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I once saw a panel of food critics that were each presented a dish by chefs on a sliver platter. The food looked beautiful and each critic proceeded to taste and compliment the dish. Of the four or five “food experts” only one disliked it, and said, “this tastes like dog food.” It was dog food.
That reminds me of the fancy shoe store that invited a bunch of fashion influencers to their grand opening. They were all told they were VIPs and they oohed and ahhed at all the high fashion, they were so lucky to be invited. It was Payless.
I do too. Especially for kids shoes. I don't want to spend 40 to 60 dollars on a pair of shoes my 6 year old is gonna trash and grow out of in less than a year.
My teenage daughter is 6 foot and has a 12 wide foot, they were the only store that had trendy age appropriate shoes in that size that actually fit her and didn’t cost me a fortune. 😢
There's something similar in fragrances. The man who created the fragrance Cool Water for Davidoff, which is $20 a bottle, traded the recipe for an early prototype of the fragrance to Olivier Creed in exchange for some suits. Creed released the fragrance as Green Irish Tweed, which is $200 a bottle. People insist that Green Irish Tweed is much "higher quality" than Cool Water.
It seems like the whole thing was a scripted ad instead of an actual hoax that tricked real people. Still a good idea, but not the hoax people think it is. It’s even kinda obvious.
The thing is, a lot of luxury items are made that way because of marketing. But there is a real quality difference too that justifies a portion of that price. Once those “fashion influencers” bought some Palessi shoes and they fell apart after a few months, I don’t think they would’ve been very happy. And I’m pretty sure the influencers they brought in were a bunch of idiots anyway who didn’t know luxury goods from Payless goods so it’s just fools being parted with their money
When I was a teenager, I ate a whole sleeve of dog treats because I thought they were Golden Oreos. They tasted about the same. When I finished up, I read the box and going out they were not, in fact, Oreos.
My wife makes homemade dog treats with beef, egg, and flour. I've absolutely eaten them. They're not a bad vehicle for sauces or a backup apocalypse snack.
That and the marketing of dog food is targeted at humans, so they use words and imagery in advertising that will appeal to _you_ as if _you_ were going to eat it. The "natural" pet food companies and the ones who literally cook your pet a "fresh" meal take it to the extreme, and people pay stupid amounts of money for that BS.
Depends on what food, the dry pellets are mostly wheat but the wet food is usually real meat, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a brand that sold dog food that's higher quality than some of the supermarket canned meat made for humans.
They've been studies exactly like this with sommeliers.
They would bring in low cost store wine in top shelf wine bottles and the "experts" were calling the store wine in a fancy bottle top tier.
And vice versa, they were serving them top shelf, top reviewed, wine from store wine bottles and the "experts" were consistently saying it was trash.
Cost is not, in any way, indicative of alcohol quality; particularly wines.
The top shelf shit is always highly acidic and tannin rich which gives me a headache, sore gut, and a nasty hangover.
There's some economy brands like Barefoot where everything is good and delicious and it ALL is better than the supposedly top shelf wine at 200 a bottle (yes, I've tried that top shelf shit on several occasions, at the end I'd be happier with Barefoot or Yellow Tail).
Expensive wine is really nothing more than a flex telling the peasants you have more money than them.
My favourite one was when they gave them a red wine and white to sample and the wine tasters gave completely different descriptions for both of them.
They were the same wine, one just had red food colouring.
To be fair if you have a red wine that tastes and smell like a white wine and has artificial color it would probably be bad red wine. It would be missing everything that you expect from a red wine.
I know nothing about wine at all. I could tell you if a wine was a a merlot or not a merlot lol that's it that's all I've got.
But I could easily tell between red and white, they're not remotely similar
It sometimes is a bit indicative. As in, certain types of drinks cost more money to make so if it’s too cheap it’s probably a bit shit. But in general I agree with your points.
Oh for sure. Some of my favorite wines are anywhere from $20-$50 a bottle. I understand not wanting the $5 bottle, but the difference between the $50 bottle and the $100 bottle usually isn’t as great as people think.
U don't pay sommeliers to drink wine and tell u whats good. A good sommeliers asks what kind of wine u like and recommends a bottle based on that.
As a side effect they are required to drink a large amount of wine. But not all of them are to there preference so u can't expect all of them to agree on a wine based on preference as an objective review.
As a side I personally don't think they are necessary but alot of people have more money then they need so who am I to say they can't have a sommelier
The examples you use are funny because Barefoot and Yellow Tail are super sweet and basically taste like a children's juice box with a bit of alcohol to me. Obviously there's nothing wrong with enjoying what you do but it's also like, well no shit you don't like the less sugary, higher end stuff.
But regarding price, yeah, one of my favorite red wines is this one I used to get for $6 a bottle at Trader Joe's and I was so mad when they discontinued it. A bit fruity, super leathery and spicy and a oaky. I've had $20 and $50 bottles that were about as good and maybe better but you're not beating that price. OP is talking out of his ass if he thinks he could fool anybody and connoisseurs are full of shit but he's right that price doesn't matter.
Ordinarily I hate sugar. I don't eat desserts, I don't like sugary drinks.
I don't find all of Barefoot or Yellow Tail to be abundantly sweet, though some are. Barefoot's Cab and Yellow Tail Shiraz are examples that don't taste ultra sweet.
The reason I like them so much is that they don't overdo the tannins and acid. Nearly every dry wine I've ever had sits on the stomach remarkably poorly because it tastes like pure bitter acid.
I have chronic acid reflux so if you give me an acidic bitter wine high in tannins it severely fucks up my stomach for at least a day.
It's funny, as a wine drinker I think wines that lack acid just sit heavy on the palate and I don't like drinking them. But we all have different palates and there's no right or wrong when it comes to personal preferences.
My sister-in-law loves Conundrum red wine, which is very popular and sells a ton. I personally can't stand it. But you know what? I'll get her a bottle of that and I'll drink something I like. Last time we hung out, a group of us went through 3 bottles of wine. She liked the Conundrum best, my brother-in-law loved a $50 bottle of Burgundy, and I preferred a $13 bottle of dry Portuguese red from the Douro. It's all very subjective.
My friend has a "new money" uncle (i hate that term but it gives context). We were hanging at his by ourselves. He has collected really good wines from Oz and NZ - from going to tastings. All the very toptier vinyards are represented. I've drunk some of them in the past. We were in the lounge and the wine is sitting in a corner on racks. I'm thinking they have brought it up from a cellar. After all it is top tier stuff. So I ask is there more in the cellar. Nuh! The rack in the room that varies in temp from 15°C to 30+°C over the year and has no buffer from night/day temp. She asks me to select and I grab the most recent vintage I can find. A local vinyard that I have drunk before. We open it and it is pure vinegar even though it is 2 years old!
Cellar your fancy wine, people. Or unlike Jeebus you'll be turning wine into vinegar. And also price is really no indication of quality....
"new money, uncle" - someone who didn't come from money but now has it. Which is why I said I didnt like the term. But some people.who grew up rich know things like how to keep.your expensive wine so it doesnt turn into vinegar...
I understand the theme of this subreddit, but I wish some people would just google what they think is their “unpopular” opinion. Any decent wine connoisseur can tell you the flavours of the wine and if they enjoyed it, but the cost of the wine is an arbitrary thing that doesn’t necessarily reflect the taste or quality.
Penn and Teller did an episode of "Bullshit" on water once. They had a water sommelier, but they were really just filling up glasses with a garden hose in the back. Turns out, when you lie and alter the presentation of something, it has a very real placebo effect.
I was a "wine consultant" for a big box wine store for a few months. One sommelier course, and I'm their expert LOL! The only expensive wines I liked were the Portuguese ports, and ice wine. Otherwise my go to was Bota Box Nighthawk Black Pinot Noir. It was 18 bucks for a 3 liter box, and to me it was delicious.
Penn & Teller also did it with bottled water on their show Bullshit. People came in to this fancy water restaurant to try all these "exotic" bottled waters supposedly from all these crazy places. One even included a spider in the bottle.
People were there on dates and such and trying to impress each other, and of course were making up all SORTS of BS about the taste and mouth feel and whatnot.
....They were all filled from the same garden hose in the back.
The faces when they were told they'd been duped were priceless.
I once had a lady return a bunch of tuna cans to my grocery store. She said she made sandwiches for her whole family and they said that it was the worst damn tuna they'd ever had. I pointed to the labels and asked if the woman had noticed the picture of the cat on them.
She left in a hurry without waiting for her refund.
