4 ms·

Saying that a vintage is "great" is like saying a hamburger is "great". Sure, there are plenty of ways to screw up or cheap out, but everything above the "nice"

Saying that a vintage is "great" is like saying a hamburger is "great". Sure, there are plenty of ways to screw up or cheap out, but everything above the "nice" level is 95%% personal taste.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> everything above the "nice" level is 95%% personal taste Eh, sparkling (white) wines have a weirdly steep quality curve. (Lambruscos are more forgiving.) If you aren’t drinking a great bottle from a great vintage, you’re almost always better off drinking something dirt cheap. It’s flavourless. But that beats the off notes in the mid tier.
- viciousvoxel 4y ago
  Anecdotally I 100% agree with this
autoexec 4y ago
Exactly. It's why people can't tell the difference between a expensive wines and cheap wines and it's price and expectations that drive their preference more than anything. It's so subjective that even expert tasters can't judge wines consistently. One analysis of wine competitions found that medals were basically distributed at random. I don't worry about expensive or fancy wines, I just try a bunch of everything and drink what tastes good to me. The less I can spend on something that tastes great and gets me pleasantly buzzed the better. Snobbery is a fools game.
philbo 4y ago
I used to hold the same opinion, until I studied and sat my WSET levels 2 and 3. Now I disagree. There are concrete and objective quality indicators in wine, which independent observers will reach the same conclusion about (without communicating). Broadly speaking you can class those as complexity, intensity, balance and length. It's entirely possible to have personal dislike for a particular wine style, yet score individual examples of it highly across those 4 areas. Equally it's possible to have great personal enjoyment of wines that don't score well. Personal taste and quality are separate dimensions, and appreciation of the latter is a coachable skill. I recommend anyone in doubt to take a decent wine course and see for yourself.
- causality0 4y ago
  Why should I need to be trained to tell when something is exceptionally good? I don't need training to know when a TV's picture looks great, or a bed is super comfy, or a knife keeps its edge forever.
  - philbo 4y ago
    Good for you! What does that have to do with personal taste though? Those things you list all sound like objective measures. All I'm saying is that wine quality is an objective measure too.

Saying that a vintage is "great" is like saying a hamburger is "great". Sure, there are plenty of ways to screw up or cheap out, but everything above the "nice" level is 95%% personal taste.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> everything above the "nice" level is 95%% personal taste Eh, sparkling (white) wines have a weirdly steep quality curve. (Lambruscos are more forgiving.) If you aren’t drinking a great bottle from a great vintage, you’re almost always better off drinking something dirt cheap. It’s flavourless. But that beats the off notes in the mid tier.

viciousvoxel 4y ago
Anecdotally I 100% agree with this

autoexec 4y ago

Exactly. It's why people can't tell the difference between a expensive wines and cheap wines and it's price and expectations that drive their preference more than anything. It's so subjective that even expert tasters can't judge wines consistently. One analysis of wine competitions found that medals were basically distributed at random. I don't worry about expensive or fancy wines, I just try a bunch of everything and drink what tastes good to me. The less I can spend on something that tastes great and gets me pleasantly buzzed the better. Snobbery is a fools game.

philbo 4y ago

I used to hold the same opinion, until I studied and sat my WSET levels 2 and 3. Now I disagree. There are concrete and objective quality indicators in wine, which independent observers will reach the same conclusion about (without communicating). Broadly speaking you can class those as complexity, intensity, balance and length. It's entirely possible to have personal dislike for a particular wine style, yet score individual examples of it highly across those 4 areas. Equally it's possible to have great personal enjoyment of wines that don't score well. Personal taste and quality are separate dimensions, and appreciation of the latter is a coachable skill. I recommend anyone in doubt to take a decent wine course and see for yourself.

causality0 4y ago
Why should I need to be trained to tell when something is exceptionally good? I don't need training to know when a TV's picture looks great, or a bed is super comfy, or a knife keeps its edge forever.
- philbo 4y ago
  Good for you! What does that have to do with personal taste though? Those things you list all sound like objective measures. All I'm saying is that wine quality is an objective measure too.