnson89 10y ago
      if not completely gone, then dramatically reduced. source: have left a glass of wine on my nitestand before, and in the morning it was glass of sour grape juice.
      - takingflac 10y ago
        70% of the alcohol will remains after overnight.[1] [1] http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/retn/retn06.pdf http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/ret... (see page 12)

by altm 10y ago

lisper 10y ago

> Was it the case that the Silver Oak bottle probably needed some time to open up? This was a long time ago so it's hard to say. But I've had plenty of reds that tasted great straight out of the bottle, so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. Also, while it is absolutely true that the taste of a wine will change over the course of an evening, it's far from clear how much of this is due to the flavor of the wine changing and how much due to your perceptions changing. Taste buds can get fatigued (I get "wined out" after trying 5 or 6 different wines) and food makes a huge difference too. My bottom line: I now know plenty of wines that reliably taste great (to me) straight out of the gate and keep tasting great through the whole bottle even if I keep it for a couple of days, and which cost a lot less than Silver Oak. So I just drink those :-)

CPLX 10y ago
> IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. Yikes. Gonna have to disagree with you on that. The effect of a wine being aerated/oxidized after being opened and/or decanted is obvious even to a casual wine drinker. > I now know plenty of wines that reliably taste great (to me) straight out of the gate and keep tasting great through the whole bottle even if I keep it for a couple of days And, by the same token, the taste of red wine degrades fast and is generally completely unrecognizable within 24-48 hours of opening, even if it's well kept with a fancy stopper. Reading those two comments of yours makes me seriously doubt your ability to make observations that generalize to other people.
- ogig 10y ago
  Exactly this. There are a huge range of wines that need to be decanted. The effect is not only obvious but marvelous, how they start smelling and evolve into something much deeper, specially on the oldest bottles. Same with the degradation. I have a vacuum pump for the bottles I left open and the degradation is still obvious.
- lisper 10y ago
  I didn't make myself clear. I don't deny that decanting and/or aerating will improve many (perhaps even most) reds. But in my experience, for my own personal tastes, any wine that requires this very rarely ends up tasting as good as one that doesn't. > Reading those two comments of yours makes me seriously doubt your ability to make observations that generalize to other people. Two responses: 1. What I've said here is not based just on my own experience, but also on the firsthand observations of other people who have participated in blind tastings along with me. And... 2. The general impossibility of generalizing one's own subjective experience to other people when it comes to wine is kind of my whole point.
  - bjacokes 10y ago
    I'm not sure blind tastings with relative newbies gives the best signal here. If you give someone cocktails for the first time they'll probably like screwdrivers the most; if you let kids choose between doritos and oysters they'll pick the doritos. After having had a lot of moderately expensive wine over the past few years, I'm sometimes surprised when I go back to a $5 bottle that I like. Usually if I think about it harder, I find that I'm enjoying a combination of sweetness and oak that are pleasant, but not really that fun to dwell on. It's similar to that balance of salt, sugar, and fat that snack foods use to be broadly liked but not have much depth. Not to say that such wines are bad, but I think you're missing the point to say that expensive wines are supposed to be appreciated by the masses.
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      I also find myself getting fatigued of "bliss point" snack foods. When I was young I could eat Oreos for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now I might have a couple of Oreos once a year just to reminisce about old times I suppose.
    - lisper 10y ago
      > I'm not sure blind tastings with relative newbies gives the best signal here. Sure, that's why we repeat the experiment regularly (though less formally than we used to). In fact, we just did it a few weeks ago with a friend who is a really hard-core wine snob. He has a 10,000 bottle collection in off-site temperature controlled storage. And he's not just a rich asshole showing off his wealth. He's upper-middle class and really passionate and knowledgeable about wine, as is his wife. Both of them rated the Barefoot cab very highly. No Silver Oak in the lineup this time, but some very comparable bottles, like a Franciscan and a Veeder Reserve, alongside a few other varietals (we were actually trying to see if we could pick out varietals blind). The Barefoot didn't come out on top, but it made a very respectable showing. One of the things we rated the wines on was, "How much would you guess this wine sells for?" My friend gave the Barefoot a $50 rating, and his wife said $130.
- Singletoned 10y ago
  I find it amazing that all restaurants open a fresh bottle of wine at your table, and never seem to offer a decanted bottle. If I trust you to make my food in secret, out of sight, I trust you to open my wine in secret, out of sight.
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    Is it really about the bottle being decanted, or being ensured you're getting the wine you asked for? If I order the vegetarian lasagna, but I get the beef lasagna I'll immediately realize something is wrong. I think that's less true for drinking wine, especially if you're not super good at sensing nuances.
  - twoodfin 10y ago
    Better restaurants serving older vintages will definitely decant, though I agree it's rarer than it should be. I've seen a few use those aerating pourers, which is better than nothing.
dajohnson89 10y ago
>so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. I respectfully disagree. Basically I stick to cheap wines (for budget reasons), and my decanter will turn almost any unbearable red into acceptable. A newly opened red sometimes just needs to be smoothed out via air a bit -- at the extreme of things, if you leave a glass out overnight it will be flat (not to mention, the alcohol will have evaporated of course). edit: not sure if "evaporate" is the right scientific term
- bambax 10y ago
  > my decanter Myhrvold in Modernist Cuisine recommends to use a... blender. It really works ;-)
  - derefr 10y ago
    I can see what you mean—but in picturing it, now I'm curious what would happen if you ran some wine through a reflux condensation.
  - caf 10y ago
    The Vinturi aerators are pretty good.
- petters 10y ago
  Are you saying the alcohol will be gone overnight? I doubt that.
  - dajohnson89 10y ago
    if not completely gone, then dramatically reduced. source: have left a glass of wine on my nitestand before, and in the morning it was glass of sour grape juice.
    - takingflac 10y ago
      70% of the alcohol will remains after overnight.[1] [1] http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/retn/retn06.pdf http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/ret... (see page 12)