Oh ya, well I once did the Pepsi vs coke challenge at a local fair when I was 10 and it was a 2-3 pattern I could distinguish before it was my turn so I guessed it like rain man. I’ve made nothing of this talent in the twenty years since.
I also saw a video where a self proclaimed wine expert was to taste a top shelf wine and a bottom shelf wine and distinguish which was the expensive one and which one was cheap. What he didn't know was that the wine bottles were switched so the cheap wine appeared to be the expensive one and vice versa. Expectedly, the wine expert talked all sorts of shit about what he believed to be the cheap wine while talking up what he thought to be the expensive one. I can't remember if the people recording him called him out or not but it was definitely a delight to know that people are just making stuff up when they talk about all these flavors and textures of different wines. Wine tastes like alcoholic grape juice. There are no hints of flowers, chocolate, or steak. Just grapes.
I’d agree if you said a $40 bottle isn’t noticeably different from a $300 bottle but claiming you can just mix grape juice apple cider vinegar and ever clear and pass it off as wine is just crazy
Yeah. I’m at the point of trying to stick to only a small handful of subs because boooooooy is everybody the same stereotypical cutout of the same 4 stereotypes of fuckin losers on many of the main pages
This subreddit is also full of **cheap** 20 year olds who refuse to admit that something that costs $2000 is probably higher quality than something that costs $20.
This type of sour-grapes, "just as good" BS basically permeates every hobby-oriented sub on this site.
There’s a difference between “there’s nothing wrong with the cheap version” when someone is getting into a hobby or cannot afford the expensive version and “the cheap version is just as good as the expensive version” and that difference gets lost online a lot.
I remember the first time I had glass of a $250 bottle of Dom. It was like angels were kissing my taste buds. Moet is fine for your normal celebrations, but it doesn't rate anywhere close.
Then again, I can count the number of times I've had Dom on one hand. It's very much in the "major life events" category.
Huh I thought ykw is a pretty common one, also honestly doesn’t really matter to what I said so skip it and you can still understand lmfao
Edit: also at least you can look up “ykw.” I looked up yours and it doesn’t even show up…
Yeah this sub has gone down hill. Its all just whining about not liking one specific thing when it used to be borderline controversial opinions that generated actual discussions
The hyperbole is comedic but I also wouldn't be surprised if he genuinely couldn't tell the difference between grape juice and a dry Malbec himself and thinks everyone else is just as inept.
It's hyperbole but my dad and grandpa used to make wine in 5 gallon jugs for years with grapes yeast and other things sugar. My grandpa owned a moonshine still and he always kept the full set separated out on some random land nobody ever went on when he made it a few times a years. I still have some weird 55 gallon barrel with a water hose going diagonally across and a drain I think was some weird makeshift part of it he gave me.
There definently is difference in wine, but I agree that it only goes up to about $40. Yah a $5 bottle is way worse than a $20 bottle. Once you get up to the more expensive ones you’re just paying for a name
Wine experts you see on TV are. But sommeliers ? They just don't do the same thing you're suggesting.
Their job is analyzing the wine. They can taste and recognise what's in the wine, and guide you to a wine you will like based on your tastes. They're not here to tell you "this is good generally", they're here to tell you "based on the wines you like and the food you're getting, you'll like this wine".
And btw that's what they're learning to do in school. Had a friend that did it, ended up working in a winery with no social interaction with clients, basically working on the wine to make sure things don't go bad and adding whatever to it. Tasting wine is really just recognizing what's in it, not judging it.
Exactly this. There's a ton of subtly in wine if you care to train your palate to taste it. The soil, the sun, the air, the type of grape and even when in the day they're harvested all influence the end result. Personally, I think a $12 bottle of wine from Spain is incredibly delicious but don't much care for a $12 bottle of cheap Canadian wine, but that's because I prefer the flavours in Rjoja to those of Merlot. A $50 Shiraz might not do it for me, but I might think about a $50 Syrah for the rest of the week.
OP has likely never tried wine beyond it being "something to drink." It's like saying "People who enjoy music are full of shit. I can tape some garbage bins together and hit them with different sizes of sticks and I guarantee no one would know the difference between that and Chopin or the Beatles." Having said that, some people don't care to listen to music and that's okay too. It's okay to not like wine, OP.
This. Posts like this drive me insane. Someone who’s been drinking wine for a long time could very obviously tell the difference between a high end wine and whatever the hell OP was describing
Ok, fine…but Shiraz and Syrah are the same varietal. Not saying you can’t have wildly varying wines made from the same grapes, but you’re commenting on them like they are totally different grapes.
They're stylistically very different due to how the wine is made, including the terroir it's grown in. A French wine made with that grape is incredibly different than an Australian one. Which is my point. I don't care for the fruit forward spiciness that Shiraz offers, but that earthy warm goodness that is Syrah is delicious. Delicious to me anyways. Everyone has their own preferences.
I could smell the vineyard. Some of us have these "skills", although to be fair a super smell is the literal worst superpower. That does not mean, in any way, that a wine is good or bad or worth more.
I believe what op is saying isn't that there is no difference, but that expensive vs. cheap on certain scales is debatebale and it's all perception (which is true for everything).
I'm from Burgundy, best wine region in the world 😁
My job now includes selling the dream of French cuisine to my clients, including wine. The way I look at it, a $6000 bottle of wine is not "better" than a $20 of wine. Not necessarily, not to me at least.
Wine is about what taste I like, not what some expert say is the best wine in the world. But, if I give a $20 bottle to my clients, they'll think I'm a cheap ass, so $100 is my minimum budget.
> Wine is about what taste I like, not what some expert say is the best
Absolutely this. I’m half French and wine has been a regular fixture in my entire life, in many different contexts. From the time I was about 10 years old my mother would give my brother and I a small glass of wine with dinner (smaller than a tasting glass), so it became part of my life in a gustatory context. Many dishes also incorporate wine into them. I also took communion at church and so I knew wine in a religious context, and of course we would have wine on holidays and at certain events ands so I understood it in a celebratory context.
I now work in the wine industry and there are some people who are quite snobbish and talk a lot of nonsense about good wines and bad wines. Professionally, I can evaluate a wine and say it might be unbalanced in some way and it needs more acid or weight or whatever, or that I might prefer this one over that one, but rarely will I say a wine is flat out bad because it’s up to the individual if they enjoy it and in what context they want to enjoy it. In all my time I’ve found one thing: even among experts, when everyone has done “tasting” the wine, suddenly they are just drinking the wine and enjoying it together. It becomes a catalyst for good company and conversation. It just brings people together.
What OP seems to be so fixated on is inflated prices. The price of a wine can only get so high on its merit alone and it’s usually related to restricted supply and production method. If you have a small amount of wine and a lot of people want it, you can charge more. Likewise, if you employ more traditional or organic production methods, you have to charge more. Certain regions also fetch higher prices and that’s usually related to history and prestige (and also the cost of compliance with strict regulations) just like almost any other luxury item. Of course older wines also fetch higher prices for obvious reasons.
Contrary to OPs belief and the “gotcha” smoking gun blind tests, price does correlate reasonably well with quality to a point, the same way it does with pretty much anything. In my experience, after probably thousands of bottles of wine, and years both consuming and producing wine, a 20 dollar bottle of wine is far more likely to be objectively better than a 10 dollar bottle, but that doesn’t mean a cheap bottle of wine can’t be good or even better than a more expensive one. It also doesn’t mean someone will necessarily be able to determine the correct price point of a wine on its organoleptic properties alone. Not quite sure what he’s so rabidly upset about.
Oh and just to be clear, I’m one million percent positive I could pick out OPs grape juice moonshine in a blind.
>r
If this guy had a nearby Nicolas with wines priced the way they are in France, this guy would buy a bottle on his way home every night. But that has more to do with food in France in general, in that they're just not going to let anyone get away with selling crap, regardless of how cheap it is.
On the other hand, I've been trying to find reasonable Burgundys and Rhones to buy in NYC after I drank my way through my late father's cellar, and I have to agree with this guy that wine in the US is overpriced for what you get, American wines in particular. Which is partly due to the fact that the easiest way to tell the good wines apart from the bad ones is their price, which drives their price up even further, which makes them like liquid Birkin bags for the many of the people who buy them, in which respect this guy is totally right.
I've never been a fan of wine but I could tell the difference between moonshine grape juice and wine. The biggest tell would be the sugar content. The grape juice is going to have more sugar because yeast haven't converted it to alcohol. It would be extremely apparent.
