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I think if you have spent £100+ on a bottle of wine you may well be partial to the placebo effect. I.E. You convince yourself it tastes 'better than a £7 Tesco bottle'.
Vintage/Expensive wine - it's all a big con isn't it?
- Thread starter rubberduck
- Start date
Don’t confuse fine wine with good tasting wine.
Fine wine is wine that PERFECTLY corresponds to the agreed definition of what that wine should taste like.
Whether you personally like it or not is irrelevant. That’s not quality, that’s personal taste.
As a VERY basic example: a young Riesling should taste of citrus fruit. Limes, pineapples. That sort of thing. Crisp and refreshing. A properly aged Riesling should taste like petrol. PETROL. You pay £250 for a bottle of German wine and it tastes like petrol. You take it back as faulty and the dealer says “nope, that’s is a fine wine”. The fact that you don’t like fine wine is irrelevant. It’s expensive because it’s considered a good example of the wine, and as the stocks run down, it gets more expensive because it’s rare.
A little knowledge about selecting wines with food will give you a better meal experience. Hot curry with wine is fine, but pick one low in alcohol because alcohol amplifies the spice in curries and wipes out the flavour of both the wine and the curry. Lager at 5% is probably about as much as you want but something like Asti (7% alcohol) also goes really well with curry because it cleanses your mouth after a mouthful of spice. Being slightly sweet it will also amplify the bitter notes in a lot of Peshwari dishes.
But Asti is pretty cheap. So I’ve kind of drifted off topic. The real joy in wine is finding that €1 bottle of Vino Rossi Locale in some tiny Itslian village, wolfing it down with mouthfuls of fresh pasta, and then NOT taking 3 cases of it home. That’s the BEST.
Fine wine is wine that PERFECTLY corresponds to the agreed definition of what that wine should taste like.
Whether you personally like it or not is irrelevant. That’s not quality, that’s personal taste.
As a VERY basic example: a young Riesling should taste of citrus fruit. Limes, pineapples. That sort of thing. Crisp and refreshing. A properly aged Riesling should taste like petrol. PETROL. You pay £250 for a bottle of German wine and it tastes like petrol. You take it back as faulty and the dealer says “nope, that’s is a fine wine”. The fact that you don’t like fine wine is irrelevant. It’s expensive because it’s considered a good example of the wine, and as the stocks run down, it gets more expensive because it’s rare.
A little knowledge about selecting wines with food will give you a better meal experience. Hot curry with wine is fine, but pick one low in alcohol because alcohol amplifies the spice in curries and wipes out the flavour of both the wine and the curry. Lager at 5% is probably about as much as you want but something like Asti (7% alcohol) also goes really well with curry because it cleanses your mouth after a mouthful of spice. Being slightly sweet it will also amplify the bitter notes in a lot of Peshwari dishes.
But Asti is pretty cheap. So I’ve kind of drifted off topic. The real joy in wine is finding that €1 bottle of Vino Rossi Locale in some tiny Itslian village, wolfing it down with mouthfuls of fresh pasta, and then NOT taking 3 cases of it home. That’s the BEST.
Your doing it wrong then
Plenty of nice wines in lidl for under £5, corked as well so people always think its more expensive.
Drinking the same wine at different times can have a different taste due to what you've eaten / how you feel so I'm sure the expectation of drinking an expensive wine can lead to inflated sense of quality.
People can spend their money on whatever they like but I always enjoy taking a cheap bottle to those that get a bit pompous about it all. They never complain either through politeness or ignorance.
Drinking the same wine at different times can have a different taste due to what you've eaten / how you feel so I'm sure the expectation of drinking an expensive wine can lead to inflated sense of quality.
People can spend their money on whatever they like but I always enjoy taking a cheap bottle to those that get a bit pompous about it all. They never complain either through politeness or ignorance.
I would say, back when I was into wines:
15-20 - good Rioja, some good reds from france.
20-30 - at this point there's a gap, where not much return after but the big brands in france end up in the bracket.
70-80 - there was a definite jump about this price, after which you're onto stupid money.
Most expensive wine I've bought a while ago.. a couple of simple £220/bottle from Cheval Blanc. At the time I was into wines and yes you could taste more. However it's all over very quickly
To be honest now - I'd be happy with a good taste, good food and good company.
Nowdays I pick up some wine (a case or a couple of bottles) when visiting inlaws, nothing OTT but let them breath and eat with food.
I absolutely concur with this.
The best red wine I've ever had was some local stuff from a shack on a beach in Croatia, 15kn (~£2) for a litre, dispensed out of a vat into a diet Pepsi bottle
Sort of like the more extreme pedigree Dogs and Pigeon fancy.
The poor Dogs might be so physically deformed that they cant breathe or run and the birds might be so deformed that they cant fly, but they conform to the definition so therefore they are nevertheless highly valued.
The end goal is just to get ****** surely? Setting up a vineyard is hard work. Even if you find a patch of land with the right conditions, it takes 10-20 years until you’ve got your first bottle of wine.
I’m a heathen when it comes to wine. I prefer white to red and I prefer new world wine to European wine.
Controversial opinion: vintage champagne is the biggest con in wine. It tastes smoother but you’re still mostly tasting the CO2.
If I was feeling flush, I’d much rather spend money on expensive whisky than expensive champagne.
oh come on
at least with overclocking it is sometimes done to get better value out of the hardware you buy
Do you want to become a millionaire? Be a billionaire and start a vineyard.
oh come on
at least with overclocking it is sometimes done to get better value out of the hardware you buy
that's what I mean...people buying expensive wine must think it's good value too!
Like all things above a certain point you are into smoke and mirrors and diminishing returns. Investment wine is just that nobody really knows or cares if it tastes any good it's just a commodity that is worth what people are prepared to pay for it! My favourite wine costs £6 in Aldi and I'd rather drink that than anything more expensive that I've tried as it tastes just as good to me and I can enjoy it without thinking I just drunk 20/30/50/etc quid that I could have spent more wisely.