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Wine’s Pleasures: Are They All in Your Head?

jimtron

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jimtron
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Here's an illuminating NYT article, written by Eric Asimov, the Times' wine dude and, according to Wikipedia, Isaac's nephew. An excerpt:
Yet in recent months American wine drinkers have taken their turn as pop culture’s punching bags. In press accounts of two studies on wine psychology, consumers have been portrayed as dupes and twits, subject to the manipulations of marketers, critics and charlatan producers who have cloaked wine in mystique and sham sophistication in hopes of better separating the public from its money.
One of the studies was devised by Robin Goldstein, a food writer, to try to isolate consumers from outside influence so they could simply judge wine by what’s in the glass. He had 500 volunteers sample and rate 540 unidentified wines priced from $1.50 to $150 a bottle. The results are described in a new book, “The Wine Trials,” to be published this month by Fearless Critic Media.
The book wraps the results in a discussion of marketing manipulations and statistical validity, but a brief article in the April 7 issue of Newsweek magazine, naturally, seized on the book’s populist triumphs: a $10 bottle of bubbly from Washington state outscored Dom Pérignon, which sells for $150 a bottle, while Two-Buck Chuck, the cheap Charles Shaw California cabernet sauvignon, topped a $55 bottle of Napa Valley cabernet.
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In one experiment, volunteers who received mild electric shocks were given placebo pills to relieve the pain. They were told that the pills cost either 10 cents or $2.50. The participants believed that both kinds of pills helped relieve pain, but the seemingly more expensive pills had a much greater effect.
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I have always thought this of most of my wealthy friends.

**** the BS, I'll take a tankard of Carlo Rossi for nine dollars please.
 
What kind of pleasure isn't really "in the head"?

Oh, and yes, some vino enthusiasts seem to read the price. Blind tastings are the way to go. You know, like wine experts have been doing for a century or so?
 
I hardly ever drink but a $4-10 bottle of zinfandel does me just fine.

But, there are two consumer markets here--one the normal joes that seemed to be the target of that taste-test, and then the more developed palates. I don't doubt that the latter do see quite a difference in quality and do enjoy the more expensive stuff for reasons that aren't just in their head.
 
Just a minute.

It is very true that there is a lot of snobbery in the wine world - naturellement! Wine makers are in fierce competition, and they can and will use whatever trick they can to make people buy their products.

Presentation is a huge factor: You can present a wine casually, and people won't like it as much as the wine you ceremoniously present on purple velvet and a fanfare by Charpentier (pretentious? Moi?). That's why wine makers generally don't like blind tastings.

But the experiment itself makes the wrong assumption that price = quality = level of enjoyment. You can't just wade in from the street and think you can appreciate wine as much as he who has done it for years and knows what he is talking about.

Appreciating wine is very much a skill. Someone not used to wine may not even be able to tell a red from a white. But the point isn't to find the most expensive wine you can afford and then say "Ooooh! Magnifique!" The point is to explore the many facets of wine.

Stop thinking that a Merlot from one area is comparable to a Merlot from another. Merlot isn't a standardized type of beverage like Coors or CocaCola, it is a type of grape. It's just one of the many, many factors that make up a wine. Soil, amount of sunshine, type of casks, color, acidity, alcohol, age, etc.

And for crying out loud: Don't say "A bold wine with a hint of sophistication and lacking in pretension." If you think a wine tastes like soap, say so. Use descriptive words, like "earth", "sulphur", "cabbage", "blackberries", "thyme", "rosemary", etc. But you can only do that if you know what things taste like and are willing to find those experiences in wine.

You can learn to appreciate that a wine tastes like a cow byre. I do. :)
 
Asimov doesn't believe that it's only all in your head.

Two caveats are in order here. First, it turns out that the results of the tastings are more nuanced than the Newsweek article let on. In fact, the book shows that what appeals to novice wine drinkers is significantly different from what appeals to wine experts, which the book defines as those who have had some sort of training or professional experience with wine. The experts, by the way, preferred the Dom Pérignon.
Second, there is, of course, no such thing as the “average oenophile,” as Newsweek put it. Most people in the wine trade understand that consumers have any number of reasons for their buying decisions, whatever their psychological and financial state. Some are reassured by easy-to-understand labels with friendly animals. Others want only naturally produced wines or bottles with a modest carbon footprint. Some are status-seekers and score-chasers, while others are contrarians, or only drink red wine.
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The article is balanced and thoughtful, and Asimov is not saying that wine appreciation is BS.

Folks, please read the entire article if you can.
 
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CFLarsen said:
Just a minute.

It is very true that there is a lot of snobbery in the wine world - naturellement! Wine makers are in fierce competition, and they can and will use whatever trick they can to make people buy their products.

Presentation is a huge factor: You can present a wine casually, and people won't like it as much as the wine you ceremoniously present on purple velvet and a fanfare by Charpentier (pretentious? Moi?). That's why wine makers generally don't like blind tastings.