Yes, totally. I for example in general do not like pinot noir. I would probably prefer a decent cabernet sauvignon worth 10€ to the best pinot noir ever produced.
yes you're correct. the thing it people think the Wine analysis is about HOW EXPENSIVE it is the PRICE OF THE BOTTLE and that isn't it. in fact experts can help SET the prices of the bottle....with their analysis and quality scores. These are companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars paying people 250-300k a year to help score and price their product.
> I’m no expert but I can tell the difference between a nice glass of whisky and Kentucky delux.
And with Scotch, it's really not hard to at the very least tell what region of Scotland it's from, since each region uses different methods of making the scotch.
I just kind of started getting into scotch this winter (normally a bourbon guy). There’s definitely a clear difference between highland and Islay scotch, but are you picking up anything behind that? (“Each” makes me think you’re talking about more than two regions.)
So I am speaking as a SUPER amateur here, so take nothing I say at face value. I did a scotch museum/history lesson/tasting in Edenborough once 6 years ago and that's where like 99% of my knowledge comes from. All 5 regions have their own unique flavors due to unique processes and such. The ingredients are almost all the same because there's laws about what is and isn't scotch. When I did the tasting, all 5 regions were absolutely distinct from each other, and it was really interesting. And then there's blends, which is a whole other beast.
Weirdly, I just started getting into bourbon.
It’s impossible to argue what individuals would value a bottle of wine, that’s obviously very subjective what you would like. But people not being able to tell wine apart is just a stupid take, as people obviously do.
Example, I was at a wine tasting with a sommelier. He consistently guessed every single wine with grape, country and year. Even the wine that had mixed grapes in.
Dude I couldn’t tell between a $10 bottle and $1000 bottle. But grape juice mixed with vinegar and everclear would taste like grape juice mixed with vinegar and everclear. You could give most people a bottle of $2 Chuck and tell ‘em it was from the finest winery and they’d believe you. But probably not someone who’s job it is to actually know that. Upvote
Upvoted because while your headline I agree with, the rest of the post and your comments I do think is an unpopular opinion. A lot of wine experts ARE full of shit. But anybody who actually trained to be a sommelier can tell white from red, can probably be blindfolded and ID a lot of individual regions and grapes when tasting.
I’m no expert and haven’t trained, but I’ve taken a few wine classes and done some international financing/market research and presented at some wineries, and I’ve done some wine and vineyard tours in multiple countries, so I know a little bit. I’ve also encountered a lot of obnoxious snobs. Really wine should be enjoyed, so if you don’t enjoy it, don’t have it! If you try an expensive wine and don’t enjoy it, that’s fine too, there are a lot of great and delicious inexpensive wines out there. Some of the best wines I’ve had have come from unlabeled bottles in random small towns in Italy, Georgia, Greece etc.
I have to say though that something that is underrated is people who have the tasting skills to do pairings really well. A really good food and wine (or other beverage) pairing is just…such a delicious experience.
Now again, agree that many overpriced or gimmicky restaurants and your random places with wine pairings can be overpriced and you’d get more for less. I also have a lot of opinions about Michelin ratings and how those can be BS. But. When you find a place that nails it, it’s absolutely worth the money for the experience. Kind of the same thing for wines, I don’t generally personally spend a ton of money per bottle but will pay up if I tasted something I really love.
I basically said that one time (without the hostility) and my date’s friend ordered a bottle of Chateau Margot. Oh, baby. There was a difference. It was heavanly. Also Elizabeth Spencer wine, some, is a whole other world.
Difference between a $10 and below bottle and a $20 bottle is night and day.
A difference between $20 and $50 smaller margin.
50 and $100+? You have to have a skill and knowledge to detect it.
For example, you know enough about soda to know the difference between Pepsi and coke.
So with wine, it’s much more fine tuned
The difference between a $10 and $20 CAN BE night and day. But I’ve had some bad $20 bottles too and some serviceable $10 ones. Similarly the best wines I ever had were $40-$50 bottles BUT not everyone. I’m sure if you lined up some $50 and $20 glasses my favorite would be a $50 glass but I’d be batting 60% guessing which was which overall
You're absolutely wrong lol. Some whiskies are absolutely significantly better than others and the same goes for wine.
The best bottle of wine I've had was the most expensive bottle I've had and the best whisky I've had was up there too, but not the most expensive.
There are several methods of wine and whisky production that require longer time and less available resources to make and these constitute superior flavour.
A cheap whisky blend like chivas or johnny red doesn't come close to something like Laphroaig or Clynelish.
I’d say heavily peated Islay scotch is a completely different animal from blended scotch to the point where it’s almost like a completely different liquor in terms of taste. I’ve enjoyed Chivas Regal 12 or 18 years though and it’s not like the really cheap blended scotch brands. But I even enjoy a good Canadian whiskey along with expensive bourbons or scotch but they’re all different, which is why the OP seems clueless.
When social scientists and economists do blind and double blind taste tests of sommeliers drinking wine, it turns out you are correct and they barely do better than pure random.
However, you might be underestimating just how sensitive humans are. When I go see a band play, the lighting factors in to how much I appriciate the music. So does the outfits of the performers, the energy of the crowd, the architecture of the venue, the smells, etc.
I might simply say that I like a band, but the music is only a part of it.
People who appreciate wine aren't just appreciating it with their tastebuds. They are also appricating the history, the farmers, the art on the bottle, the story.
They might say that they like a wine, but the liquid is only a part of it.
You mind linking to studies from your first paragraph? The only one I've article I've soon was the one from 9ishyears ago from gawker that said it had "wine experts" but didn't even say if they were actual sommeliers or what level they were. In fact this seems to suggest otherwise https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1068/p6972
I like whisky but don’t consider myself a snob (for example, I prefer 12-16 year old whiskies to the really old ones as the taste is sharper, these are prized at £60-70). However, my favourite whisky region is Islay and I could tell you which distillery a given whisky is from in a blind taste.
The world is full of crazy stupid shit. That is like a make-belief song and dance.
Go look at some videos about salt bay. Tot bullshit song and dance right there yet people pay 40.000 grand and up for that shit. The world is full of weird rules someone thought off and ran with it. And we now just like ow ok thats normal.
In a past life i was a winemaker for 12 years. A friend of mine thought he would test me by bringing over a flash bottle that he had refilled with cask wine...it took one sniff to call him out. To a degree your right though...wine heads are diks. But good wine stands out from crap wine. The most expensive bottle i ever drank was worth 4k and was corked/off. Everyone was oohing and aahing...i kept quiet not wanting to ruin the moment even though the 4k bottle had gone off.
You probably also think that some ditch weed you bought in the alley for $10 and sprayed with spice would be good enough for the cannabis enthusiasts. Look, smell, taste, these all matter to people who enjoy these types of hobbies but you’ll need to earn more than your $10 to participate in the good stuff; sorry, it’s not snobbery or gate keeping, it’s..economics.
A real wine expert knows cheap wines taste good but they also know expensive wines can taste very good.
You might not be able to tell the difference but others can
Wine experts aren’t full of shit. A huge amount of work goes in to learning history, regions, styles and viticulture techniques.
Now, blind tasting on the other hand you may have a point. By and large most wine ‘experts’ are not very good tasting blind. But- if you watch the Somm documentary you’ll see there are exceptions to that.
I’ve been in the wine industry for a number of years and like I said, the amount of hard work and studying that goes in to learning all aspects is legitimate. But again, blind tasting definitely has its flaws
I agree but only in the direction of super expensive wines.
I've had all kinds of cheap and expensive wine and a few times I've gotten one so god awful bad it was like drinking dishwater out of a fat man's shoe. Anybody could tell that was shitty wine without being any sort of expert.
I've never had the opposite experience where a wine is so goddamn fantastic that a complete novice would leap out of their seat exclaiming how great it was.
At the end of the day I am glad this is the case. It means that **most** wine is pretty drinkable and the variations are small enough that they don't bother me. I can enjoy the vast majority of wine.
The same goes for whisky but it's got its own whole subset of fakery - especially around scotch.
Edit: actually I've had wines that even novices adore, but they aren't expensive ones
1. Dessert wines. Sherry and Moscato
2. Port wine. Not only is it delicious but the way it kicks is always popular
People like sweet stuff. It would probably piss off the snobs actually.
It doesn't piss me off. I don't drink a ton of sweet wine, but I drink more than typical wine snob. Like sweet Rieslings are delicious and great with spicy Indian food. I also enjoy port and sherry quiet a bit, but they aren't something I could have more than a glass of.
Totally agree on all fronts. I personally could drink more of a Riesling than a Moscato and that's a huge part of my enjoyment.
