[dogfood]

I've been watching some wine tasting video on youtube.

Are these guys for real?? can you really distinguish between a slice of lemon and a kiwifruit or a blackberry?

all i smell is wine.

[redbaron]

Short answer, yes.

[Rainer.]

Yes. I mean at the very basic level, you can clearly taste the difference between sweet/dry. The key to the rest is to be receptive and train yourself to be sensitive to the other notes. The aroma, the temperature, the immediate flavor, the aftertaste. Some will have flavors that resound of fruit or flowers, others will have an earthy characteristic from the wood that they were aged in.

[surferdude9375]

Originally Posted by Rainer.

Yes. I mean at the very basic level, you can clearly taste the difference between sweet/dry. The key to the rest is to be receptive and train yourself to be sensitive to the other notes. The aroma, the temperature, the immediate flavor, the aftertaste. Some will have flavors that resound of fruit or flowers, others will have an earthy characteristic from the wood that they were aged in.

Your not even 21, how would you know.

To dogfood: Some people are gifted with good ears, some with good eyes and others with good taste buds so why not.

[MtlMom]

Yep. You should come to CSU Fresno and learn all about wine. In your spare time.

[dogfood]

Originally Posted by MtlMom

Yep. You should come to CSU Fresno and learn all about wine. In your spare time.

yeah i suppose i could. i prefer beer to wine though

[redbaron]

beer and wine are equally amazing, and have an equal amount of variety and complexity.

I'd suggest you go to hulu and look for John Clease's wine video. Quite funny, and educational.

[bobthecockroach]

At the same time, you can take cheap wine, put it in a nice bottle and tell people it costs $100 a bottle, and they'll rate it higher, so...

Tasting is not all about flavor. This doesn't just go for wine. It goes for everything. In blind taste tests, people can't distinguish Coke from Pepsi, and if they put Coke in a Pepsi bottle and Pepsi in a Coke bottle, people prefer Pepsi to Coke. One of our own recently confirmed this with coffee: http://www.christianguitar.org/forum...2/#post3600401

[MtlMom]

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

At the same time, you can take cheap wine, put it in a nice bottle and tell people it costs $100 a bottle, and they'll rate it higher, so...

Tasting is not all about flavor. This doesn't just go for wine. It goes for everything. In blind taste tests, people can't distinguish Coke from Pepsi, and if they put Coke in a Pepsi bottle and Pepsi in a Coke bottle, people prefer Pepsi to Coke.

Of course. I've had very good cheap wine, and I've had expensive wine that is not very good. But the question was related to whether or not a person with an educated palate could distinguish different flavors in the wine, and the answer is most certainly "yes".

Here is an example of an excellent, inexpensive wine with complex flavors. I may be just a tiny bit biased because a friend of ours owns Overlake winery and vineyards.






.

[mtlmouth]

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

Tasting is not all about flavor. This doesn't just go for wine. It goes for everything. In blind taste tests, people can't distinguish Coke from Pepsi, and if they put Coke in a Pepsi bottle and Pepsi in a Coke bottle, people prefer Pepsi to Coke. One of our own recently confirmed this with coffee: http://www.christianguitar.org/forum...2/#post3600401

I can definitely tell when I order a Diet Coke and the waitress brings me a Diet Pepsi.

[Rainer.]

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

At the same time, you can take cheap wine, put it in a nice bottle and tell people it costs $100 a bottle, and they'll rate it higher, so...

Tasting is not all about flavor. This doesn't just go for wine. It goes for everything. In blind taste tests, people can't distinguish Coke from Pepsi, and if they put Coke in a Pepsi bottle and Pepsi in a Coke bottle, people prefer Pepsi to Coke. One of our own recently confirmed this with coffee: http://www.christianguitar.org/forum...2/#post3600401

Price doesn't correlate with "quality", no. There are good cheap wines, and bad spendy wines.

But there are indeed distinct differences in the flavor qualities of different wines that will pair better/worse with different foods, which is often a goal of the wine taster. You certainly wouldn't want to serve even the best heavy port with a lightly oil-poached filet of sole.

[bobthecockroach]

Originally Posted by Rainer.

Price doesn't correlate with "quality", no. There are good cheap wines, and bad spendy wines.

But there are indeed distinct differences in the flavor qualities of different wines that will pair better/worse with different foods, which is often a goal of the wine taster. You certainly wouldn't want to serve even the best heavy port with a lightly oil-poached filet of sole.

My point was simply that some part of taste is psychological. Some part of taste is also olfactory (related to scent), and yet another part is visual. I'm not contradicting anything that was said, just adding that it's not all about the tongue.

[Dr. Worm]

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

At the same time, you can take cheap wine, put it in a nice bottle and tell people it costs $100 a bottle, and they'll rate it higher, so...

Tasting is not all about flavor. This doesn't just go for wine. It goes for everything. In blind taste tests, people can't distinguish Coke from Pepsi, and if they put Coke in a Pepsi bottle and Pepsi in a Coke bottle, people prefer Pepsi to Coke. One of our own recently confirmed this with coffee: http://www.christianguitar.org/forum...2/#post3600401

True. As a general rule of thumb, the price of a bottle of wine has less to do with the quality of the wine than it does with the expense of producing it.

[Pauler]

i echo pretty much everything that has been said.

my wife and i went to san fransisco for our honeymoon and took a day trip out to napa. we went to really expensive wineries (cheapest bottle ~$100) and cheaper wineries (~$20 a bottle)...it really is more about the taste and personal preference rather than $$. we were and still are wine noobs, so it was easier for us to taste the difference when we had them back to back rather than a bottle here and a bottle next week.

we even went to a winery in central texas for a grape stomp. really good wines for $10-15 a bottle.

and to go along with the comparisons...
you can spend $55 on a fuente opus x and some people really like it, and it is a good cigar. however, i would rather spend my money on a $10 rocky patel 1990. i actually like it better than the opus x. i agree with bobthecockroach...some people taste the "expensiveness" of the product rather than the actual taste.