But the experiment itself makes the wrong assumption that price = quality = level of enjoyment. You can't just wade in from the street and think you can appreciate wine as much as he who has done it for years and knows what he is talking about.

Appreciating wine is very much a skill. Someone not used to wine may not even be able to tell a red from a white. But the point isn't to find the most expensive wine you can afford and then say "Ooooh! Magnifique!" The point is to explore the many facets of wine.

Stop thinking that a Merlot from one area is comparable to a Merlot from another. Merlot isn't a standardized type of beverage like Coors or CocaCola, it is a type of grape. It's just one of the many, many factors that make up a wine. Soil, amount of sunshine, type of casks, color, acidity, alcohol, age, etc.

And for crying out loud: Don't say "A bold wine with a hint of sophistication and lacking in pretension." If you think a wine tastes like soap, say so. Use descriptive words, like "earth", "sulphur", "cabbage", "blackberries", "thyme", "rosemary", etc. But you can only do that if you know what things taste like and are willing to find those experiences in wine.

You can learn to appreciate that a wine tastes like a cow byre. I do. :)
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I agree with CFLarsen.

And no, I'm not drunk.
 
Dragoonster said:
But, there are two consumer markets here--one the normal joes that seemed to be the target of that taste-test, and then the more developed palates. I don't doubt that the latter do see quite a difference in quality and do enjoy the more expensive stuff for reasons that aren't just in their head.
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Like most anything else, it's a question of degree. Certainly there is something to be said for a developed palate, eg even a moderate wine drinker can usually tell the diff between a "decent" wine and the swill most kids drink in high school/college.

On the other hand, there is a freakin truckload of pretense and snobbery among the "wine elite" (and/or the many pretenders, and I'm not sure which is worse)...and the differences between wines, esp between "average" wines and supposedly really good ones (based, of course, mostly on price and packaging/ratings by "experts"), is hideously overrated.
 
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It's obvious (and overlooked) that the book and it's reviews are written for the average Joe. The elite are already educated beyond that level.

Hand me a box of Francia. At $1.50/liter, it suits my palate. AND is a manufactured product with inherent consistency.

But also, I have had a few meals that included an appropriate wine. It made everything taste better, really improved the whole dinner experience. Tee-totalers are missing out. But you won't find that combination at the liquor store, it takes a restaurant staff that knows some stuff to do it. There's no way for me to find that particular match while standing in the aisle at the liquor store. So I'll stick to the box.
 
All I can say, in the very general way is: Eisweines from Germany are marvelous. Those from Idaho and evirons are not. Trochenbeerenausleses are even better than eisweins. Theoretically that should not be tru - but it is. I do not like (appreciate) red wines so I am biased. Red wines (to my biased mouth) taste like tanning solution (possibly due to their tannin content. I also love scotch. Expensive scotch. And I can tell the difference (places that, on the rare occasions I drink out, serve me something other than what I have ordered (Chivas normally) do not get my business any longer. So far that happened once. In Washington DC. During the World Con where Patia stripped during the masqurade contest and cleaned Mr. Heinlein's glasses. To the tune of "The night they drove old dixie down." A good convention!! But ...
 
casebro said:
Hand me a box of Francia. At $1.50/liter, it suits my palate. AND is a manufactured product with inherent consistency.
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We have a 5-liter box of it in the fridge, left here by some weekend guests whose wine tastes are pretty simple. We've been enjoying it, but there's no question that there's little that separates it from fruit juice beyond the light alcohol content.

That having been said, I think there are limits to what different people can appreciate. Mrs. BPSCG and I visited a few wineries one Saturday a few months ago. Before tasting a white (I forget what variety) at one winery, we were informed that we should look for certain tasting notes, including "slate."

"What does slate taste like?" I asked the owner.

She tried explaining to me, but I just wasn't getting it. She finally obtained a piece of slate and had me actually put it in my mouth.

I could discern no taste whatsoever. I rolled that piece of slate around my mouth, all over and under the tongue, hoping that one taste bud or another would pick up something. I breathed in and out through my nose the whole time, well aware that taste is largely influenced by the sinuses. Nothing. A coat button would have tasted no different.

I didn't conclude the whole thing was a fraud. Some people have keener eyes than others; some people have better hearing, some people have sharper senses of smell. So why shouldn't some people have a better sense of taste than others?

And if there's a certain portion of the population that can actually taste, appreciate, and enjoy the difference between slate and shale, who can tell whether a wine has been aged in French oak or American oak, who am I to call BS on them?

So I'll drink a $15-$20 zinfandel, or a $25 petit sirah. But I won't plunk down $150 for any wine that doesn't come with a coupon good for sexual favors.
 