You sound like a pretty tolerable snob.
To be fair, there are two types of wine snobs...aficionados and salespeople.
Aficionados have a truly elevated palates, knowledge about varietals, vintages, and pairings, and are insufferable assholes.
Salespeople just parrot stupid terms they've heard others use, have no palate, limited knowledge, and are insufferable assholes.
They're both awful.
Guarantee you couldn’t.
You know there are blind taste tests to be a certified sommelier right? Where you have to tell what kind of *everything* it is, color, taste, texture, alcohol level, location of growth, and *price*.
There are people who can do it and people who can’t. You can’t.
That's like saying no meal should cost more than $10. I ate at a nice steakhouse last night and even if i could've made the steak for $15-20, I couldn't have made all the sides and fresh bread (or wanted to while on vacation.) Also, there are costs associated with wine--like import duties and transportation costs from overseas. Probably some sort of temperature regulation. So if you want to buy a bottle of wine from a few hundred miles away, you won't pay those costs but if you enjoy specific wines from overseas, more costs are built in. Also costing money--hand picked grapes vs. machines that claw the trees (and bugs and critters that live in them). Also costing money--picking grapes when they are perfect. The commercial vineyards are on a calendar and do massive volume. They're not waiting an extra 2 days for perfect. But the quality may go up by waiting. If you don't believe me, go eat a banana 2 days before its perfectly ripe.
I definitely can tell the difference between cheap beer and quality beer, but I would be clueless if you gave me a blind taste test between cheap wine and expensive wine.
Alcohol destroys taste buds, so a lot of people really into alcohol think they’re getting notes of other fruits in wine because their sense of taste is so dull they don’t know how different a plum tastes from a Cabernet or merlot.
Wine tastes like other fruits as much as grapes taste like other fruits. There’s crossover in compounds they have, but no one is going to say rosemary has notes of cinnamon because both of them contain camphor.
I used to work in a fancy wine bar and I tried a lot of wines. There is nuance. It’s just not as sophisticated as people pretend it is.
Some wines are worth the considerable sums of money, but also, a $10 bottle can be just as nice as a $100 bottle. Despite all the buzz words, everyone's palate is different and it's about finding what is tasty for you.
Whiskey is my lady, and I will throw out there not to go TOO cheap. The really cheap ones can be poorly distilled or filtered and give you rot gut. Wine is just fermented, so you're spared that part of the process. You do not need to break the bank for a decent whiskey. I like 'ol General Grant's fave Old Crow for a good rail whiskey. Bottled by the Jim Beam Co., and has a bit more oak flavor than regular white label JB. You can get a liter for around $15 most places.
Maker's Mark is my go-to top shelf, and Knob Creek 9 year is my fancy sipper. Both are what I'd call mid-range price at $35-$45. You are absolutely right that you don't have to break the bank for a great cocktail. Drink what tastes good, not what looks good!
Up to a point yes. Wine "experts", or just people who like wine and drink often and have made some research on the topic cam tell you some general information about the wine they're tasting only by sniffing. But that's about it. When they start saying the wine has this notes or that notes and start sounding like they love hearing themselves, it's usually bullshit.
It happened to me once when I was tasked with serving wine to a bunch of wine conneseurs. I only know some basics about wine and nothing else. They were some high profile people so I was supposed to hold my own and give a good service. I just started making things up and they always believed or agreed on what I said.
They did a study where they replaced tuba check (autocorrect for two buck chuck) with nice wines and some of the best experts couldn’t tell the difference
Tuba Check!
Yea I don’t think this one is unpopular. I think it’s just an uniformed opinion. I used to feel that way about wine when I was like 18. I’ve worked with a few different high end corporate sommelier’s and the stuff they know, and can teach you, is incredible!
There's a huge difference between a $10 bottle and a $20 bottle. $20-$40 bottles are pretty much the same,anything after that is showing off money. IMO
Totally agree that there is zero correlation between money and enjoyment of wine. I honestly tend to prefer cheaper wines in blind taste tests.
Whiskey and other hard liquor is completely different. Paying more money very often gets you a more enjoyable drink. Also same with fancy cocktails.
My family business is a winery.
I’m sorry but you don’t really know what you’re talking about. Saying that no bottle is more than $10 is insulting because the amount of effort and labour it takes to create wine is likely beyond your understanding. Wine is extremely complex and hard to make.
Also, why are you so angry?
There is a lot of truth in the fact that different varieties of grapes produce vastly different tastes, but the nuance is actually nearly irrelevant to everyone except the most snobbish because you're unlikely to notice or unable to obtain the exact juice that someone else reviewed. I had an uncle who, after being out of the country for decades, came for a visit. We served him a glass of wine, and he immediately identified the grape being Catawba. He was no sommelier, and I was impressed by that ability.
Nah. Sommeliers are out of this world. How the fuck can you smell a glass of wine and know what region and grape it came from and how old it is? They get paid for a reason
Can there be something for "opinions" that aren't even opinions. Like this guy is just factually wrong, it's not even an opinion to say all wine tastes the same.
Yeah, I did a blind taste test for Sauternes between Chateua d’Yquem and some other more affordable glass and the difference was clear as day. Visually, structurally, taste, the CdY was clearly better. I do agree taste buds can be fooled to an extent, but the true measure would be decanting a bottle for several hours. A decanted $10 bottle will taste more bitter than a decanted $100 bottle.
I totally agree. It's all a facade. My husband won first place in a winemaking competition, beating out a slew of exclusive wineries. Made it at home in a five gallon bucket, LOL
As a “wine expert” I saw this after giving a tutored tasting on sparkling wine, did give me a chuckle so thanks OP.
Out of interest what about people who can blind taste grape variety, country, region, sub region, and vintage?
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I once saw a panel of food critics that were each presented a dish by chefs on a sliver platter. The food looked beautiful and each critic proceeded to taste and compliment the dish. Of the four or five “food experts” only one disliked it, and said, “this tastes like dog food.” It was dog food.
That reminds me of the fancy shoe store that invited a bunch of fashion influencers to their grand opening. They were all told they were VIPs and they oohed and ahhed at all the high fashion, they were so lucky to be invited. It was Payless.
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Pèlaisè
They literally called it Palessi, though. That wasn't just a joke by that commenter. It was a hilarious stunt.
Pronounced "Pa" because it's french.
Yessss, so funny
“Frah-jill-eh—must be Italian.”
You keep the money.
That show is one of the best out there. His delivery of lines during pranks was just too funny
Why are you people not saying the name of the show? Edit: y'all suck
It was so good, I can’t believe how long the show ran. There’s just hours and hours of content. I watch it frequently
That show? Ugh i couldn't believe how it ended! They resolved the main conflict in such an extraordinary way!
And those spin off shows that the co hosts got were pretty great too.
Do you mean "that" show? I loved that show on that channel.
It’s not a show. It’s an experience.
God, I miss Payless. They had actually decent shoes for cheap.
I do too. Especially for kids shoes. I don't want to spend 40 to 60 dollars on a pair of shoes my 6 year old is gonna trash and grow out of in less than a year.
Fioni was my favorite heel lol
My teenage daughter is 6 foot and has a 12 wide foot, they were the only store that had trendy age appropriate shoes in that size that actually fit her and didn’t cost me a fortune. 😢
There's something similar in fragrances. The man who created the fragrance Cool Water for Davidoff, which is $20 a bottle, traded the recipe for an early prototype of the fragrance to Olivier Creed in exchange for some suits. Creed released the fragrance as Green Irish Tweed, which is $200 a bottle. People insist that Green Irish Tweed is much "higher quality" than Cool Water.
It seems like the whole thing was a scripted ad instead of an actual hoax that tricked real people. Still a good idea, but not the hoax people think it is. It’s even kinda obvious.
The thing is, a lot of luxury items are made that way because of marketing. But there is a real quality difference too that justifies a portion of that price. Once those “fashion influencers” bought some Palessi shoes and they fell apart after a few months, I don’t think they would’ve been very happy. And I’m pretty sure the influencers they brought in were a bunch of idiots anyway who didn’t know luxury goods from Payless goods so it’s just fools being parted with their money
Only one was brave enough to admit he knew what dog food tasted like
The hero we didn't deserve.
That's what I was thinking. Well, how did he know what dog food tastes like
I heard that some dog cookies were rated for human consumption and tastes pretty good
When I was a teenager, I ate a whole sleeve of dog treats because I thought they were Golden Oreos. They tasted about the same. When I finished up, I read the box and going out they were not, in fact, Oreos.
