Really expensive wine

[cgarr]

I would like to refill the Hoytie Toytie bottles with something cheap and watch everyone stand around saying how good it is!!

[Moses]

I drank a $2,500 bottle of Screaming Eagle at a birthday party. I love good red wine but that was beyond my palate I guess. No WOW factor. My favorite reds are Silver Oak and Caymas. But I'll enjoy wine from a box too.

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by Moses

I drank a $2,500 bottle of Screaming Eagle

I AM a wino & I believe - for real value - that 10 x $250 PROPERLY AGED bottles (or even better - 20 x $125) would give a lot more drinking pleasure than that Screaming Eagle but 250 x $10 would be sadly lacking . . .

Ian

[Moses]

Originally Posted by imcarthur

I AM a wino & I believe - for real value - that 10 x $250 PROPERLY AGED bottles (or even better - 20 x $125) would give a lot more drinking pleasure than that Screaming Eagle but 250 x $10 would be sadly lacking . . .

Ian

Absolutely. Of course I didn't buy the $2,500 bottle. I was just a guest.

[trekkor]

We had guests over again tonight.

Low priced Chard and Red blend... Same to me.


I'm easily entertained.



KT

[chocolatelab]

Judi spent 2 weeks in Italy with her Interior design school. She drank red table wine all over. She loved it and only wants it with dinner.

She swears the alcohol content was different over there. Wine with lunch-wine with dinner never any ill effects.

Why is that?

[Mothy]

We get some outstanding Red wines here in Australia - and they range from $15 thru $450 per bottle.

It's all about what pleases you and the situation which presents itself. A 'find' at $20 can be just as rewarding if it's consistently good - but then again, a single glass of 1983 Grange Hermitage from Penfolds may well change the way you view a great red wine.

Tim

[Don Plumley]

On the wine boards, some guy that lives in Maranello is posting a question, "Why would anyone buy a Ferrari? My Ford Fiesta gets me down to the job at the tile factory just as well."

Some of the replies include:
"Yeah, my neighbor took me out in his Bentley - It was nice but I'd rather ride around in my Caprice."
"I drive a Skoda and like it very much."
"There's no difference between a Ferrari and a Fiesta, they just smear cow dung into the paint."

[Don Plumley]

I will be the first to admit that there are Trophy Wines and Not-ever-worth-it-stupid-Bordeaux. However, there are a few things:

1) Just as some people can't tell (or don't care) about the difference between a Ford and Ferrari; it's no big deal that you don't appreciate the difference between a hand crafted wine of only 150 cases production and even a moderate bottle from a million gallon producer. One comes from a workshop and one comes from a refinery.

2) There are some fundamental economics and inputs that are no different between basic transportation and luxury cars as there are between bulk wines and premium wines. A) Quality of inputs: Grapes range in price from $500 per ton to $10,000 per ton. Some is supply and demand, but there are obvious differences in how they are farmed and accordingly, how they taste. B) Production costs to make small lots of wine are incredibly higher. Barrels from Burgundy cost $1,100 each and we use them for four years. Our glass (bottles) cost per bottle is close to the cost per case for retail wines. C) You can't amortize as much total production cost over small lots nearly as efficiently as over 10's of thousand of cases.

3) Luxury branding. A bottle of Chanel perfume costs much more than a bottle of drugstore Eau de truckstop.

4) Drink what you love. Don't worry about points, prices or pundits. It's your palate, it's your liver.

I care as much about good wine and good food as I do my Porsche. It makes me a sad to hear people brag that they can't tell the difference and therefore intimate that there is something wrong with higher priced beverages.

[Burnin' oil]

Good wine is good and bad wine is bad. Expensive wine may be good or it may be bad. Inexpensive wine may be good or it may be bad.

When my wife and I go wine tasting, probably 1 out of ten wineries offers something that stands out, regardless of price.

[krystar]

and boxed wine doesn't have to be bad wine.

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by Burnin' oil

Good wine is good and bad wine is bad. Expensive wine may be good or it may be bad. Inexpensive wine may be good or it may be bad.

When my wife and I go wine tasting, probably 1 out of ten wineries offers something that stands out, regardless of price.

Absolutely true.

The price of a wine has little to do with actual quality. But there is no such thing as great wine for "cheap". Cheap being a relative term. To produce a great wine takes a great season, good grape stock, proper processing, possible proper aging dependent on type, proper bottling, proper storage, and proper serving.

Not up to any of that? Then drink Two Buck Chuck and be happy in your bliss, go forth and multiply.

Wine, like many things in life, takes some education to appreciate its complexity and subtleness. Like a Lobb shoe or a Fabbri shotgun it is wasted on the clueless.

