4 ms·

I don't expect this article to give rise to insightful commentary; articles on wine invariably have two kinds of commenters, the dismissives and the aesthetes,

I don't expect this article to give rise to insightful commentary; articles on wine invariably have two kinds of commenters, the dismissives and the aesthetes, and they usually talk past one another. The dismissives mention things like blind taste testers not being able to distinguish red from white or blind tasters preferring cheap wine to expensive. Look into this a bit further, and you find that the first study was actually about phrases used to describe wine falling into two categories, one associated with reds and another associated with whites, and the colour of the wine appeared to be the distinguishing factor in which set of phraseology was chosen; while the second has curious echoes of Coke vs Pepsi leading to New Coke. Small samples don't give the full effect of a wine, wine will taste different when you have it with different food, or in a different order compared with other wines, on a cold palate vs a warm palate (i.e. is this your first taste of alcohol of the evening - first is usually harshest), or straight out of the bottle vs aerated, and indeed it'll taste different depending on what you think the relative price is - especially so if you have fewer other criteria to judge it with. I'm on the aesthetes' side. I'm far from an expert, and only drink about 20 bottles a year, but when I do it's either in a taste test situation, or as paired wines in a tasting menu, or vintages selected from appellations and grapes chosen for their typical character. I wish I could find whites that taste like reds, but I dislike almost all unaccompanied whites, with some exceptions around sauternes, some Rieslings, Gewürztraminer, etc.; and I wish I could find cheap reds that taste like intense Cote Rotie syrah or savoury Burgundy pinot noir, but the same grapes grown elsewhere come nowhere close. Most New World syrah / shiraz is too alcoholic, while pinot noir is a completely different beast when it's grown in too sunny a climate. Slovenia has come closest to making some decent Burgundy-style pinot noir to my taste. My point being that the "hierarchy" in wine is, to my mind, at least a local optimum or close to it. Within the appellations that I prefer most, I've observed a reasonably strong correlation between price and my preferences. I think winemakers have been doing a kind of local gradient ascent as technology improves their product - it would be unusual for them to do otherwise - and the argument that preservatives etc. improve ageing ability as well as transport is fairly strong to my mind, as my preferred vintages are usually not younger than 4 years. I'm not big on fresh fruit flavours. I would expect "natural" wines to have higher variance (though unblended wine has a fairly high variance between vintages already). If the winemaker is good, and the product is good in spite of less ability to control the end product, great; whether such wine could survive hanging around Amazon's warehouses and reaching customers in good condition, I'm less convinced - I've had bad tawny port from Amazon, it takes some effort to make such a hardy product go bad. So all in, I think this article is mostly a marketing effort for the few winemakers who think they can create a decent product following the schtick; I don't think it's likely to actually produce a significantly better product; I don't buy that the existing hierarchy is particularly wrong (but it is warped by big money in things like Bordeaux, for sure); and I don't think I'll be inclined to buy more natural wine since I think the probability it turns out mediocre is much higher.

onion2k 9y ago
Within the appellations that I prefer most, I've observed a reasonably strong correlation between price and my preferences. That's often true up to a point. There are fixed overheads with any retail product so if you spend $8 on a bottle of wine you're really getting $2 worth of wine and $6 worth of logistics, retail margin, etc. If you spend $12 on a bottle of wine you're getting $6 worth of wine, and the same $6 worth of logistics, margin, etc. A 50% increase in price but a 300% increase in 'product cost'. However, at the top end of retail wine the difference in product cost between a $200 bottle and a $300 bottle is effectively zero, so price is less useful as a guide.
- barrkel 9y ago
  The difference between $50 (about the least I'd pay for a red I actually want to drink) and $200 (I spend this much on single bottles about twice a year) is enormous. The difference between $200 and $600 (the most I've paid for a bottle) is mostly cachet, a memorable event, an anchoring life experience. But rare wine can be expensive for other reasons than quality. For example, if it's expensive because it's very old, it probably won't be very tasty. Then, it's like going to a museum, but instead of viewing the artifacts, you're ingesting them. I've sipped Madeira from the 19th century for these reasons - was about $70 for a few sips in a glass from an Enomatic at Hedonism Wines here in London. The experience is expensive because it's very rare and only some demand, rather than lots of demand and moderate supply.
  - myrandomcomment 9y ago
    So I take issue with the old not tasty comment. My wife and I have a pretty big collection of wine. We drink wine everyday with dinner mostly. For the older bottles right now looking I have some things - 72,76,78,82,85,93,94 - and more stuff in the 1999-2003 range. For all of those older wines the amount of time it is open before you drink is a huge key of how much taste you get. For the stuff from the 70s-80s I would open it 8 hours before drinking. The issue I find is most people thing 2 hours is enough, which it is not.
    - 9y ago

onion2k 9y ago

Within the appellations that I prefer most, I've observed a reasonably strong correlation between price and my preferences. That's often true up to a point. There are fixed overheads with any retail product so if you spend $8 on a bottle of wine you're really getting $2 worth of wine and $6 worth of logistics, retail margin, etc. If you spend $12 on a bottle of wine you're getting $6 worth of wine, and the same $6 worth of logistics, margin, etc. A 50% increase in price but a 300% increase in 'product cost'. However, at the top end of retail wine the difference in product cost between a $200 bottle and a $300 bottle is effectively zero, so price is less useful as a guide.

barrkel 9y ago
The difference between $50 (about the least I'd pay for a red I actually want to drink) and $200 (I spend this much on single bottles about twice a year) is enormous. The difference between $200 and $600 (the most I've paid for a bottle) is mostly cachet, a memorable event, an anchoring life experience. But rare wine can be expensive for other reasons than quality. For example, if it's expensive because it's very old, it probably won't be very tasty. Then, it's like going to a museum, but instead of viewing the artifacts, you're ingesting them. I've sipped Madeira from the 19th century for these reasons - was about $70 for a few sips in a glass from an Enomatic at Hedonism Wines here in London. The experience is expensive because it's very rare and only some demand, rather than lots of demand and moderate supply.
- myrandomcomment 9y ago
  So I take issue with the old not tasty comment. My wife and I have a pretty big collection of wine. We drink wine everyday with dinner mostly. For the older bottles right now looking I have some things - 72,76,78,82,85,93,94 - and more stuff in the 1999-2003 range. For all of those older wines the amount of time it is open before you drink is a huge key of how much taste you get. For the stuff from the 70s-80s I would open it 8 hours before drinking. The issue I find is most people thing 2 hours is enough, which it is not.
  - 9y ago