I can't tell difference between $2 wine and $200 wine (red wine, whiskey, best)
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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.
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.
Then you shouldn't waste your money on expensive wine. I'm a foodie, and I can tell the difference between a retail $10-20 wine and a $100 or thereabouts, the latter is better but... I can't consistently tell between a $15 wine and a $30, so we usually drink $10-15 wines and very rarely splurge on an expensive wine.
There actually are "supertasters" (a prerequisite for a legit professional sommelier) who really can distinguish subtle nuances and "notes" between wines, but they are few and far between. Women are more likely to be supertasters, but it's still very uncommon. Most people you meet who tell you they know the difference, are outright posers. When posers tell you they're getting "currants, apple, jammy, buttery, chewy, blah-blah" - they read it somewhere or they're making it up knowing no one around is likely to know otherwise.
Like the OP, I've read a bunch of wine books and tried, but my taste buds aren't that discerning. Probably a blessing, saves me the cost of buying expensive wines except infrequently for very special occasions.
Location: St Thomas, USVI - Seattle, WA - Gulf Coast, TX
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First, let's be clear that rating wine by cost is not the way to go. OF COURSE there are $200 wines out there that aren't any better than $2 wines. There's a chance that will work in reverse from time to time, too. Marketing, brand awareness, and plenty of other factors are going to affect cost. Cost is not a definitive measure of quality. This can be true for virtually any consumer product. Sure, we hope that price is a general indicator of demand for a good reason, but that is not always the case. In short: screw rating wines by cost/price. That's pointless. Taste is what matters.
OP, are you a chocolate lover, or a coffee lover? If you can relate to either of those things on an intimate level, than it might be easier to explain. When you're new to coffee: Coffee tastes like coffee tastes like coffee tastes like coffee. When you really get to know coffee, and you've been drinking a lot of it for a long time - you've tried light, medium and dark roasts, you've tried different roasters, you've dried beans from different regions of the world and even different farms within a region - your palate starts to wake up to the nuances of it. You start to really, overtly recognize the balance of acidity and bitterness (or lack thereof), the caramel notes or smokey notes or citrusy notes. It's a familiarity thing that trains your palate and once it's there, you can't not notice it. The same goes for chocolate, in all of the same ways. Heck, the same goes for olive oil too!
That's the story with wine. When you're new to wine: wine tastes like wine tastes like wine. So, my advice? Drink a lot of it. Try different grapes, different vineyards, different regions. "Terroir" is a foundational word in wine-making for a reason, truly. Practice is the way we hone our skills at anything and that includes your palate. You'll be amazed at how you start recognizing fruitiness, tannins, acidity, and a million different aromatic notes that practically make no sense to be coming from a glass of fermented grapes: raspberries, star anise, peppercorns, smoke, oak, minerals, herbs, flowers. You'll get so familiar with them that you'll start to know, based on the terrain the grapes were grown on, what some of those notes will be (this is "terroir"). Beyond that, you simply like what you like. You'll decide whether you prefer wines with heavy tannins that punch you in the face like a great Cab Sauv., or if you like peppery or fruity wines, like a Syrah. There aren't rules as to which is best. It's just fun to awaken your palate to know the difference and to decide what you like.
Anyway, tasting wine and really being able to taste it is just like doing ANYTHING and really being able to do it. You have to practice in order to become familiar enough with something to know it well. What do they say? 10,000 of practice to become an "expert?" I was on a deep sea fishing trip last year and the captain knew what every single fish on our hooks was as soon as he saw the line pull on the first bite. Tuna? Amberjack? Snapper? Shark? He called it correctly every. single. time. I'm telling you, the way those lines looked when they pulled down and the way the fish felt on the line on that first pull seemed NO DIFFERENT to me! Intimacy, familiarity, practice and you become an expert. More importantly, drinking wine (or coffee, or eating chocolate, or fishing) becomes ESPECIALLY enjoyable when you get there.
Anyway, tasting wine and really being able to taste it is just like doing ANYTHING and really being able to do it. You have to practice in order to become familiar enough with something to know it well. What do they say? 10,000 of practice to become an "expert?" I was on a deep sea fishing trip last year and the captain knew what every single fish on our hooks was as soon as he saw the line pull on the first bite. Tuna? Amberjack? Snapper? Shark? He called it correctly every. single. time. I'm telling you, the way those lines looked when they pulled down and the way the fish felt on the line on that first pull seemed NO DIFFERENT to me! Intimacy, familiarity, practice and you become an expert. More importantly, drinking wine (or coffee, or eating chocolate, or fishing) becomes ESPECIALLY enjoyable when you get there.
I totally agree with the above poster! You have to practice at it, as you do with anything you want to be good at. To the OP, keep on tasting different wines to find out what kind you like the best. Once you find your wine, try different wineries, regions and years to develop your palate. Another thing to try is to buy a decanter and decant your wines. What I have done is buy a case or two of the same wine and decant and taste at different times. You will notice that the wine will evolve over decanting time. Soon you'll be looking for a nice wine fridge to store your wines to keep for years to come.
