Moderators: Jenise, Robin Garr, David M. Bueker
Brian K Miller
Passionate Arboisphile
9340
Fri Aug 25, 2006 1:05 am
Northern California
Brian K Miller wrote:Great article. It may be a struggle for less well-known winemakers, though, as a lot of people seem to love those big goopy wines!
wrcstl wrote:Brian,
Do they love the big goopy wines or just drink what gets lots of points? I know very few wine geeks that support the high alcohol, up front fruit wines. Maybe my sampling of wine drinkers is not typical. At the same time I go places where someone opens a wine of this type and quickly state "Parker gave this wine 94".
Walt
Keith M
Beer Explorer
1184
Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:25 am
Finger Lakes, New York
wrcstl wrote:Do they love the big goopy wines or just drink what gets lots of points?
Brian Gilp wrote:Sorry but this continually bothers me and I finally have to say it. High alcohol does not necesarily imply out of balance just like low alcohol does not automatically imply in balance. .... but it does show that the higher alcohol wine is not always out of balance when compared to the lower alcohol wines. Balance in a wine, like most things regarding wine is more complicated than just the alcohol content.
TomHill wrote:Brian Gilp wrote:Sorry but this continually bothers me and I finally have to say it. High alcohol does not necesarily imply out of balance just like low alcohol does not automatically imply in balance. .... but it does show that the higher alcohol wine is not always out of balance when compared to the lower alcohol wines. Balance in a wine, like most things regarding wine is more complicated than just the alcohol content.
Ahmen, Brian. Couldn't have said it better myself. Balance is far/far more than just about the alcohol content.
Tom
Keith M wrote:wrcstl wrote:Do they love the big goopy wines or just drink what gets lots of points?
Walt,
If I may indulge the more contentious side of my nature for a moment . . . I find it hard to believe there are significant numbers of people drinking wines they don't like--just because major reviewers find them appealing. Much more likely, I would guess, is that the way they approach wine (using prominent reviewers to map out the winescape) would encourage their palate to appreciate and prefer the wine styles appreciated by those reviewers. I think that the verb 'develop' applies as much if not more than the verb 'discover' with the experience I have over time with my palate and drinking wine. I just don't see folks holding their noses and doing shots of Mollydooker which they find distasteful just because everyone else is doing it--I see them letting information beyond what is in this glass shape how they evaluate the wine (as I am certain I do--what environment I drink the wine in, how much I paid for it, what my experience was at the winery/in the region of origin, what a friend said about the wine, et cetera).
Of course, your comment may be based on personal experiences with folks who admitted that they systematically seek out and drink wines they don't like--if so, I'd love to hear them. But without further evidence I'm dubious.
wrcstl wrote:You are both obviously correct. How about a statement that says "a large percentage of high alcohol wines tend to be out of balance." We do not dissagree on this issue, just the degree.
Walt
wrcstl wrote: "a large percentage of high alcohol wines tend to be out of balance."
wrcstl wrote:
Keith,
I wish you were correct but maybe in St. Louis there is a higher percent of lemmings. Obviously nobody drinks a wine they do not like but many convince themselves they like a wine with high point ratings. Marketing drives preference and in the wine world a high score, from whomever, is marketing and defines the wine as "good". People bought these wines because of the rating and I doubt they would have bought it, opened it and then said "try this wine, I think it is great." I turned 61 two days ago so maybe I am becoming too much of a curmudgeon but don't think so. This is a dead horse that I am probably beating to it's 8th death so I will move and try to figure out what "outlier" means.
Walt
TomHill wrote:wrcstl wrote:
Keith,
I wish you were correct but maybe in St. Louis there is a higher percent of lemmings. Obviously nobody drinks a wine they do not like but many convince themselves they like a wine with high point ratings. Marketing drives preference and in the wine world a high score, from whomever, is marketing and defines the wine as "good". People bought these wines because of the rating and I doubt they would have bought it, opened it and then said "try this wine, I think it is great." I turned 61 two days ago so maybe I am becoming too much of a curmudgeon but don't think so. This is a dead horse that I am probably beating to it's 8th death so I will move and try to figure out what "outlier" means.