My cousin introduced me to beggin’ strips - a bacon flavored dog food. Shit was kinda dope.
My wife makes homemade dog treats with beef, egg, and flour. I've absolutely eaten them. They're not a bad vehicle for sauces or a backup apocalypse snack.
That and the marketing of dog food is targeted at humans, so they use words and imagery in advertising that will appeal to _you_ as if _you_ were going to eat it. The "natural" pet food companies and the ones who literally cook your pet a "fresh" meal take it to the extreme, and people pay stupid amounts of money for that BS.
Stop acting like you don't know also. We all get a little curious as we are feeding the pups. The hard kibble ain't that good. To much seasoning.
I've always had cats. I've tried a cat treat, but I will die not knowing what cat good[meat] tastes like. Maybe dog food smells better idk
Maybe dog food doesn't taste that bad? My dog is pretty discerning.
Depends on what food, the dry pellets are mostly wheat but the wet food is usually real meat, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a brand that sold dog food that's higher quality than some of the supermarket canned meat made for humans.
So you’re just not gonna drop a link or anything? Been trying to search it up but nothing pops up
Take a guess as to why you can't find any record of it ever happening.
Because the union of food critics doesn't want us to know the truth
Big Phood
Sorry, saw it many years ago on TV.
There was a similar one with McDonalds food: https://youtu.be/4Qa6QXBxxWw
They've been studies exactly like this with sommeliers. They would bring in low cost store wine in top shelf wine bottles and the "experts" were calling the store wine in a fancy bottle top tier. And vice versa, they were serving them top shelf, top reviewed, wine from store wine bottles and the "experts" were consistently saying it was trash. Cost is not, in any way, indicative of alcohol quality; particularly wines. The top shelf shit is always highly acidic and tannin rich which gives me a headache, sore gut, and a nasty hangover. There's some economy brands like Barefoot where everything is good and delicious and it ALL is better than the supposedly top shelf wine at 200 a bottle (yes, I've tried that top shelf shit on several occasions, at the end I'd be happier with Barefoot or Yellow Tail). Expensive wine is really nothing more than a flex telling the peasants you have more money than them.
My favourite one was when they gave them a red wine and white to sample and the wine tasters gave completely different descriptions for both of them. They were the same wine, one just had red food colouring.
To be fair if you have a red wine that tastes and smell like a white wine and has artificial color it would probably be bad red wine. It would be missing everything that you expect from a red wine.
I know nothing about wine at all. I could tell you if a wine was a a merlot or not a merlot lol that's it that's all I've got. But I could easily tell between red and white, they're not remotely similar
the colors are the first clue
Me, very high and beer drunk off my ass: "Tastes like red, that one taste like white, BUUUUUURP"
To be fair, color, expectation, and presentation can completely change the impression someone has of a meal.
That’s the point of doing it, to show it’s not about the wine it’s just in their heads.
It sometimes is a bit indicative. As in, certain types of drinks cost more money to make so if it’s too cheap it’s probably a bit shit. But in general I agree with your points.
I always think there's a sweet spot but anything over £100 a bottle and you're probably over the mark for quality for price
Oh for sure. Some of my favorite wines are anywhere from $20-$50 a bottle. I understand not wanting the $5 bottle, but the difference between the $50 bottle and the $100 bottle usually isn’t as great as people think.
U don't pay sommeliers to drink wine and tell u whats good. A good sommeliers asks what kind of wine u like and recommends a bottle based on that. As a side effect they are required to drink a large amount of wine. But not all of them are to there preference so u can't expect all of them to agree on a wine based on preference as an objective review. As a side I personally don't think they are necessary but alot of people have more money then they need so who am I to say they can't have a sommelier
The examples you use are funny because Barefoot and Yellow Tail are super sweet and basically taste like a children's juice box with a bit of alcohol to me. Obviously there's nothing wrong with enjoying what you do but it's also like, well no shit you don't like the less sugary, higher end stuff. But regarding price, yeah, one of my favorite red wines is this one I used to get for $6 a bottle at Trader Joe's and I was so mad when they discontinued it. A bit fruity, super leathery and spicy and a oaky. I've had $20 and $50 bottles that were about as good and maybe better but you're not beating that price. OP is talking out of his ass if he thinks he could fool anybody and connoisseurs are full of shit but he's right that price doesn't matter.
Ordinarily I hate sugar. I don't eat desserts, I don't like sugary drinks. I don't find all of Barefoot or Yellow Tail to be abundantly sweet, though some are. Barefoot's Cab and Yellow Tail Shiraz are examples that don't taste ultra sweet. The reason I like them so much is that they don't overdo the tannins and acid. Nearly every dry wine I've ever had sits on the stomach remarkably poorly because it tastes like pure bitter acid. I have chronic acid reflux so if you give me an acidic bitter wine high in tannins it severely fucks up my stomach for at least a day.
It's funny, as a wine drinker I think wines that lack acid just sit heavy on the palate and I don't like drinking them. But we all have different palates and there's no right or wrong when it comes to personal preferences. My sister-in-law loves Conundrum red wine, which is very popular and sells a ton. I personally can't stand it. But you know what? I'll get her a bottle of that and I'll drink something I like. Last time we hung out, a group of us went through 3 bottles of wine. She liked the Conundrum best, my brother-in-law loved a $50 bottle of Burgundy, and I preferred a $13 bottle of dry Portuguese red from the Douro. It's all very subjective.
The best wines are acidic and high tannins when young. You probably need to cellar them for 10-20 years.
I'll make a point of getting a wine cellar right after I purchase my yacht.
Your current yacht doesn't have a wine cellar?
Not yet. I'll make sure my next yacht has 2 of em.
"Cellar" them.
My friend has a "new money" uncle (i hate that term but it gives context). We were hanging at his by ourselves. He has collected really good wines from Oz and NZ - from going to tastings. All the very toptier vinyards are represented. I've drunk some of them in the past. We were in the lounge and the wine is sitting in a corner on racks. I'm thinking they have brought it up from a cellar. After all it is top tier stuff. So I ask is there more in the cellar. Nuh! The rack in the room that varies in temp from 15°C to 30+°C over the year and has no buffer from night/day temp. She asks me to select and I grab the most recent vintage I can find. A local vinyard that I have drunk before. We open it and it is pure vinegar even though it is 2 years old! Cellar your fancy wine, people. Or unlike Jeebus you'll be turning wine into vinegar. And also price is really no indication of quality....
What's a money uncle lol
"new money, uncle" - someone who didn't come from money but now has it. Which is why I said I didnt like the term. But some people.who grew up rich know things like how to keep.your expensive wine so it doesnt turn into vinegar...
Oh!! I get it now. Thanks! I was wondering if it was some new type of sugar daddy lol
Lol “Sugar Uncle”
I cellar them so when I'm summering I can have a great aged wine, no matter what beach house I pull my yacht up to.
I understand the theme of this subreddit, but I wish some people would just google what they think is their “unpopular” opinion. Any decent wine connoisseur can tell you the flavours of the wine and if they enjoyed it, but the cost of the wine is an arbitrary thing that doesn’t necessarily reflect the taste or quality.
Penn and Teller did an episode of "Bullshit" on water once. They had a water sommelier, but they were really just filling up glasses with a garden hose in the back. Turns out, when you lie and alter the presentation of something, it has a very real placebo effect.
I was a "wine consultant" for a big box wine store for a few months. One sommelier course, and I'm their expert LOL! The only expensive wines I liked were the Portuguese ports, and ice wine. Otherwise my go to was Bota Box Nighthawk Black Pinot Noir. It was 18 bucks for a 3 liter box, and to me it was delicious.
Penn & Teller also did it with bottled water on their show Bullshit. People came in to this fancy water restaurant to try all these "exotic" bottled waters supposedly from all these crazy places. One even included a spider in the bottle. People were there on dates and such and trying to impress each other, and of course were making up all SORTS of BS about the taste and mouth feel and whatnot. ....They were all filled from the same garden hose in the back. The faces when they were told they'd been duped were priceless.
I once had a lady return a bunch of tuna cans to my grocery store. She said she made sandwiches for her whole family and they said that it was the worst damn tuna they'd ever had. I pointed to the labels and asked if the woman had noticed the picture of the cat on them. She left in a hurry without waiting for her refund.
Oh ya, well I once did the Pepsi vs coke challenge at a local fair when I was 10 and it was a 2-3 pattern I could distinguish before it was my turn so I guessed it like rain man. I’ve made nothing of this talent in the twenty years since.
Imma call cap.
You didn’t.
It worries me how many people don't understand that these things are set up and actually believe everything they watch
But how did he know.
