How classy people get wasted

I hated wine for years, mostly because I was introduced to it through the sharp shiraz' my Dad favours and the godawful vinegar/sugar syrup my friends were drinking. Then I was introduced to good Sangria in Spain, and it blew my mind. A sweet, fruity drink with ridiculously high alcohol content, which women actually clamor for? Sign me the fuck up. When I returned home, I devoted a lot of time to making my own Sangria, and became familiar with a lot of Tempranillos / Riojas. (Also, never, ever order a 'Reeoh-jah' at a work lunch. I'm still hearing about that 3 years later). I started discussing wine with my Dad, and now every week when I have dinner with my folks I get sent home with somewhere between a bottle and a carton of astonishingly good wine. Dad has been into wine for decades, and one of his hobbies is finding excellent bottles in the $15-$30 range. These days, I love a good red wine.

I'm nowhere near a wine snob. I have 8 litres of wine in fluffy silver pillows / cardboard boxes which I use for wine pong, and I buy cases of $7 cleanskins. However, the idea that cost doesn't correlate to taste in any way is just wrong. I've had some very good $20 bottles of wine, but I've never had a good $4 bottle. Likewise, I've never had a truly terrible $70 bottle, but I've had some godawful wines for $15. At home I drink the cheap stuff (wine is the cheapest buzz around for casual weekday drinking), but if I go to a dinner party, or if I'm sitting around watching True Blood with friends, I get a lot of enjoyment from bringing round a really good wine to share and watching peoples' pleasurable surprise. I lost the list of great wines I've been building about a month ago, but a couple I can remember are the St Hallett's Old Block Shiraz, 2005, and Henschke Keyneton Euphonium 2009. Both are fairly big shiraz', but without the overly peppery bite of cheap shit. They are pricey, but your host will love you forever.

I find white wine suffers at the cheaper end of the price range - too acidic, too sweet, or too oaky. If you are looking to get into white, I'd recommend starting with a Sem Sav Blanc (Oyster/Cloudy Bay is particularly good) - they are fruity and sweet, but not cloyingly so. Very nice by the pool in summer if you can keep them cold.

The only thing I can't stand is champagne. I've tried Moet, and Dom Perignon, and Taittinger(sp?) and I just can't acquire the taste for them. They all taste like bitter carbonated nonsense to me, so I've given up on them till I kill a few more tastebuds.

 

Honestly even if I could taste the difference between a $15 bottle of wine and a $80-$100 bottle of wine, at this point I wouldn't spend that kind of money on one. When it comes to beer, I can absolutely taste the difference in ingredients between a run of the mill Miller Lite, to a nice IPA from a great microbrew. More often than not I still only treat myself to a super nice beer once a month or so ($10+ for a six pack). I wouldn't be able to do the same with wine.

Good on ya though if you have the money to spend on the nicer things in life.

I've decided I really enjoy pinot noir. Do you guys have specific foods you enjoy with this wine?

 

Two large glasses of a fairly inoffensive $6 Muscato and things are looking up tonight.

 

Pencil me in as another who doesn't like wine. So far, I've tried both whites and reds on more than a few occasions and, to me, it all tastes like rotting grapes soaked in blotting paper, doesn't matter if it was a $5 or $50 bottle. I was once drinking wine at a friends' house (I'd brought three different bottles with me - they were all cheap and lower quality but everyone there were students, so no-one gave a fuck about the quality of the hooch) and one bottle turned out to taste suspicious - I ended up drinking the remainder of the bottle and couldn't tell the difference between that and some of the other wine I'd brought.

hooker earlier mentioned merlot - my parents have quite a lot of this, in addition to some other reds and whites. They swear merlot is great - I've tried at least four different ones (in addition to cabernet and shiraz) and they all taste awful to me. I firmly think that you either have to drink enough of it to develop a taste for it, which is something I am not prepared to do, or you're born with the ability to taste differences or have heightened taste sensitivity - I am clearly not one of those. The whites that my parents have, however, are becoming a problem - my mom is not allowed to drink white wine anymore (medical shit), my dad won't drink a whole bottle by himself and I simply don't like the taste of wine...

