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Nice ad hominem you have there. What I mean is that there is a huge amount written about, for example, pairing particular wines with particular foods. Most of

Nice ad hominem you have there. What I mean is that there is a huge amount written about, for example, pairing particular wines with particular foods. Most of this is aimed at people with far less wine knowledge than my dinner companion, who couldn't tell a white from a red if he couldn't see it. How useful do you think all that writing is, if only highly trained professionals have any chance of even noticing?

cycrutchfield 4y ago
Sorry, this is a touchy topic since everybody likes to shit on so-called wine snobs. With respect to food pairings, thankfully this is easy enough for you to try out yourself. Get some spicy Thai food and try it (blind) with a German Riesling versus a CA Cabernet, see if you prefer one over the other. By the way, you will probably be able to tell the difference between those two wines blind. I think most writing about wine is probably pretty useless, but when it comes to pairing food and wine there are some useful heuristics. Just like you probably wouldn’t like mustard on your ice cream, you probably wouldn’t like a big CA cab with spicy Thai food.
- lemming 4y ago
  No worries, and no shitting-on intended. It's a super interesting subject though, lots of issues around perception and psychological suggestibility which I find fascinating. When we ate out, it wasn't just the wine that was difficult to describe, almost no-one could identify reliably if we were e.g. eating pork or chicken. It really made me think about how sure I was about what I was tasting, or even like to eat. I'm also totally willing to believe that, for example, wine pairing recommendations might affect the flavour of what I'm eating, even if I couldn't reliably describe why that is. I'm sure the same is why food from a good restaurant is better than what I cook at home, even if I couldn't separate out the flavours well enough to tell you why. I'll try those recommendations just for my own curiosity too, thanks. That said, I was curious whether there was research around this, and found this article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-ta.... It doesn't paint the wine awards very well, although there's a big "it's complicated" caveat around it too. Googling for Robert Hodgson leads to a lot of interesting articles and interviews with him. It was really interesting how much variability there was across the judges - I could totally believe that, say, 10% of the population is predisposed for whatever reason to be much better at distinguishing subtleties. I remember an article written by a woman whose dad was really into wine and kept trying to get her into it too, but she hated it. At some point she had some sensory tests done and IIRC she was really sensitive to bitterness, which made basically all wine taste terrible to her - just a biological difference. At the end of the day, even if there is a lot of suggestibility involved, I really don't have a problem with that. If wine is a hobby for a lot of people and they get pleasure out of it, that's fine by me even if it does turn out to be largely placebo - it's not like we're talking about homeopathy for your healthcare or something. I thought this guy was refreshingly down-to-earth about it all: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2016/october/karl-storchmann-on-wine-economics.html https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2016/octobe.... Basically - find something you like, and drink that, and don't worry about what anyone else thinks. Probably easier said than done, though.

cycrutchfield 4y ago

Sorry, this is a touchy topic since everybody likes to shit on so-called wine snobs. With respect to food pairings, thankfully this is easy enough for you to try out yourself. Get some spicy Thai food and try it (blind) with a German Riesling versus a CA Cabernet, see if you prefer one over the other. By the way, you will probably be able to tell the difference between those two wines blind. I think most writing about wine is probably pretty useless, but when it comes to pairing food and wine there are some useful heuristics. Just like you probably wouldn’t like mustard on your ice cream, you probably wouldn’t like a big CA cab with spicy Thai food.

lemming 4y ago
No worries, and no shitting-on intended. It's a super interesting subject though, lots of issues around perception and psychological suggestibility which I find fascinating. When we ate out, it wasn't just the wine that was difficult to describe, almost no-one could identify reliably if we were e.g. eating pork or chicken. It really made me think about how sure I was about what I was tasting, or even like to eat. I'm also totally willing to believe that, for example, wine pairing recommendations might affect the flavour of what I'm eating, even if I couldn't reliably describe why that is. I'm sure the same is why food from a good restaurant is better than what I cook at home, even if I couldn't separate out the flavours well enough to tell you why. I'll try those recommendations just for my own curiosity too, thanks. That said, I was curious whether there was research around this, and found this article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-ta.... It doesn't paint the wine awards very well, although there's a big "it's complicated" caveat around it too. Googling for Robert Hodgson leads to a lot of interesting articles and interviews with him. It was really interesting how much variability there was across the judges - I could totally believe that, say, 10% of the population is predisposed for whatever reason to be much better at distinguishing subtleties. I remember an article written by a woman whose dad was really into wine and kept trying to get her into it too, but she hated it. At some point she had some sensory tests done and IIRC she was really sensitive to bitterness, which made basically all wine taste terrible to her - just a biological difference. At the end of the day, even if there is a lot of suggestibility involved, I really don't have a problem with that. If wine is a hobby for a lot of people and they get pleasure out of it, that's fine by me even if it does turn out to be largely placebo - it's not like we're talking about homeopathy for your healthcare or something. I thought this guy was refreshingly down-to-earth about it all: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2016/october/karl-storchmann-on-wine-economics.html https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2016/octobe.... Basically - find something you like, and drink that, and don't worry about what anyone else thinks. Probably easier said than done, though.