Walt
Walt,
The wines we "like" is, to some degree, a learned response. Why do we like the smell of a rose?? Because, way back in our youth (which was not that long ago), we saw our Mother pick up a rose, take a strong smell, and have a very pleasurable look on her face. So that learned experience is why you like the smell of a rose. However, if that same Mother cut off a branch of that rose bush and gave you a severe lashing across a bare hiney with that branch...I suspect your response to the smell of a rose would be a whole lot different.
I think our response to wines is a learned experience much along these lines, to a certain extent. When we first taste a steely/minerally/chalky/austere Chablis, as a novice, with an experienced taster, and he goes ape-$hit over the wine, we "learn" that this is what a great Chablis is supposed to be about. When I taste a K-J'd modern Chablis, with RS, it makes me wretch.
I think it much the same way w/ many novice wine lovers. You taste a wine, for the first time, that Arpy scored a 96, you tend to abandon your critical facilities. "So this is what a 96 pt Priorat wine is like? Then I must like it, too." And then when you taste a traditional Priorat Rancio....it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll not like it...because it doesn't taste like Arpy's 96 pt wine.
Just my random phylosophically thoughts, anyway.
Tom
Keith M
Beer Explorer
1184
Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:25 am
Finger Lakes, New York
TomHill wrote:You taste a wine, for the first time, that Arpy scored a 96, you tend to abandon your critical facilities. "So this is what a 96 pt Priorat wine is like? Then I must like it, too."
Brian K Miller
Passionate Arboisphile
9340
Fri Aug 25, 2006 1:05 am
Northern California
Keith M wrote:I don't know if you abandon your critical facilities (faculties?) as much as try to create ones that did not previously exist. Being open to learning new things and developing one's palate requires, I believe, some suspension of disbelief--some relaxing of the initial yum-or-yuk reaction--to being open to learning something: hey, people are crazy about Jasnières/oysters/single malt scotch/stinky cheese and though it is so different and unfamiliar to me, I'm going to be open and see if I can find something to like about it, though my initial reaction may be: "this is unfamiliar, be suspicious," this may change with time and experience to "this is now familiar, this is certainly delicious."
In any case, it should be obvious that my bias is toward thinking that people drink the style of wine that they drink because that is the style they have 'learned' to like--but they really do like it, in the overwhelming majority of cases.
wrcstl wrote:Brian K Miller wrote:Great article. It may be a struggle for less well-known winemakers, though, as a lot of people seem to love those big goopy wines!
Brian,
Do they love the big goopy wines or just drink what gets lots of points? I know very few wine geeks that support the high alcohol, up front fruit wines. Maybe my sampling of wine drinkers is not typical. At the same time I go places where someone opens a wine of this type and quickly state "Parker gave this wine 94".
Walt
David M. Bueker
Riesling Guru
34424
Thu Mar 23, 2006 11:52 am
Connecticut
Mike Pollard wrote:Just to add further fuel to this fire there is a post on the Decanter article about this that is (apparently) from Adam Tolmach - its starts out "I have never made wines to please wine writers. I make them for myself and my customers. I was misquoted and my statements utterly misconstrued in the Los Angeles Times article."
If this is actually correct then its the second time in the last month or so that a journo has totally misquoted comments in an article about alcohol levels and wine. The first was in Australia in Nov/Dec. LINK. Is this simply poor reporting (in both continents) or is it agenda driven?
Mike
TomHill wrote:wrcstl wrote:You are both obviously correct. How about a statement that says "a large percentage of high alcohol wines tend to be out of balance." We do not dissagree on this issue, just the degree.
Walt
To that I would agree, Walt.
David M. Bueker
Riesling Guru
34424
Thu Mar 23, 2006 11:52 am
Connecticut
Robin Garr wrote:
I do have a theory about the Arpy-praised blockbusters and those who love them, though: I rarely see this mentioned, but it appears to me that a lot of the people who swear by them are in the habit of drinking wine as a cocktail, not as a beverage with meals. It makes a difference.
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