 

Wine is my favorite alcoholic drink by far. Whether enjoying a good bottle just for the taste or rocking a buzz, wine is my go to drink.

As for red vs white: The good reds I've had have been much better than the good whites I've had, but the lower end whites have been more tolerable than the lower end reds. I find there is much less variance in quality with whites, so I tend to buy cheap whites and higher quality reds.

I also brew my own wine, and for the price per bottle it can't be beat, it's even cheaper than boxed wine*, is stronger and tastes far better. It also makes the perfect gift, bringing a $2.50 home brewed bottle of wine to a dinner party is looked upon much more favorably than the guy who stopped off at the store and got a $15 bottle, especially if you make labels for your stuff.

*If you're looking at just the variable cost, you have to do quite a few batches to compensate for the fixed equipment costs.

 

Nothing goes better with Pinot than pork. Nice grilled chops with a fruit or berry reduction; a whole grilled tenderloin. Hell, even ham. Pinot & Pigs - it just sounds right.

I love wine. What I don't understand is all the people here equating wanting to learn and speak intelligently about wine with snobbery. Growing and making wine is incredibly complex, and it's amazing to me that little changes in location/soil/sun whatever can have a dramatic impact on the wine itself.

I was at a Central Coast winery last month that makes 2 different bottles of Syrah. They use the exact same grape, and make the wine in exactly the same way. The only difference is that 1 is grown on a western facing slope, that gets afternoon sun and gets more moist air coming up the valley off the ocean. The other grapes are grown behind that hill so they don't get the air. These 2 wines have totally different characteristics - they don't even taste like the same vintage.

Wine tasting at wineries is one of the most fun things to do on a weekend. If you're interested in the wine, and want to learn, there's no better way to go about it than to visit several wineries and talk to the people actually making the wine. Granted, it's not a bar scene and people aren't getting trashed - but if you're looking for that, go to a bar on a Friday night.

A good Pinot is always a good standby for me, but lately I've been getting heavy into Zin's and Syrah's. Nothing goes better than a big steak than a Cab. I never drink more than 2-3 glasses at a time, so hangovers have never been a problem. We usually just polish off a bottle, the wife gets tipsy and I switch to beer. Win/win.

I didn't truly start being able to enjoy the complexity of wine until I was about 30 or so, my palate just hadn't developed for it for whatever reason. But learning to drink wine is much like learning to drink beer or liquor. When I was 16, Sierra Nevada tasted like cologne - when I was 18, scotch tasted like gasoline. You just have to keep trying stuff until you find something you like, or your tastebuds get used to drinking something new.

I love beers, I used to love liquor (before I gave those up) and I love wine. There's room on this Earth to love all booze.

 

Wine has always been a special occasion thing for me. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc. Always a really heavy red wine that goes well with the roast beef.

I can't stand champagne. I dislike heavy carbonation in anything that isn't sweet - "sparkling water," carbonated cider, club soda, etc. Wine is no exception.

White wine, in my house, has always been for cooking.

I have to say, if you want to get drunk for cheap and aren't willing to stoop to malt liquor level, wine is the way to go. A bottle of port is about 8-9 dollars and runs up to 18% alcohol.

 

I was never a fan of wine until recently. I still prefer interesting beers or scotch, but I'm enjoying wine much more these days. I used to only drink very sweet white wines but am starting to prefer reds like Cabernet Sauvignon, etc.

I know very little about wine and definitely can't tell the difference between $10 and $50 bottles. I think I can tell when a wine is good or crap (well, really it's that if I like it it's good and if I don't, it's crap). It's tough for me to find a bottle of sweet white wine that I won't drink. Most bottles in the $10 range for a reisling, gewurstraminer or moscato are good enough for me. I'm a little more discerning with reds. I've had bottles that were $20 and crap and have had ones that were $6-$7 and I thought they were fantastic.

My wife and I have pretty much gotten to the point where we have about 10 brands that we typically enjoy. If we see any on our list, we'll just buy that. We don't drink nearly enough to care. $6-$15 is pretty much my limit. Anything more than that is wasted on me.