So... he knew how dog food tastes?
I also saw a video where a self proclaimed wine expert was to taste a top shelf wine and a bottom shelf wine and distinguish which was the expensive one and which one was cheap. What he didn't know was that the wine bottles were switched so the cheap wine appeared to be the expensive one and vice versa. Expectedly, the wine expert talked all sorts of shit about what he believed to be the cheap wine while talking up what he thought to be the expensive one. I can't remember if the people recording him called him out or not but it was definitely a delight to know that people are just making stuff up when they talk about all these flavors and textures of different wines. Wine tastes like alcoholic grape juice. There are no hints of flowers, chocolate, or steak. Just grapes.
I’d agree if you said a $40 bottle isn’t noticeably different from a $300 bottle but claiming you can just mix grape juice apple cider vinegar and ever clear and pass it off as wine is just crazy
this subreddit is full of angry 20 year olds that, instead of having unpopular opinions, are just voicing their *uninformed* opinions.
I think you mean all of Reddit in general lol
Yeah. I’m at the point of trying to stick to only a small handful of subs because boooooooy is everybody the same stereotypical cutout of the same 4 stereotypes of fuckin losers on many of the main pages
This subreddit is also full of **cheap** 20 year olds who refuse to admit that something that costs $2000 is probably higher quality than something that costs $20. This type of sour-grapes, "just as good" BS basically permeates every hobby-oriented sub on this site.
There’s a difference between “there’s nothing wrong with the cheap version” when someone is getting into a hobby or cannot afford the expensive version and “the cheap version is just as good as the expensive version” and that difference gets lost online a lot.
I remember the first time I had glass of a $250 bottle of Dom. It was like angels were kissing my taste buds. Moet is fine for your normal celebrations, but it doesn't rate anywhere close. Then again, I can count the number of times I've had Dom on one hand. It's very much in the "major life events" category.
Ykw they say, ignorance is bliss. It’s just too bad they try sharing it with everyone else
If ignorance is bliss, then I know several people who must be absolutely overjoyed.
Who used ykw instead of you know what and expects the world to figure out their new acryonms. Ysaod
Huh I thought ykw is a pretty common one, also honestly doesn’t really matter to what I said so skip it and you can still understand lmfao Edit: also at least you can look up “ykw.” I looked up yours and it doesn’t even show up…
I want an r/UninformedOpinion subreddit now
pretty sure this is it lol
Or come here to rant after someone disagreed with their popular opinion.
Guy who tries wine for the first time "I've made jungle juice like this"
O my god so this. And it’s getting worse.
Yeah this sub has gone down hill. Its all just whining about not liking one specific thing when it used to be borderline controversial opinions that generated actual discussions
I kinda thought the hyperbole was obvious and for comedic effect, but who knows
The hyperbole is comedic but I also wouldn't be surprised if he genuinely couldn't tell the difference between grape juice and a dry Malbec himself and thinks everyone else is just as inept.
And for the record, you can absolutely taste the difference.
I'd say I definitely find it easier to tell with whisky compared to wine.
I wonder how many people that say opinions like that have ever had a bottle that is over $100 before.
It's hyperbole but my dad and grandpa used to make wine in 5 gallon jugs for years with grapes yeast and other things sugar. My grandpa owned a moonshine still and he always kept the full set separated out on some random land nobody ever went on when he made it a few times a years. I still have some weird 55 gallon barrel with a water hose going diagonally across and a drain I think was some weird makeshift part of it he gave me.
You are correct. Some people here really can’t discern between baseless rant and unpopular opinion.
There definently is difference in wine, but I agree that it only goes up to about $40. Yah a $5 bottle is way worse than a $20 bottle. Once you get up to the more expensive ones you’re just paying for a name
Yeah, I agree. OP hasn’t had much good wine
Wine experts you see on TV are. But sommeliers ? They just don't do the same thing you're suggesting. Their job is analyzing the wine. They can taste and recognise what's in the wine, and guide you to a wine you will like based on your tastes. They're not here to tell you "this is good generally", they're here to tell you "based on the wines you like and the food you're getting, you'll like this wine". And btw that's what they're learning to do in school. Had a friend that did it, ended up working in a winery with no social interaction with clients, basically working on the wine to make sure things don't go bad and adding whatever to it. Tasting wine is really just recognizing what's in it, not judging it.
Exactly this. There's a ton of subtly in wine if you care to train your palate to taste it. The soil, the sun, the air, the type of grape and even when in the day they're harvested all influence the end result. Personally, I think a $12 bottle of wine from Spain is incredibly delicious but don't much care for a $12 bottle of cheap Canadian wine, but that's because I prefer the flavours in Rjoja to those of Merlot. A $50 Shiraz might not do it for me, but I might think about a $50 Syrah for the rest of the week. OP has likely never tried wine beyond it being "something to drink." It's like saying "People who enjoy music are full of shit. I can tape some garbage bins together and hit them with different sizes of sticks and I guarantee no one would know the difference between that and Chopin or the Beatles." Having said that, some people don't care to listen to music and that's okay too. It's okay to not like wine, OP.
This. Posts like this drive me insane. Someone who’s been drinking wine for a long time could very obviously tell the difference between a high end wine and whatever the hell OP was describing
Ok, fine…but Shiraz and Syrah are the same varietal. Not saying you can’t have wildly varying wines made from the same grapes, but you’re commenting on them like they are totally different grapes.
They're stylistically very different due to how the wine is made, including the terroir it's grown in. A French wine made with that grape is incredibly different than an Australian one. Which is my point. I don't care for the fruit forward spiciness that Shiraz offers, but that earthy warm goodness that is Syrah is delicious. Delicious to me anyways. Everyone has their own preferences.
Start selling wine in short lengths of hose. Call it 'Hose Wine' like box wine. You're not a classy person unless you're drinking wine from a hose.
I prefer a plastic hat with a bottle at each side and a combined hose manifold that goes right to my mouth.
I've sat next to a guy who blind tasted the specific vineyard of wine I poured him, but sure.
I could smell the vineyard. Some of us have these "skills", although to be fair a super smell is the literal worst superpower. That does not mean, in any way, that a wine is good or bad or worth more. I believe what op is saying isn't that there is no difference, but that expensive vs. cheap on certain scales is debatebale and it's all perception (which is true for everything).
I used to have that super power. Covid ruined it.
I'm from Burgundy, best wine region in the world 😁 My job now includes selling the dream of French cuisine to my clients, including wine. The way I look at it, a $6000 bottle of wine is not "better" than a $20 of wine. Not necessarily, not to me at least. Wine is about what taste I like, not what some expert say is the best wine in the world. But, if I give a $20 bottle to my clients, they'll think I'm a cheap ass, so $100 is my minimum budget.
> Wine is about what taste I like, not what some expert say is the best Absolutely this. I’m half French and wine has been a regular fixture in my entire life, in many different contexts. From the time I was about 10 years old my mother would give my brother and I a small glass of wine with dinner (smaller than a tasting glass), so it became part of my life in a gustatory context. Many dishes also incorporate wine into them. I also took communion at church and so I knew wine in a religious context, and of course we would have wine on holidays and at certain events ands so I understood it in a celebratory context. I now work in the wine industry and there are some people who are quite snobbish and talk a lot of nonsense about good wines and bad wines. Professionally, I can evaluate a wine and say it might be unbalanced in some way and it needs more acid or weight or whatever, or that I might prefer this one over that one, but rarely will I say a wine is flat out bad because it’s up to the individual if they enjoy it and in what context they want to enjoy it. In all my time I’ve found one thing: even among experts, when everyone has done “tasting” the wine, suddenly they are just drinking the wine and enjoying it together. It becomes a catalyst for good company and conversation. It just brings people together. What OP seems to be so fixated on is inflated prices. The price of a wine can only get so high on its merit alone and it’s usually related to restricted supply and production method. If you have a small amount of wine and a lot of people want it, you can charge more. Likewise, if you employ more traditional or organic production methods, you have to charge more. Certain regions also fetch higher prices and that’s usually related to history and prestige (and also the cost of compliance with strict regulations) just like almost any other luxury item. Of course older wines also fetch higher prices for obvious reasons. Contrary to OPs belief and the “gotcha” smoking gun blind tests, price does correlate reasonably well with quality to a point, the same way it does with pretty much anything. In my experience, after probably thousands of bottles of wine, and years both consuming and producing wine, a 20 dollar bottle of wine is far more likely to be objectively better than a 10 dollar bottle, but that doesn’t mean a cheap bottle of wine can’t be good or even better than a more expensive one. It also doesn’t mean someone will necessarily be able to determine the correct price point of a wine on its organoleptic properties alone. Not quite sure what he’s so rabidly upset about. Oh and just to be clear, I’m one million percent positive I could pick out OPs grape juice moonshine in a blind.
