4 ms·

> Or anyone who expects me to spend more than five bucks a bottle (ok I can go as high as ten if it's a restaurant). Apart from the fact than nobody should exp

> Or anyone who expects me to spend more than five bucks a bottle (ok I can go as high as ten if it's a restaurant). Apart from the fact than nobody should expect you to spend any money on anything... Just like everything else, wines differ, among others, in quality. If you spend 5 bucks on a bottle, chances are what you're drinking is really bad. It is possible to find decent wine in this range, but it's quite difficult.

enraged_camel 9y ago
Yeah, $5 wine is basically cooking wine. It isn't meant to be consumed as a beverage. On the other hand, the average person is unlikely to be able to tell the difference between a $25 bottle of wine and a $2500 bottle of wine.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Not really, you can find plenty of decent Italian and Portuguese wines for that price. To take the first example I found, the 2014 Quinta de Cabriz is 46th in the world top 100 of the Wine Spectator and costs $5 in Portugal, and less than $7 in the US. The last wine I drank was a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo; I can't remember the specific winemaker, but it was quite nice and was less than $9, despite being bought in another European country.
- cletus 9y ago
  This is completely misguided. When you cook with wine you lose all the alcohol, which is the only constant between two bottles of wine. You're just left with the rest from which comes the taste. There's no such thing as "cooking wine". Bad wine is bad wine. If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it. That all being said, I personally think wine snobbery is basically bullshit and I think blind taste tests tend to support that view. Still, a wine isn't bad because it's $5. Nor is it good because it's $30. When I lived in the UK I'd often get by with the table wine from Tesco for under 5 pounds and honestly it was fine. I found quite a few decent bottles of Portugese and Chilean wine for under 10 pounds. Beaujolais wasn't more than 3-5 pounds.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > When you cook with wine you lose all the alcohol, which is the only constant between two bottles of wine. You're just left with the rest from which comes the taste. This is a myth. Even after 2.5 hours of simmering/baking, 5% remains. Flambeing leaves 75%, and a 15 minute simmer still leaves nearly half. https://www.oasas.ny.gov/admed/fyi/fyi-cooking.cfm https://www.oasas.ny.gov/admed/fyi/fyi-cooking.cfm
    - hacking_again 9y ago
      You can almost always substitute 3/4 cup white vermouth (e.g. Martini) for 1 cup white wine. Generally tastes just as good, and you don't have to drink the remainder of the bottle.
      - noonespecial 9y ago
        >and you don't have to drink the remainder of the bottle. You say that like its a bad thing. Cooking with the wine is a great way for it to end up on the table surrounded by random glasses where "I don't want to trouble you", becomes "well, since its open anyway".
        hacking_again 9y ago
        Oh, I'm not really a drinker, so I miss these things. Do you mean for getting girls drunk with plausible deniability?
        QuercusMax 9y ago
        Pretty sure nothing that creepy was intended. More like wine is often thought of a "special occasion" type of drink (especially in the US), and so opening a bottle is a non-standard occurrence at dinner time. If you're a guest, it may seem rude to ask somebody to open their "special" wine. But if you are cooking with the wine, you already have the bottle open. Since an opened bottle of wine will rapidly deteriorate if you don't drink it within a fairly short time period (day or so), you may as well drink the remainder, thus put the open bottle on the table (where family/guests are gathered), and it will be consumed with relish.
- stewbrew 9y ago
  Maybe you just live in the wrong region. Over here, you can get a decent wine for 5 EUR, if you know where to buy. That said a wine for 30 EUR from the same wine maker most likely is a lot better. One thing I've learned is to buy from good local wine makers (I admit that's not possible everywhere though :-) and to forget about wine stores, international prizes etc.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree. If you live in Tuscany, you can buy wonderful vino sfuso from 2014/2015 at €2/liter in a small local shop. But there is no chance you could taste anything similar at the same price in the USA.
xapata 9y ago
$20 per bottle is quite sufficient at the grocery. Maybe $25 for variety.
- anarazel 9y ago
  Depends a lot on the grocery and city ime. I'm still in shock about wine prices in the US but SF in particular. ~18 months after I moved here. In Germany I could buy the same Californian wines for cheaper than here, not to speak of pretty good French, Italian, Spanish ones. It's less bad if you're outside of SF.
emsy 9y ago
Then there's Aldi's wine that won a wine award: http://www.ajc.com/news/national/wine-aldi-wins-prestigious-award/soRS96vumKc9tiPyRbkxNM/ http://www.ajc.com/news/national/wine-aldi-wins-prestigious-... I often find people have a kind of placebo effect when it comes to expensive commodities. It's expensive so it has to be better. In the meantime, professionals buy generics: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/25/334459041/when-do-chefs-and-doctors-buy-generic http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/25/334459041/when-...
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Perhaps. There's also just difference tastes, some people prefer different types of wines (e.g. a blend containing more merlot, etc). That said, I can tell for a fact price often does not matter past a certain point -- it definitely isn't a good way to determine quality. I have had great bottles that sell for $15, and (not horrible but) not special ones that sell for $50 or $100. There are plenty of good $15 wines and plenty of bad ones. Same applies to the higher priced ones as well. Often it's hit and miss, and you need to do your research! (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing)
- eaandkw2 9y ago
  I have found some pretty good wine from Australia that is only about seven dollars a bottle. Merlots and Cab Sav are my favorites. I got a bottle of Merlot from Portugal for so little I thought it would have tasted terrible but in fact, it was great. Now, I am not a wine professional by any stretch of the imagination but I think you can find some great wine for ten dollars or less. Just don't buy a bottle based on how the bottle looks.
- TylerE 9y ago
  Spirit awards are a very fishy business. They tend to charge high entry fees and give out lots of participation trophies. Something that sounds prestigious like a "double silver" probably means that it didn't taste quite as bad as rancid cat pee.

