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It happens in a similar way to anything: you see what works, and create sense with symbols and consistent repetition as in any semantic field. Why is one burger

It happens in a similar way to anything: you see what works, and create sense with symbols and consistent repetition as in any semantic field. Why is one burger better than another, or one steak? I can't say we have the science yet for exact measurement, but it may come. Sometimes it's obvious: cheap industrial plastic supermarket cheddar really is full of less decent chemicals for your senses than pricier artisan ones like Humboldt Fog. That can be demonstrated, and I suspect in the future more will be demonstrable with wine. So far you can realise why that cheap Zin blend from Lodi doesn't really do it for you with the most obvious of measurements: yield! They get even 10 tons per acre there rather than 1-3 tons in a high-quality vineyard. Fewer nutrients and flavours to go around, and more water, sugar and untasty components have to flesh it out (poor overburdened vines, eh!) that's just the first variable: I know some more, but there are good soil scientists who can tell you a lot about all of the other variables too. Feel free to ping me for pointers, as I don't have time to write about it now. I frequently prefer cheaper wines to more expensive ones, and agree price-quality correlation is not good, depending on what your wine source is, but at the same time you're going to have to find good data to demonstrate no correlation: for price is one (flawed but still input-data-rich) indicator! We do fool ourselves with patterns, but also we do not. AFAIK there is not enough research to rove it either way, but qualitative methods can point us to better theories to work with until we have good enough constructs for quantitative analysis for our minds' perceptions.

uvdiv 14y ago
So far you can realise why that cheap Zin blend from Lodi doesn't really do it for you with the most obvious of measurements: yield! They get even 10 tons per acre there rather than 1-3 tons in a high-quality vineyard. Fewer nutrients and flavours to go around, and more water, sugar and untasty components have to flesh it out (poor overburdened vines, eh!), I don't understand this. Flavourful chemicals aren't a scarce resource to "go around" -- they're organic compounds plants synthesise "from scratch" (or their reaction products, after aging). Perhaps scarce soil nutrients influence this, for better or worse (I don't know), but this isn't a priori obvious. Wikipedia didn't help me resolve this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_(wine)#Yield_as_an_indication_of_quality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_(wine)#Yield_as_an_indic...
- triplesec 14y ago
  Look up, for example, why top Napa vineyards go for low yields. It's also basic chemistry. There is a finite number of nutrients in the soil, and the plant can make a finite amount of such things out of these nutrients (like phenols in the grape skins and... er.. this is not my subject, but I can look it up again myself should I have to).
  - uvdiv 14y ago
    Look up, for example, why top Napa vineyards go for low yields. I tried and failed (wikipedia) -- can you point me to something informative? I don't know what I'm looking for. There is a finite number of nutrients in the soil, and the plant can make a finite amount of such things out of these nutrients (like phenols in the grape skins and... er.. this is not my subject, but I can look it up again myself should I have to). In general they're not finite. Phenols are just C,H,O -- they're made from water and CO2. All of these compounds, as far as I can tell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_content_in_wine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_content_in_wine I haven't found anything that says that, for example, soil nutrients correlate with phenol concentrations in vines (for example). It's not obvious.
    - triplesec 14y ago
      When i have a moment I"lk try to find a source.. In the eanwhile, this is the book to get by the ultimate wine scientist http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275195 http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275195

uvdiv 14y ago

So far you can realise why that cheap Zin blend from Lodi doesn't really do it for you with the most obvious of measurements: yield! They get even 10 tons per acre there rather than 1-3 tons in a high-quality vineyard. Fewer nutrients and flavours to go around, and more water, sugar and untasty components have to flesh it out (poor overburdened vines, eh!), I don't understand this. Flavourful chemicals aren't a scarce resource to "go around" -- they're organic compounds plants synthesise "from scratch" (or their reaction products, after aging). Perhaps scarce soil nutrients influence this, for better or worse (I don't know), but this isn't a priori obvious. Wikipedia didn't help me resolve this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_(wine)#Yield_as_an_indication_of_quality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_(wine)#Yield_as_an_indic...

triplesec 14y ago
Look up, for example, why top Napa vineyards go for low yields. It's also basic chemistry. There is a finite number of nutrients in the soil, and the plant can make a finite amount of such things out of these nutrients (like phenols in the grape skins and... er.. this is not my subject, but I can look it up again myself should I have to).
- uvdiv 14y ago
  Look up, for example, why top Napa vineyards go for low yields. I tried and failed (wikipedia) -- can you point me to something informative? I don't know what I'm looking for. There is a finite number of nutrients in the soil, and the plant can make a finite amount of such things out of these nutrients (like phenols in the grape skins and... er.. this is not my subject, but I can look it up again myself should I have to). In general they're not finite. Phenols are just C,H,O -- they're made from water and CO2. All of these compounds, as far as I can tell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_content_in_wine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_content_in_wine I haven't found anything that says that, for example, soil nutrients correlate with phenol concentrations in vines (for example). It's not obvious.
  - triplesec 14y ago
    When i have a moment I"lk try to find a source.. In the eanwhile, this is the book to get by the ultimate wine scientist http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275195 http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275195