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I think there's a certain amount of what I consider to be BS involved in the "higher" levels of any hobby, where people able to detect incredibly minor differences consider those differences to be the proper way to judge quality. The ability to impress your fellow snobs might be fun for some people, but I just don't get much satisfaction out of it. And, occasionally, the ability to observe subtlety in something that is generally considered unpalatable seems to bring a level of satisfaction to people. I'll never understand it, but there it is.
 
Always makes me smile when folk pull out their special wine thermometer in a restaurant!

My rule of thumb for red wine: a bad one (usually also very cheap) will give me an asthma attack :o
 
In a wine course that I "took" once (it was recorded), the instructor related a story of a restaurant which was catering a banquet for a group that ran a vineyard- the executives, the vintners, etc, who where celebrating a successful batch of a particular rose (what is now called blush). The restaurant ran out of that rose, so the head waiter took every bottle of anything that was remotely pink, mixed it all together and refilled the bottles with the mixture.

None of the wine snobs noticed the difference.

I find that the price of a wine has nothing to do with my enjoyment of it, since my tastes differ strongly from that of your average wine snob (I like something sweet! I loathe chardonnay!!).
 
Madalch said:
In a wine course that I "took" once (it was recorded), the instructor related a story of a restaurant which was catering a banquet for a group that ran a vineyard- the executives, the vintners, etc, who where celebrating a successful batch of a particular rose (what is now called blush). The restaurant ran out of that rose, so the head waiter took every bottle of anything that was remotely pink, mixed it all together and refilled the bottles with the mixture.

None of the wine snobs noticed the difference.
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lol - love it - exactly, and I'd bet serious money you could get away with other such substitutions, because again the wine "crowd" is unsurpassed in the pretentiousness dept. Actually there are similar sillinesses (I don't care if that's even a word so nyah) regarding most any alcohol, esp the whiskey and vodka groupies.

I find that the price of a wine has nothing to do with my enjoyment of it, since my tastes differ strongly from that of your average wine snob (I like something sweet! I loathe chardonnay!!).
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I hate most Chadonneys too, but that reminds me of another wine snobbery, ie the sweeter you like your wines, the more of a novice you are. :rolleyes: The sweetness of a wine has NOTHING to do w/how good of a wine it is. I have tried wines all along that spectrum and there are good and bad wines throughout. I will say generally I can't drink the really sweet and/or "dessert wines," but that's because as I get older I just can't tolerate strong sweetness in most anything. I can't tell you the last time I had any candy of any kind.
 
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CFLarsen said:
But the experiment itself makes the wrong assumption that price = quality = level of enjoyment. You can't just wade in from the street and think you can appreciate wine as much as he who has done it for years and knows what he is talking about.

Appreciating wine is very much a skill. Someone not used to wine may not even be able to tell a red from a white. But the point isn't to find the most expensive wine you can afford and then say "Ooooh! Magnifique!" The point is to explore the many facets of wine.
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I agree with Claus on this one (let me know if you spot four odd-looking horses and riders nearby); it's definitely a skill. It's not something the average person is going to be able to just jump into.

Someone who is used to drinking Coca-cola and Boone's Farm isn't going to appreciate the difference between a well-produced proper vintage and a $5 jug of supermarket plonk. In fact, most people in that category will tend toward the sweeter, simpler (and typically cheaper) examples simply because they're more familiar, and familiarity is a very powerful influence on preferences (there have actually been studies on this, but I don't have them to hand at the moment).

I would be far more interested in a double-blind test of the self-proclaimed experts. That would be far more informative on the value of wine snobbery and the extent of woo involved.
 
Madalch said:
In a wine course that I "took" once (it was recorded), the instructor related a story of a restaurant which was catering a banquet for a group that ran a vineyard- the executives, the vintners, etc, who where celebrating a successful batch of a particular rose (what is now called blush). The restaurant ran out of that rose, so the head waiter took every bottle of anything that was remotely pink, mixed it all together and refilled the bottles with the mixture.

None of the wine snobs noticed the difference.
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How far into the evening, and how much had the party been drinking prior to this happening? Sense of taste/smell decreases, or at lease changes, rapidly and significantly as an effect of the alcohol. Which is one of the main reasons that wine, whisky, and beer tasters don't actually swallow their samples (although you can get away with this for a lot longer with beer, due to the higher dilution typicaly of most varieties), but spit them out instead.

If this happened later in the banquet after everyone had already consumed a couple of glasses, then it really means nothing beyond the fact that their senses were dulled by the alcohol, and an inability to readily notice the difference would be fully expected.
 
bigred said:
...that reminds me of another wine snobbery, ie the sweeter you like your wines, the more of a novice you are. The sweetness of a wine has NOTHING to do w/how good of a wine it is.
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There is a caveat on your statement- sweetening a wine will often cover up flaws, so bad wines are more likely to be found sweet than good ones, at least among the usual wines.

I usually prefer home-made fruit wines (at least those made by my mother or myself) to most commercial grape wines, apart from the unaffordable icewines and the like.
 
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