There is a bottle of cab that I've been wanting to try called Ghost Pines. It's always around $22 a bottle here and I just can't bring myself to get it when it's surrounded by bottles I like for half that. Anybody tried it and what are your thoughts?

I was also told once a trick to help when deciding between a couple similarly priced bottles. Look at the depth of the punt (indention at bottom of bottle). The deeper the punt, the more expensive the bottle. I was told that this is very very far from scientific, but if having trouble deciding between two bottles of same price that are unfamiliar, use that. Odds are that a company will not put a crap wine in an expensive bottle. Who knows if this truly works, but the few times I've used the method, we were happy with the wine we got. It also could be that our palettes are not very sophisticated in regards to wine and it probably didn't matter what we god. Who knows.

 

Over the past several years, I've been exposed to a lot of pretty fantastic wines and plenty of people who know tons about them. I never really got into it like some people do, although I enjoy a good bottle of wine with a solid meal. I never understood the value system of wine. Maybe I just don't have the palate to discern between a $30 bottle of wine and a $300 bottle of wine. Or maybe I do, but I just don't care.

I am a huge fan of wineries, and whenever we travel, we try to visit somewhere local. It's a pretty cool way to learn about wine-making, and generally a good way to get drunk cheaply. What's funny is that in spite of all of the snobbery that is sometimes associated with wine-connoisseurs, the people/families who actually own and operate wineries are some of the most down-to-earth and friendly people you'll ever meet.

My favorite thing about wine, though, is moderately-buzzed, post-wine, daytime sex. My wife contends that wine boners are the best boners on earth.

 

Wine is an interesting topic for me. Growing up, aside from the beer my dad drank at parties or sporting events, I pretty much exclusively drink wine, save the occasional summer margarita. And 95% of the time it was white wine. When they built their new house 7-8 years ago, they included a built-in 50+ bottle wine fridge. And that was for consumption, not collection. That being said, even though its always been around, I'm not a huge wine fan myself. Ive never loved the taste of white wine and while I prefer red, the acidity of it isn't always my cup of tea. So I don't drink a ton, but I'm not totally against it and will have it with certain meals, etc...

Its been mentioned before, but that inherent wine snobbery is just absurd. I have a "friend" who once said, and I quote, "I hate classifying wines as red and white because there are very fruity reds and quite dry whites." This was coming from a 24 year old dude. What a dicknose. There was so much wrong with the statement that we just let it be and relentlessly mocked him thereafter.

My other favorite story is from another close friend of mine back in college. He took a wine tasting course (you scoff but it got into the biology and chemistry of wine making was supposedly extremely challenging) and fancied himself a burgeoning wine buff. However, he had a habit, unknown to many, of mixing "cocktails" of red and wine in the same glass. He began mixing a rather expensive merlot at a party at the professor's house with the half glass of chardonnay he was nursing. The shock and horror from the professor and students supposedly was pretty hilarious. The kid returned to his Kentucky roots and now drinks enough bourbon to kill an sailor, but for awhile his weekend drink of choice was white wine mixed with diet Mountain Dew and frozen berries...I wish I was kidding.

 

I moved to wine country in August of last year. Central Coast California, and there are probably 220 or so wineries within 15 miles of me. In the past, I always kept four or five bottles of wine in my house, but they were only ever used if girls came over. Now, I would say I know roughly 10,000 times as much about wine as I did a year ago, and there's a lot left to learn.

It seems most people that have a low opinion of wine have said opinion because they've only ever had $12 bottles of crap from the grocery store. Alcohol content that isn't balanced right with the flavors of the fruit, that dry your mouth out like sand. Or they've had varietals that don't work well for their own tastes. Or they make judgements based on random crap they've heard or seen in movies (despite the movie Sideways, Merlot can be pretty damn tasty).

There are wines here that I've tasted that basically exploded on my tongue. I'm learning which wines I like, and willing to try new bottles of stuff I previously didn't like. For instance, Zinfandel generally has too high a tannin count for me, leaving it a bit dry at the end, but at a tasting at my favorite local winery I tried their new Zin and it was delicious. Very fruity up front and kind of slowly faded to the darker, more peppery taste Zin is known for.

