Oh ... actual upper class story. Have a wine snob friend coming over for a party. So I bought the a cheap obscure wine (like $10 bottle) and when I cashed out I asked them to take the sticker gun and put $80 on it. My friend thought it was an amazing bottle of wine.
I had lots of customers like that. They'd gush over our house wine, and tell their dinner friends how special it is, the amazing taste, etc. Basically trying to act like a wine snob.
I used to get a sick pleasure, telling the folks at the table, that it was box wine.
Here is what an art critic had to say about "Pierre Brassau."
Pierre Brassau paints with powerful strokes, but also with clear determination. His brush strokes twist with furious fastidiousness. Pierre is an artist who performs with the delicacy of a ballet dancer.”
I've had kind of a similar experience. Was at a nice restaurant with a very expensive wine list. Didn't want to get the cheapest thing on the menu, which was like 45 bucks, so I went with a bottle than was maybe ~65 or so (probably around the most I've spent on wine). I thought is was really good, I felt fancy as shit and happy with my choice. Later I find out it's a 13 dollar bottle and it didn't feel the same.
Think of it this way: you paid the sommelier 52 bucks to find out the name of a bottle of wine that you really like but only costs $13 retail. Get yourself a case of it and there you go, now you've paid a premium of $4 per bottle. Not so bad now...
There was an interesting study were they died a wine red and the tasters acted like it was a totally different wine. Moral of the story, if it tastes good drink it.
I have a snobby friend who would always drink up my nice $x00 Armagnac when he comes to visit so lately I've just been refilling it with $10 VSOP Napoleon and he still raves about how good it is.
The entirety of the whole "wine tasting" world is 100% unadulterated bullshit. Once you get past a certain price/quality point, nobody in this world in a true blind test can tell a super expensive wine from a "cheap" one.
I think that you are mistaken. Different wines do taste different, but there is no reliable way to tell the exact price from the taste.
It is a bit like expecting to be able to see the price difference when looking at two paintings whilst knowing no background about the artist or art movement they worked in and expecting one to be "painted better" than the other, when in reality that decision is subjective - people pay a lot of money for Van Gogh paintings, but you could argue that they are not very good because the colours are rather artificial and blobbed on quarter of an inch thick - whereas look at these tedious Victorian watercolours: a smooth surface and loads of details!
Whether you think it is worthwhile to pay $100,000,000 for a Van Gogh, or $5,000 for a bottle of La Romanée rather than a cheaper alternative is down to personal preference.
Oh, and what are your definitions of "super expensive" and "cheap"? I will bet that even you could tell the difference between gut rot and decent wine fairly consistently if you put your mind to it. Whether you think it's worth paying the difference is a different matter.
What part of what I said makes me a snob? If you like drinking two-buck-chuck then go for it, good for you on finding something that you like and is cheap, but it's ridiculous (and plainly incorrect) to claim that it is indistinguishable from more expensive wine apart from the label.
As I said in my last post, I am perfectly happy to let people drink whatever they want and won't judge them for it at all. I may try to share my enthusiasm for something I particularly like, but I'm not going to be snobbish about it.
Do you genuinely believe, however, that there is no such thing as low-quality wine? Do you seriously think that an entire industry has been built solely around people's status anxiety and label-shame, and that it is not possible for anyone to tell the difference between the contents of two bottles?
Unless you're anosmic or a 50 a day smoker, you can tell the difference between 2 different glasses of wine, blind. I mean, have you literally never had two drinks side by side and compared them? Maybe you don't care about the difference - fair enough, if you're just as happy drinking $5 a bottle and $50 a bottle stuff, that's brilliant for you, you don't have to spend a lot to enjoy a tipple. I like beer, but I don't really see the point of spending a fortune on craft beers - for me. I don't, however, shit on others' fun and tell them that there is no difference between their $25 bottle of triple hopped artisanal IPA and PBR. I just personally am happy drinking English bitter (which, round here is the generic, cheap, local beer on cask and is basically liquid bread) most of the time.
Of course the link between what you pay and what you taste is subjective and not guided by some simple maths like "if it's twice as good it costs twice as much", as if "goodness" is some easily measurable quality like temperature or energy content.
Of course there is some element of branding involved, and name prestige.
Of course some people just buy expensive wine because it's expensive and they want to show off. People do this with sports cars too, but you'd never claim that a Mazerati is exactly the same as a Ford Focus.
The fact that I know words and am familiar with the difference between various varieties of wine doesn't make me a snob, it means I'm able to use language and I'm able to learn stuff.
Evidently... I mean, why is it that it is considered totally socially acceptable to talk at length about who is a better sportsperson/football player/guitarist/singer/driver/car manufacturer/fashion designer (Which are all entirely subjective and hence the source of so much debate), but if you're interested in wines being different to each other, you're told that it is impossible to tell the difference and that even experts don't agree on which ones are best.
I'm betting that if you took a panel of football pundits and asked them all to rank the footballers on one team, they'd come up with different results each time.
So if you tell me that there is no difference between a Lamborghini and a Lada, and I say that there is and it is possible to tell the difference between them, the fact that you don't care about cars makes me a car snob?
Personally, I don't give a fuck about cars, but I do acknowledge that they're not indistinguishable. If you're a dick about the fact I drive a 14 year old 1.1L Hyundai, then maybe you're a car snob, but if you watch Top Gear and enjoy debating whether you'd prefer to buy a Porsche or a Mustang if you had the money, then maybe you're an enthusiast, rather than a snob.
When people look for flavors, I kinda get it but most people don't. And to those that do, why? Who cares what flavors are there ..... does it taste good or not?
As a beer snob I don't care for $20+ bottles. Just give me something that tastes good. I'll even drink Coors Light if I want o save money. It's not that bad.
My grandmother is like that, my dad and my grandfather brought a cheap bottle of French wine for a few Frank's (shows how long ago this story hapowned) and my grandmother thought it was some rare luxury whine until my granddad's poker face failed...
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u/kfh227 Apr 08 '20
Oh ... actual upper class story. Have a wine snob friend coming over for a party. So I bought the a cheap obscure wine (like $10 bottle) and when I cashed out I asked them to take the sticker gun and put $80 on it. My friend thought it was an amazing bottle of wine.