enraged_camel 9y ago

Yeah, $5 wine is basically cooking wine. It isn't meant to be consumed as a beverage. On the other hand, the average person is unlikely to be able to tell the difference between a $25 bottle of wine and a $2500 bottle of wine.

icebraining 9y ago
Not really, you can find plenty of decent Italian and Portuguese wines for that price. To take the first example I found, the 2014 Quinta de Cabriz is 46th in the world top 100 of the Wine Spectator and costs $5 in Portugal, and less than $7 in the US. The last wine I drank was a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo; I can't remember the specific winemaker, but it was quite nice and was less than $9, despite being bought in another European country.
cletus 9y ago
This is completely misguided. When you cook with wine you lose all the alcohol, which is the only constant between two bottles of wine. You're just left with the rest from which comes the taste. There's no such thing as "cooking wine". Bad wine is bad wine. If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it. That all being said, I personally think wine snobbery is basically bullshit and I think blind taste tests tend to support that view. Still, a wine isn't bad because it's $5. Nor is it good because it's $30. When I lived in the UK I'd often get by with the table wine from Tesco for under 5 pounds and honestly it was fine. I found quite a few decent bottles of Portugese and Chilean wine for under 10 pounds. Beaujolais wasn't more than 3-5 pounds.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > When you cook with wine you lose all the alcohol, which is the only constant between two bottles of wine. You're just left with the rest from which comes the taste. This is a myth. Even after 2.5 hours of simmering/baking, 5% remains. Flambeing leaves 75%, and a 15 minute simmer still leaves nearly half. https://www.oasas.ny.gov/admed/fyi/fyi-cooking.cfm https://www.oasas.ny.gov/admed/fyi/fyi-cooking.cfm
  - hacking_again 9y ago
    You can almost always substitute 3/4 cup white vermouth (e.g. Martini) for 1 cup white wine. Generally tastes just as good, and you don't have to drink the remainder of the bottle.
    - noonespecial 9y ago
      >and you don't have to drink the remainder of the bottle. You say that like its a bad thing. Cooking with the wine is a great way for it to end up on the table surrounded by random glasses where "I don't want to trouble you", becomes "well, since its open anyway".
      - hacking_again 9y ago
        Oh, I'm not really a drinker, so I miss these things. Do you mean for getting girls drunk with plausible deniability?
        QuercusMax 9y ago
        Pretty sure nothing that creepy was intended. More like wine is often thought of a "special occasion" type of drink (especially in the US), and so opening a bottle is a non-standard occurrence at dinner time. If you're a guest, it may seem rude to ask somebody to open their "special" wine. But if you are cooking with the wine, you already have the bottle open. Since an opened bottle of wine will rapidly deteriorate if you don't drink it within a fairly short time period (day or so), you may as well drink the remainder, thus put the open bottle on the table (where family/guests are gathered), and it will be consumed with relish.
stewbrew 9y ago
Maybe you just live in the wrong region. Over here, you can get a decent wine for 5 EUR, if you know where to buy. That said a wine for 30 EUR from the same wine maker most likely is a lot better. One thing I've learned is to buy from good local wine makers (I admit that's not possible everywhere though :-) and to forget about wine stores, international prizes etc.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree. If you live in Tuscany, you can buy wonderful vino sfuso from 2014/2015 at €2/liter in a small local shop. But there is no chance you could taste anything similar at the same price in the USA.

xapata 9y ago

$20 per bottle is quite sufficient at the grocery. Maybe $25 for variety.

anarazel 9y ago
Depends a lot on the grocery and city ime. I'm still in shock about wine prices in the US but SF in particular. ~18 months after I moved here. In Germany I could buy the same Californian wines for cheaper than here, not to speak of pretty good French, Italian, Spanish ones. It's less bad if you're outside of SF.

emsy 9y ago

Then there's Aldi's wine that won a wine award: http://www.ajc.com/news/national/wine-aldi-wins-prestigious-award/soRS96vumKc9tiPyRbkxNM/ http://www.ajc.com/news/national/wine-aldi-wins-prestigious-... I often find people have a kind of placebo effect when it comes to expensive commodities. It's expensive so it has to be better. In the meantime, professionals buy generics: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/25/334459041/when-do-chefs-and-doctors-buy-generic http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/25/334459041/when-...

charlesdm 9y ago
Perhaps. There's also just difference tastes, some people prefer different types of wines (e.g. a blend containing more merlot, etc). That said, I can tell for a fact price often does not matter past a certain point -- it definitely isn't a good way to determine quality. I have had great bottles that sell for $15, and (not horrible but) not special ones that sell for $50 or $100. There are plenty of good $15 wines and plenty of bad ones. Same applies to the higher priced ones as well. Often it's hit and miss, and you need to do your research! (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing)
eaandkw2 9y ago
I have found some pretty good wine from Australia that is only about seven dollars a bottle. Merlots and Cab Sav are my favorites. I got a bottle of Merlot from Portugal for so little I thought it would have tasted terrible but in fact, it was great. Now, I am not a wine professional by any stretch of the imagination but I think you can find some great wine for ten dollars or less. Just don't buy a bottle based on how the bottle looks.
TylerE 9y ago
Spirit awards are a very fishy business. They tend to charge high entry fees and give out lots of participation trophies. Something that sounds prestigious like a "double silver" probably means that it didn't taste quite as bad as rancid cat pee.