This is one of the fun parts of enjoying wine, but it can be an expensive hobby, like most hobbies can be from time to time!
Then you shouldn't waste your money on expensive wine. I'm a foodie, and I can tell the difference between a retail $10-20 wine and a $100 or thereabouts, the latter is better but... I can't consistently tell between a $15 wine and a $30, so we usually drink $10-15 wines and very rarely splurge on an expensive wine.
There actually are "supertasters" (a prerequisite for a legit professional sommelier) who really can distinguish subtle nuances and "notes" between wines, but they are few and far between. Women are more likely to be supertasters, but it's still very uncommon. Most people you meet who tell you they know the difference, are outright posers. When posers tell you they're getting "currants, apple, jammy, buttery, chewy, blah-blah" - they read it somewhere or they're making it up knowing no one around is likely to know otherwise.
Like the OP, I've read a bunch of wine books and tried, but my taste buds aren't that discerning. Probably a blessing, saves me the cost of buying expensive wines except infrequently for very special occasions.
But for Pete's sake - don't drink $2 wine!!!
I'm generally in agreement with you. I can certainly tell awful from pleasant. I know that a chateau-bottled Claret is something special when I taste it. However, a few years ago, the top of the market was learned to be essentially bologna. There's a book about it. I found it to be both fascinating and amusing.
My sister is an assistant winemaker in California, and she says that most wines over $50 are priced that way for pretension. Once after work the owner came in with three paper bag covered wine bottles. All were California Bordeaux-style blends, or Meritage if you prefer that term. Everyone at the winery got to sample each, a benefit of working in a winery. They then rank-ordered them. The winner was a $40 Paso Robles blend, and the second was Opus One, a $200+ Napa cab blend. Third place was a Central Coast blend that was around ten dollars. It was just barely third place. No one picked Opus One as the best wine.
Later that year my sister hosted a Christmas party with some of her winery friends (damn, she has a great job!) and she poured a cabernet sauvignon that I sent her from a winery in north Texas. Yes, Texas. $8.99 screw cap. Everyone ranted and raved about how good it was.
It's been said here a few times already, and I'll reiterate: price isn't the sole determinant of wine quality. A lot of it depends on personal taste, and most people can't really differentiate between Opus One and Beringer Reserve. Until they pay the bill.
I think the first thing you should realize is everyones sense of taste and smell is different. And not only is it different between people it is different even within each person. If you have a cold or allergies you won't be able to smell as well. If you just ate spicy food your sense of taste might be altered.
I'm not that much into wine but I do love whiskey and I go about enjoying whiskey in the same way someone would enjoy wine. It's good to get information but in the end this is something that is highly subjective. If you can't taste the difference between a two dollar wine and a $200 wine then you can't taste the difference and that's fine. It's possible that the $200 bottle of wine was off too.
One last thing I would say is to give it time. I'm sure there's been times in your life when you tried something and initially you didn't like it but after you became more accustomed to it you may have enjoyed it more and more. In the end it doesn't really matter what other people think when it comes to taste and smell though, it matters what you think.
Last edited by biggunsmallbrains; 03-25-2017 at 11:33 AM..
I think the first thing you should realize is everyones sense of taste and smell is different. And not only is it different between people it is different even within each person. If you have a cold or allergies you won't be able to smell as well. If you just ate spicy food your sense of taste might be altered.
I'm not that much into wine but I do love whiskey and I go about enjoying whiskey in the same way someone would enjoy wine. It's good to get information but in the end this is something that is highly subjective. If you can't taste the difference between a two dollar wine and a $200 wine then you can't taste the difference and that's fine. It's possible that the $200 bottle of wine was off too.
One last thing I would say is to give it time. I'm sure there's been times in your life when you tried something and initially you didn't like it but after you became more accustomed to it you may have enjoyed it more and more. In the end it doesn't really matter what other people think when it comes to taste and smell though, it matters what you think.
Agreed (bold). As they say, diff'r'nt strokes fer diff'r'nt folks. Drink what you like. When I am at a winery and they ask "What wine do you like?" I say "Yes." Because I like almost all types. Bold cabs, fruit-bomb zinfandels, earthy pinots, leathery tempranillos... all of them. And muscadine, too. Too many wine snobs say "Muscadine? Ewwww! How plebian!"
I like a good, robust porter or stout beer. A contractor who works for me thinks I'm crazy. "Uck! Bleah!" he shrieks as I quaff my Left Hand and he drinks his Bud Light. I don't dog him about his beer tastes, or lack thereof, because I kept Coors in business in the 80s.
And giving it time is essential. Expanding tastes is fun and educational and makes life more enjoyable. My BIL only drank Bud Light for years. He then tried Hoegaarden, liked it, started to actively seek out other tastes he liked, and now he's a pretty accomplished home brewer.
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When posers tell you they're getting "currants, apple, jammy, buttery, chewy, blah-blah" - they read it somewhere or they're making it up knowing no one around is likely to know otherwise.
