I can't tell difference between $2 wine and $200 wine (Pinot, mix, flavor)

[SluggoF16]

Originally Posted by whocares811

So many good posts here! I am a wine associate (wine consultant and shelf stocker) who has been drinking wine for 40-plus years. I am not a sommelier, but three of my co-workers are, and the favorite everyday wine of one of them (who worked for the Ritz, btw) is a Chilean Pinot Noir for $6.99 a bottle! Now, this is a man who regularly tasted and sold wine costing $3,000 a bottle or more! (Btw, that particular Chilean wine is not rated very highly on most wine review websites, and I personally don't like it at all, but then my palate and that of "average Joe" reviewer are not as sophisticated as my co-worker's is, either!)

If it's Pepperwood Grove, he's on to something. For the price it's a great choice, not going to win double gold or get 95 points from Wine Spectator, but for me it's every bit as good as some of the overpriced pinots I had in the Central Coast area last fall.

[Archer705]

Originally Posted by Southern man

Its pretty obvious you have never had a good time.

What do you mean by that?

[Xelfer]

Wine can be amazing or insipid. The key is what you pair it with—if you want to start experimenting with learning how to interpret wine flavors, start with a chardonnay and some rich, buttery cheese and crackers. Hell, you can use Cheddar, Swiss, or Gouda and Ritz. Or sip a full-bodied red and some dark chocolate.

This is kind of the equivalent of smelling coffee beans after you sniff too many colognes and they all smell the same.

Wines—good ones, anyway—really do have structure and great complexity. For me, the biggest pleasure in drinking a wine comes when you pair it perfectly with a food. What I get is an overwhelming sense of umami and savory, that is akin to drinking a glass of heightened taste. It's hard to explain, but both the wine and the food taste much more like themselves than what they normally do. This is especially true with cheese.

The cost of wine (outside a restaurant) is usually somewhat reflective of the quality up to a point, but not always. My partner and I drink wine regularly and he has exposed me to a very wide variety of inexpensive-expensive wines. Some have been incredible, and some suck. We had a pretty pricey bottle the other night from a winery that we really enjoyed visiting. It tasted EXACTLY like pomegranate-flavored Vitamin Water. It was terrible. We opened another bottle that was one of the best reds I've ever had, and I would literally take a drink and hold it in my mouth and refuse to swallow, because the flavor was that good.

I'm no wine snob—even $10/bottle wine can be surprisingly good. I would experiment with a decent wine store and try a variety of flavors with different foods before trying something expensive in a restaurant.

[exm]

<$5 bottle of wine: usually junk
>$5, <$10 bottle of wine: hit or miss, but some really great value
>$10, <$20 bottle of wine: great value, some overpriced
>$20 bottle of wine: 99% of the time overprice

My say: shop in the $5-$10 range for a nice bottle of wine. Personally, I like Frontera.

[Dirt Grinder]

I can; the $2 wine tastes better.

[geekigurl]

Speaking of wine. I saw this wino, he was eating grapes. I was like "Dude, you have to wait."

[evening sun]

IMO, it is just snob value. I drink the cheap stuff.

[GWTJ]

It's good wine if you like the taste. Also, if a wine tastes less than great, something can be added to make it taste better. Sorry for not answering why some pay a small fortune for highly rated wines. Hope for something more exciting, maybe, and there's plenty of people so wealthy they think $20 or more a bottle is really cheap. We are conditioned all our lives to only buy the best we can afford of any consumer product.

Originally Posted by rhbj03

Yes I have read books and watched videos and listened to experts; I know all about swirl and smell and sip anbd spit. But somehow I just cannot grasp all those abstract concepts of what is good wine and not so good wine.

Do you have a way to explain it?

[GWTJ]

Total Wine has Big Sipper Ca (Napa) Red for $9.99 for 5 liter box. In states without Total Wine, Franzia Dark Red Blend is available in 5 liter box for $13.49 or so. Both are 13.5%. But I add somethings to make it into fruity semi-wine. Tastes great & goes down faster!

Originally Posted by JohnZ963

Neither can I. I can only tell the difference between fresh wine and wine that has sat opened too long, as well as the difference between real wine and "fruity" semi-wine that usually has less than 10% alcohol content.

[GWTJ]

I start out with cheap red wine, then add water & cranberry juice. Delicious to me. But if I lived in CO, I might be spending those $$ on "weed".

Originally Posted by jim9251

To me all wine is just nasty. I don't understand how anyone can drink that stuff.