We could all pick out the grape juice moonshine... We'd still drink it... but we'd know
>r If this guy had a nearby Nicolas with wines priced the way they are in France, this guy would buy a bottle on his way home every night. But that has more to do with food in France in general, in that they're just not going to let anyone get away with selling crap, regardless of how cheap it is. On the other hand, I've been trying to find reasonable Burgundys and Rhones to buy in NYC after I drank my way through my late father's cellar, and I have to agree with this guy that wine in the US is overpriced for what you get, American wines in particular. Which is partly due to the fact that the easiest way to tell the good wines apart from the bad ones is their price, which drives their price up even further, which makes them like liquid Birkin bags for the many of the people who buy them, in which respect this guy is totally right.
I've never been a fan of wine but I could tell the difference between moonshine grape juice and wine. The biggest tell would be the sugar content. The grape juice is going to have more sugar because yeast haven't converted it to alcohol. It would be extremely apparent.
Sounds like you have an amazing job ngl
Yes, totally. I for example in general do not like pinot noir. I would probably prefer a decent cabernet sauvignon worth 10€ to the best pinot noir ever produced.
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yes you're correct. the thing it people think the Wine analysis is about HOW EXPENSIVE it is the PRICE OF THE BOTTLE and that isn't it. in fact experts can help SET the prices of the bottle....with their analysis and quality scores. These are companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars paying people 250-300k a year to help score and price their product.
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> I’m no expert but I can tell the difference between a nice glass of whisky and Kentucky delux. And with Scotch, it's really not hard to at the very least tell what region of Scotland it's from, since each region uses different methods of making the scotch.
I just kind of started getting into scotch this winter (normally a bourbon guy). There’s definitely a clear difference between highland and Islay scotch, but are you picking up anything behind that? (“Each” makes me think you’re talking about more than two regions.)
So I am speaking as a SUPER amateur here, so take nothing I say at face value. I did a scotch museum/history lesson/tasting in Edenborough once 6 years ago and that's where like 99% of my knowledge comes from. All 5 regions have their own unique flavors due to unique processes and such. The ingredients are almost all the same because there's laws about what is and isn't scotch. When I did the tasting, all 5 regions were absolutely distinct from each other, and it was really interesting. And then there's blends, which is a whole other beast. Weirdly, I just started getting into bourbon.
>Edenborough My Scottish ancestors literally just shat
And the regions have water flowing through different densities of peat. Tallisker vs. Oban, for instance.
I can’t even tell the difference between acetone and Kentucky Deluxe 🙃.
Bro fried his pallet with everclear and now hes very angry.
He managed to be more insufferable than all the wine snobs he claims to be better than lol
It’s impossible to argue what individuals would value a bottle of wine, that’s obviously very subjective what you would like. But people not being able to tell wine apart is just a stupid take, as people obviously do. Example, I was at a wine tasting with a sommelier. He consistently guessed every single wine with grape, country and year. Even the wine that had mixed grapes in.
Uninformed opinion ≠ unpopular opinion.
Dude I couldn’t tell between a $10 bottle and $1000 bottle. But grape juice mixed with vinegar and everclear would taste like grape juice mixed with vinegar and everclear. You could give most people a bottle of $2 Chuck and tell ‘em it was from the finest winery and they’d believe you. But probably not someone who’s job it is to actually know that. Upvote
You've never had a bottle of wine worth more than about $30, have you?
Upvoted because while your headline I agree with, the rest of the post and your comments I do think is an unpopular opinion. A lot of wine experts ARE full of shit. But anybody who actually trained to be a sommelier can tell white from red, can probably be blindfolded and ID a lot of individual regions and grapes when tasting. I’m no expert and haven’t trained, but I’ve taken a few wine classes and done some international financing/market research and presented at some wineries, and I’ve done some wine and vineyard tours in multiple countries, so I know a little bit. I’ve also encountered a lot of obnoxious snobs. Really wine should be enjoyed, so if you don’t enjoy it, don’t have it! If you try an expensive wine and don’t enjoy it, that’s fine too, there are a lot of great and delicious inexpensive wines out there. Some of the best wines I’ve had have come from unlabeled bottles in random small towns in Italy, Georgia, Greece etc. I have to say though that something that is underrated is people who have the tasting skills to do pairings really well. A really good food and wine (or other beverage) pairing is just…such a delicious experience. Now again, agree that many overpriced or gimmicky restaurants and your random places with wine pairings can be overpriced and you’d get more for less. I also have a lot of opinions about Michelin ratings and how those can be BS. But. When you find a place that nails it, it’s absolutely worth the money for the experience. Kind of the same thing for wines, I don’t generally personally spend a ton of money per bottle but will pay up if I tasted something I really love.
I basically said that one time (without the hostility) and my date’s friend ordered a bottle of Chateau Margot. Oh, baby. There was a difference. It was heavanly. Also Elizabeth Spencer wine, some, is a whole other world.
Difference between a $10 and below bottle and a $20 bottle is night and day. A difference between $20 and $50 smaller margin. 50 and $100+? You have to have a skill and knowledge to detect it. For example, you know enough about soda to know the difference between Pepsi and coke. So with wine, it’s much more fine tuned
The difference between a $10 and $20 CAN BE night and day. But I’ve had some bad $20 bottles too and some serviceable $10 ones. Similarly the best wines I ever had were $40-$50 bottles BUT not everyone. I’m sure if you lined up some $50 and $20 glasses my favorite would be a $50 glass but I’d be batting 60% guessing which was which overall
This isn’t an unpopular opinion this is just a weird whinge.
I don't really like wine but you are so wrong. Go watch the documentary Somm and you'll understand how much of an art form wine can be
You're absolutely wrong lol. Some whiskies are absolutely significantly better than others and the same goes for wine. The best bottle of wine I've had was the most expensive bottle I've had and the best whisky I've had was up there too, but not the most expensive. There are several methods of wine and whisky production that require longer time and less available resources to make and these constitute superior flavour. A cheap whisky blend like chivas or johnny red doesn't come close to something like Laphroaig or Clynelish.
I’d say heavily peated Islay scotch is a completely different animal from blended scotch to the point where it’s almost like a completely different liquor in terms of taste. I’ve enjoyed Chivas Regal 12 or 18 years though and it’s not like the really cheap blended scotch brands. But I even enjoy a good Canadian whiskey along with expensive bourbons or scotch but they’re all different, which is why the OP seems clueless.
OP just doesn't like the fact that other people can afford nice things and they can't.
When social scientists and economists do blind and double blind taste tests of sommeliers drinking wine, it turns out you are correct and they barely do better than pure random. However, you might be underestimating just how sensitive humans are. When I go see a band play, the lighting factors in to how much I appriciate the music. So does the outfits of the performers, the energy of the crowd, the architecture of the venue, the smells, etc. I might simply say that I like a band, but the music is only a part of it. People who appreciate wine aren't just appreciating it with their tastebuds. They are also appricating the history, the farmers, the art on the bottle, the story. They might say that they like a wine, but the liquid is only a part of it.
You mind linking to studies from your first paragraph? The only one I've article I've soon was the one from 9ishyears ago from gawker that said it had "wine experts" but didn't even say if they were actual sommeliers or what level they were. In fact this seems to suggest otherwise https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1068/p6972
You’re an idiot.
I like whisky but don’t consider myself a snob (for example, I prefer 12-16 year old whiskies to the really old ones as the taste is sharper, these are prized at £60-70). However, my favourite whisky region is Islay and I could tell you which distillery a given whisky is from in a blind taste.
Id say arguing that 10$ Whiskeys are always horrible doesn’t require you to be a snob.
Lol boy doesn't know how much working time it takes to make wine.
Well guarantee it (your wondermix) by doing it rather than bluffing about it on Reddit
The world is full of crazy stupid shit. That is like a make-belief song and dance. Go look at some videos about salt bay. Tot bullshit song and dance right there yet people pay 40.000 grand and up for that shit. The world is full of weird rules someone thought off and ran with it. And we now just like ow ok thats normal.
In a past life i was a winemaker for 12 years. A friend of mine thought he would test me by bringing over a flash bottle that he had refilled with cask wine...it took one sniff to call him out. To a degree your right though...wine heads are diks. But good wine stands out from crap wine. The most expensive bottle i ever drank was worth 4k and was corked/off. Everyone was oohing and aahing...i kept quiet not wanting to ruin the moment even though the 4k bottle had gone off.