It does not make a person better than another to be knowledgeable about wine, but it does increase the the value one places on human achievement. A great winemaker is among the pinnacle of human endeavors.

[javadog]

Originally Posted by Normy

I love red wine. But I can tell you that once it gets more than about $15 per bottle...there is little difference. What that means is that a $415 bottle of red tastes about the same as a $15 bottle from Publix.

Nonsense.

Originally Posted by Normy

Again, in my opinion, $15 bottle is the tipping point.

More nonsense.

With all due respect, you need to either try more wine or stick to beer. Price is no guarantee of quality but there are a lot of fine red wines out there and I'm hard pressed to recall one that can be had for $15 per bottle. A really good red wine is vastly different than 90% of what's on the shelf at the local liquor store.

JR

[RKC]

I like cocktails best, almost never drink beer, can do champagne or whites, and never liked red wines at all. That is, until I found myself in Monterey with some friends and a bottle of Far Niente Cabernet. Now I've got a dozen bottles in the basement.....

A good red can change your mind about red wines.

[gatotom]

Javadog, it all depends on your local liquor store on the quality of wine that it has. I have rarely had a bad bottle of 15-20 buck chuck. I am constantly buying 8-12 dollar wine that is usually on a special that is very good. 30-40 dollar wine goes into the cellar for some aging.

At our house we have been squirreling away red wine since the late 1970's. I cant't seem to get the bottle count above 250 because I follow one rule in wine drinking.....If it tastes good to you then drink the crap out of it, these words came from a old guy now passed away who had one of the first wine estates in WA state.

I have always keyed on the great vintages of a region like the bordeaux's or the
barolo's. The 1990, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2005 to name a few of bordeaux were great . The 90's could buy the good stuff on the futures for 20-30 per bottle, still have some in the cellar. The biggest score was when a good friend who grew up in France started a wine import business,I bought cases for his cost, it lasted a yr, the state liqour board said no no.

So one might ask why is everyone getting into the wine business, well its a very lucrative event. When those plants are at full production, 5-10 yrs after planting, the bottle count should be close to 5 bottles per plant per yr. Right now myself and a partner have a measly 420 plants in the ground going on 4 yrs on less than a 1/4 acre, so you figure the production in the next 5 yrs?? Our thriving plants are nebbiolo, barbara, dolcetto, sangiovese, merlot, cab sav, cab franc and syrah. Finishing up building the barrel cellar in the root cellar of my house.

[javadog]

I suppose "bad" wine is a relative thing. I'n not talking about wine that has become undrinkable, I'm talking about wine that is mid-pack in quality, with no characteristics that elevate it above the herd. I haven't had a $20-30 bottle of red that I would recommend to someone as a "great" wine. Maybe they are out there but bottles in that price range are typically too young to drink, or poor enough that they'll never be great. Once you've had a nice vintage from one the great wine producers of France, you know what is possible. That amount of money will buy a decent white wine, but again, the truly good stuff probably starts around $50 and goes up from there.

In my neck of the woods, there are maybe fewer choices in the liquor stores than in the big cities, but I'd bet that most of the truly great wine are bought up before they get anywhere near a liquor store shelf. We have a few restaurants around here that have world class wine selections and the good stuff is pretty pricey.

Personal taste plays a role, as well. I'm partial to reds from Bordeaux, as well as Tuscany. I like whites from Bordeaux and Burgundy. There's other stuff out there that's good but I like certain styles and certain grapes. Like anything else, I tend to go back to what I have enjoyed in the past.

[Burnin' oil]

Trekkor gave me a couple bottles a while back that were very good - but I don't know how much they cost . . .

[Burnin' oil]

I remember back when I was a kid . . .

Our greenie portagee dairyman neighbors made their own wine. The kids were barefoot year-around, slopping through cow manure all the time. They would dump a bunch of grapes in a kiddie pool and then stomp them with their dirty feet. Even I, a grubby, dirty little farm kid, was appalled at the lack of hygiene. The result = portagee diesel.

[jcommin]

I have seen wine in France for as little as 2 Euro. I prefer cheap wines - my pallet isn't that developed to really appreciate the difference.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by chocolatelab

...

She swears the alcohol content was different over there. Wine with lunch-wine with dinner never any ill effects.

Why is that?

The avg. US wine drinker likes a big, fast "hit" and after that, smoothness. Europeans and - um - more experienced people, like to explore the complexities a grower and maker can bring out in a wine.

That adds up to very high EtOH levels in "US friendly" wines.

Also, it is easy to get high scores on blind tastings by adding or creating high EtOH in a wine.