Originally posted by BavarianBeast
Speaking of red wine, I'll share what I thought was a funny story my dad told me a few years back.
He was out for dinner with some colleages and some very high profile clients.
One of clients the told the waiter that he would like to order the most expensive, exclusive red wine on the menu. The guy who ordered shortly left the table to go to the washroom. My dad, thinking it would be hilarius waved the waiter over and told him to just bring out the cheapest red wine they have as a joke.
The waiter proceeds to bring the bottle of wine (cheap bottle) to the table once the client was back and poured him a glass. The client did the whole wine connesuer thing, twilring the glass around and smelling the aroma. After that he proceeded to take a taste and rambled on how it is such a good year, and how it is the most amazing wine and blah blah blah.. The whole table burst out in tears laughing at this guy. After he discovered what my dad had done, he got up enraged and left the dinner leaving his two partners behind.
I thought it was a funny story.
This doesn't surprise me. Ive had wines under $20/bottle that surpass wines that are $150+ a bottle, actually this is surprisingly common. Actually, Ive had more phenomenal wines under $20/bottle then I have very high end wines of countless times more the cost. Dont get me wrong, the high end ones will have attributes that the cheaper ones will barely ever have, but over all, its not hard to have enough reason to choose the cheaper more well rounded cheaper one, over the very pricey esoteric one thats debatable at best.
A bit of a tip for you, you want to know why they swirl the wine? to test the sugar content. The more "legs" (/ small streams, flowing downward obviously) it has after you twirl it, the higher the sugar content. If there are few to no legs, it has a low sugar content, which is typical of higher end wines, as they dont need to add sugars to aid in the vinification (proper term for "wine making") process or to sweeten up the harsh over tones of the wine.
Natural sugars occur if the growing season is ideal, of which depends on the variety of grape. Under ideal conditions for ANY grape (of which vary GREATLY), it'll produce enough natural sugar to create the perfect wine, under shit growing conditions for the grape in question, artificial sugar (which creates the legs) is needed to attempt to create a more "perfect" balance. This is why the dirt cheap piss wines listed on the first page have a very high sugar content, and aren't really "wine" in the common sense of the term.
Also, the reason for sniffing the wine first, is to detect what the floral bouquet is. Typically, if you have a nose good enough, you can detect what berries were used, and in what quantities to create the wine, as well as what spices and other notes used to create the flavor, which is then justified by your first sip of the wine.
Also, by mere scent, a well trained nose can easily tell if the wine was vinted in wood (the proper traditional way) or in Stainless steel vats. Stainless steel is FAR more common on cheaper wines as its FAR cheaper of a process, problem is, you'll always lack that woody oak like body that higher end wines will have if properly vinted in oak casks. I can tell quite easily of how it was vinted, and how long it was vinted for, also the exact type of wood used in the casks, and how many times those said casks were used. Typical oak casks can be used for vinting about 5-6 times, then their expired.
Hmmm, I almost feel like having an introductory wine tasting day, so I can show you guys what to look for, and how to detect what berries were used, and what they all taste like (etc etc etc). Being a Sommelier is quite an interesting thing, full of so many things most people have little to no idea about. Lol the whole topic of wine is so vastly intriguing, its a world within itself. It only gets more complicated the farther you get into it.
Last edited by Graham_A_M; 07-22-2014 at 11:02 PM.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side"
Quote
Originally Posted by killramos