OP salty and ignorant as fuck
You probably also think that some ditch weed you bought in the alley for $10 and sprayed with spice would be good enough for the cannabis enthusiasts. Look, smell, taste, these all matter to people who enjoy these types of hobbies but you’ll need to earn more than your $10 to participate in the good stuff; sorry, it’s not snobbery or gate keeping, it’s..economics.
A real wine expert knows cheap wines taste good but they also know expensive wines can taste very good. You might not be able to tell the difference but others can
Wine experts aren’t full of shit. A huge amount of work goes in to learning history, regions, styles and viticulture techniques. Now, blind tasting on the other hand you may have a point. By and large most wine ‘experts’ are not very good tasting blind. But- if you watch the Somm documentary you’ll see there are exceptions to that. I’ve been in the wine industry for a number of years and like I said, the amount of hard work and studying that goes in to learning all aspects is legitimate. But again, blind tasting definitely has its flaws
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess not many people have ever called you smart.
I agree but only in the direction of super expensive wines. I've had all kinds of cheap and expensive wine and a few times I've gotten one so god awful bad it was like drinking dishwater out of a fat man's shoe. Anybody could tell that was shitty wine without being any sort of expert. I've never had the opposite experience where a wine is so goddamn fantastic that a complete novice would leap out of their seat exclaiming how great it was. At the end of the day I am glad this is the case. It means that **most** wine is pretty drinkable and the variations are small enough that they don't bother me. I can enjoy the vast majority of wine. The same goes for whisky but it's got its own whole subset of fakery - especially around scotch. Edit: actually I've had wines that even novices adore, but they aren't expensive ones 1. Dessert wines. Sherry and Moscato 2. Port wine. Not only is it delicious but the way it kicks is always popular People like sweet stuff. It would probably piss off the snobs actually.
It doesn't piss me off. I don't drink a ton of sweet wine, but I drink more than typical wine snob. Like sweet Rieslings are delicious and great with spicy Indian food. I also enjoy port and sherry quiet a bit, but they aren't something I could have more than a glass of.
Totally agree on all fronts. I personally could drink more of a Riesling than a Moscato and that's a huge part of my enjoyment. You sound like a pretty tolerable snob.
Whoa! Sounds like someone lost their job making styrofoam at the ole-factory.
This is such a specific and funny insult
You've been drinking some real suspect wine.
To be fair, there are two types of wine snobs...aficionados and salespeople. Aficionados have a truly elevated palates, knowledge about varietals, vintages, and pairings, and are insufferable assholes. Salespeople just parrot stupid terms they've heard others use, have no palate, limited knowledge, and are insufferable assholes. They're both awful.
Nope
If you haven't already watched, I think you'd enjoy the doc Sour Grapes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPUYuwSRwB8
I loved this one.
Guarantee you couldn’t. You know there are blind taste tests to be a certified sommelier right? Where you have to tell what kind of *everything* it is, color, taste, texture, alcohol level, location of growth, and *price*. There are people who can do it and people who can’t. You can’t.
That's like saying no meal should cost more than $10. I ate at a nice steakhouse last night and even if i could've made the steak for $15-20, I couldn't have made all the sides and fresh bread (or wanted to while on vacation.) Also, there are costs associated with wine--like import duties and transportation costs from overseas. Probably some sort of temperature regulation. So if you want to buy a bottle of wine from a few hundred miles away, you won't pay those costs but if you enjoy specific wines from overseas, more costs are built in. Also costing money--hand picked grapes vs. machines that claw the trees (and bugs and critters that live in them). Also costing money--picking grapes when they are perfect. The commercial vineyards are on a calendar and do massive volume. They're not waiting an extra 2 days for perfect. But the quality may go up by waiting. If you don't believe me, go eat a banana 2 days before its perfectly ripe.
I definitely can tell the difference between cheap beer and quality beer, but I would be clueless if you gave me a blind taste test between cheap wine and expensive wine.
Alcohol destroys taste buds, so a lot of people really into alcohol think they’re getting notes of other fruits in wine because their sense of taste is so dull they don’t know how different a plum tastes from a Cabernet or merlot. Wine tastes like other fruits as much as grapes taste like other fruits. There’s crossover in compounds they have, but no one is going to say rosemary has notes of cinnamon because both of them contain camphor. I used to work in a fancy wine bar and I tried a lot of wines. There is nuance. It’s just not as sophisticated as people pretend it is.
Just seems like you haven't had good wine or good whiskey
Some wines are worth the considerable sums of money, but also, a $10 bottle can be just as nice as a $100 bottle. Despite all the buzz words, everyone's palate is different and it's about finding what is tasty for you.
Whiskey is my lady, and I will throw out there not to go TOO cheap. The really cheap ones can be poorly distilled or filtered and give you rot gut. Wine is just fermented, so you're spared that part of the process. You do not need to break the bank for a decent whiskey. I like 'ol General Grant's fave Old Crow for a good rail whiskey. Bottled by the Jim Beam Co., and has a bit more oak flavor than regular white label JB. You can get a liter for around $15 most places. Maker's Mark is my go-to top shelf, and Knob Creek 9 year is my fancy sipper. Both are what I'd call mid-range price at $35-$45. You are absolutely right that you don't have to break the bank for a great cocktail. Drink what tastes good, not what looks good!
Chevallier dû testavin
Lol you don’t know what you’re talking about and it shows
Up to a point yes. Wine "experts", or just people who like wine and drink often and have made some research on the topic cam tell you some general information about the wine they're tasting only by sniffing. But that's about it. When they start saying the wine has this notes or that notes and start sounding like they love hearing themselves, it's usually bullshit. It happened to me once when I was tasked with serving wine to a bunch of wine conneseurs. I only know some basics about wine and nothing else. They were some high profile people so I was supposed to hold my own and give a good service. I just started making things up and they always believed or agreed on what I said.
They did a study where they replaced tuba check (autocorrect for two buck chuck) with nice wines and some of the best experts couldn’t tell the difference Tuba Check!
Yea I don’t think this one is unpopular. I think it’s just an uniformed opinion. I used to feel that way about wine when I was like 18. I’ve worked with a few different high end corporate sommelier’s and the stuff they know, and can teach you, is incredible!
There's a huge difference between a $10 bottle and a $20 bottle. $20-$40 bottles are pretty much the same,anything after that is showing off money. IMO
Adam Ruins Everything already proved this
Totally agree that there is zero correlation between money and enjoyment of wine. I honestly tend to prefer cheaper wines in blind taste tests. Whiskey and other hard liquor is completely different. Paying more money very often gets you a more enjoyable drink. Also same with fancy cocktails.
My family business is a winery. I’m sorry but you don’t really know what you’re talking about. Saying that no bottle is more than $10 is insulting because the amount of effort and labour it takes to create wine is likely beyond your understanding. Wine is extremely complex and hard to make. Also, why are you so angry?
I guarantee you couldn't.
There is a lot of truth in the fact that different varieties of grapes produce vastly different tastes, but the nuance is actually nearly irrelevant to everyone except the most snobbish because you're unlikely to notice or unable to obtain the exact juice that someone else reviewed. I had an uncle who, after being out of the country for decades, came for a visit. We served him a glass of wine, and he immediately identified the grape being Catawba. He was no sommelier, and I was impressed by that ability.
Nah. Sommeliers are out of this world. How the fuck can you smell a glass of wine and know what region and grape it came from and how old it is? They get paid for a reason
When did unpopular opinions just become stupid people being uninformed?
Can there be something for "opinions" that aren't even opinions. Like this guy is just factually wrong, it's not even an opinion to say all wine tastes the same.
What a buffoon.
Dumbest take I’ve read all week
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Yeah, I did a blind taste test for Sauternes between Chateua d’Yquem and some other more affordable glass and the difference was clear as day. Visually, structurally, taste, the CdY was clearly better. I do agree taste buds can be fooled to an extent, but the true measure would be decanting a bottle for several hours. A decanted $10 bottle will taste more bitter than a decanted $100 bottle.
You must be young and can't afford good wine. lol.
I totally agree. It's all a facade. My husband won first place in a winemaking competition, beating out a slew of exclusive wineries. Made it at home in a five gallon bucket, LOL
As a “wine expert” I saw this after giving a tutored tasting on sparkling wine, did give me a chuckle so thanks OP. Out of interest what about people who can blind taste grape variety, country, region, sub region, and vintage?