I'm slowly turning into a wine... not snob..person, I guess. If you can get into craft brewing, or if you enjoy different malts of scotch, or like different varieties of coffee, wine is something you can get into. It's just like anything else that has a lot of subtleties, an acquired taste.

Oso Libre is by far my favorite winery here, and like Nick said, the owners/proprietors are some of the nicest people I've ever met in my life.

 

You should give this idea very careful consideration before executing it. In my experience, roughly 100% of the time, you end up challenging your friend to go swig-for-swig across the kitchen table until he throws up all over himself through his hands and then calmly lights a cigarette while the scent of purple stomach tuna slowly creeps through the house like a cloud of deadly, deadly poison.

But, yes, port does the trick.

MILESTONE EDIT: Post Fourteen Hundred, everybody! WE DID IT.

 

I drink reds every now and then- Cabernet and Merlot.

Color me pretentious, but I think red wine is much more complex in flavors than white.


Whites taste like 7up, especially Pinot Grigio, and I only use Chardonnay to cook with.

 

I wasn't a fan either, until recently. Give unoaked Chardonnay a shot. Much lighter and crisper, without a lot of the flavors that people typically dislike about whites (namely oak) and it goes nicely with seafood.

 

I do remember once at an Italian restaurant here in town I had a red wine. I actually liked it, because it didn't have that musty strength most reds seem to have. Could you experienced folk direct me in the way of a sweet red wine(s)?

 

Had to do it.



Can't find that scene where he drank the spit bucket or I would have put that up also.

I'm not sophisticated enough to pick up flavors of this or that. Give me a decent jug of Cab to eat my steak with and I'm good to go.

If I'm in the company of sophisticates or people with expectations, I will order or pick up a Chardonnay or a Pinot Grigio to complement the food being served. Not so much Sauvignon Blanc. Mostly, I think it pretty taste the same after the third or fourth glass.

I had Riesling once. Meh...

Crown, for a sweet red the Germans make this shit called Glühwein. It's the sweetest red I can remember. They serve it hot, too.

 

I realized I didn't hate all white wines the first day I tried an unoaked chardonnay. It tasted so much better than the mouthful of woodchips I was used to thinking of as chardonnay that I asked the winemaker serving it why anyone would drink the oaked version. He said "people think all chardonnay is oaky because their parents only drank the oaky stuff, and old people like it because as you get older, your taste-buds die off, so you need something appallingly strong if you are going to taste anything." I don't know how true this is, but its no less plausible than any other alcohol myth.

For those of you that cook with white wine in cream sauces, I humbly suggest that you experiment with brandy instead of wine. Gives a much richer sauce, without the occasionally sour aftertaste that cheap white cooking wine leaves.

Finally, even though its arguably sacrilege in a thread about wine, I have to throw my Sangria recipe out there. This is my favourite summer drink of all time.

Sangria: get a stack of delicious juicy summer fruits. I use peaches, nectarines, blood oranges, pineapple, and apple. Cut them into small sections and place into a large bowl. Tip a bottle of average Spanish brandy into the bowl. I use one with a picture of the famous Spanish bull on the front, can't remember the name, but any slightly sweet, fruity brandy will do. Let it sit for a couple of hours. Grab a serving jug and put some ice in it. Ladle in 1-2 ladles of the fruit / brandy mixture, depending how strong you want it. Stir in a couple of tablespoons of sugar. Add in an average bottle of Spanish wine, Rioja preferably or a tempranillo at a pinch. Top with a good splash of lemonade / soda water. Serve in tall glasses over ice, making sure each glass gets some of the fruit. Unbelievably good.

 

If you're looking for something overtly sweet to drink independent of dinner, try a ruby port. Otherwise, my (limited) experience with Australian Shiraz/Syrah is that they tend to be fruitier and sweeter. From what I remember, Beaujolais tends to be on the sweet side, too, but it may just have been the couple I've had. I'm still very much a beginner. I do know that in the short time I've been paying attention to wine, my tastes have already shifted to preferring drier and drier reds, especially if I'm having more than one glass.