2/22 What's the difference between Cabernet, Merlot, Zinfandel, Pinot
Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, and Semillon?
\_ Basic answer is that they are all varietals of the same species
of grape: vitis vinifera. Wines are sometimes made from other
species as well, for instance vitis aestivalis (Norton grape),
but are generally not well-regarded. Vitis vinifera has its
origins in Europe and was brought to the New World because most
New World grapes make bad wine.
\- er do you know they are the mostly the names of grapes varieties
or are you asking more than that. usa: wine named after main grape.
france: wine named after place it comes from. the usa system is a
lot more friendly. if you want a user friendly book for just
basic basics [i.e. to prepare you to order non-french wines]
you get look at say the DUMMY WINE BOOK. to start out you can
learn what is red and what is white and the rough mapping
from grape -> french region [e.g. cab -> bordeaux, syrah -> rhone,
pinot noir -> burgandy etc]. cab: expensive. merlot: some ok.
zin: ass, pinot noir: good, pinot gris: good. chardonnay:
\_ I'm quite fond of the Ravenswood Zinfandel, though there does
seem to be a mediocre vintage every few years. It's fairly
cheap to, usually $6-$10 at Trader Joe's, maybe $8-$15 at
Safeway or Andronico's. Also, I'd highly recommend visiting
the North Berkeley wine shop. They always do well by me. -dans
cheap are ass, same with chablis go with sancerre or PG instead
if not $$$. i would not invest more than 30 min learning about
wine. beyond the basics all you need to know is a good wine store
[kermit lynch in berkeley]. if you have a more specific question,
why dont you ask it, like "what is a good $15 red that is easy
to find?".
to find?" [safeway, rodney strong].
\_ One thing to consider is that different regions handle different
types of wines better than others. I'd recommend learning a
little bit about what grape types usually have what qualities,
but only as a general guideline, and what sort of provenance is
more suited for what types. Mr. Winerjee is right about just
bothering with the basics; don't let anyone tell you "rules", just
try things out. The best is if people can point out various good
and bad aspects of certain wine types (such as how to look for
complexity, and why and when things like color and age matter), but
I usually steer clear of anyone who claims to be an expert. With
time you'll start appreciating differences and qualities more.
One last thing--within a certain price band (varies by country)
there's usually some correlation between quality and price, but
once again, only as a very rough & approximate guide. Always try
new stuff and don't be afraid to ask, even if a crappy sommelier
does b.s. you at some point--you'll spot this with time. Always
remember, it's just a drink, you have to like it. -John
\- Here is the 30 second list of grapes -> taste mapping:
*cab: usually fair amount of tannin unless expensive
strives for full body and complex taste.
the king of red wines.
\_ Tannin has more to do with age. Some of the
best are extremely tannic, but the tannins
mellow with age.
*merlot: fruitier and lighters than cab
*pinot noir: less ambitious than cab but less tannin so
more likely to be good for cheep
\_ More likely than *what* to be good for cheap?
Cab, maybe. Any other wine, probably not.
\_ Most likely to be non-repugnant for cheap. Least
likely to be good for cheap.
\_ Pinot is less likely to be good for cheap.
*syrah/shiraz: i have nothing to say
\_ Popular Rhone varietal along with grenache
and mourvedre. Makes outstanding wine.
geweurtz,*riesling: sweet
sancerre/*pinot gris: watery ... i dont mean that in a bad way.
esp since i like spicy food
*zin: spicy. i dont like zins. doesnt go well with the food i
like. yes i have had some good zins.
\_ This is the typical wine for Italian food.
\- I prefer THE POWER OF BAROLO but that
is beyond the price of this thread.
The good ones are better alone or with
cheese than with food.
\_ Also goes well with grilled meats and BBQ.
There are a lot of bad ones out there though..
*chardonnay: good ones are crispy and dryish but cheep ones
i think are not to my taste. i'd rather drink the
even cheeper pinot gris.
the king of white wines.
I would try a $12-$20 bottle of each of the 7 *ed wines
and that should give you a representative sense of each.
I wouldnt worry about the varieties until you decide how
serious you want to get about wine (time and money).
n.b. i would rather drink fruit juice than wine but i feel
obligated to order when i go to restaurants with my friends.
and i suppose it's good to be able to bring something
reasonable to a dinner party. BTW, i think most wines can
be described with this vocabulary: full/med/no body, yes/no
tanin, sweet or not sweet, high/med/low fruity, spicy aka
is it a zin, dry or wet. most of the people using words like
nutty, buttery, raspberry, guava, choclate, leather etc
have their head -> ass. you should learn about cheej not wine.
\_ I had a Toad Hollow pinot the other day. I couldn't place
the nose, but my roommate did. Rotten Oranges. It's not all
bullshit.
\_ If you're feeling cheap, Trader Joe's has $3-$7 bottles of
most of the above types. When you're ready to try quality,
visit Vino in Rockridge or on Piedmont and plan to spend
$12 to $20 for decent examples. --erikred
\- i've had decent table wine in france for $4-5 but here
i think bottles in that range just taste sort of
generic (or bad).
\_ Generally speaking, you're playing with fire in the
$4-$5 a bottle range of wine, but you do get lucky from
time to time. Nonetheless, what you just said flys
completely in the face of conventional wisdom and
actual events. French table wine is shit. It's so bad
that the French prefer cheap Californian wine to it.
This happened on such a large scale that the French
government had to impose massive import duties on cheap
California wine so French table winemakers wouldn't go
out of business. -dans
\_ Were you ever really into comic books? Did you ever have
three hour debates about the merits of various minor
characters in the X-men universe? Wine "people" are like
that, only they're adults and frequently drunk.
\_ But you know what's funny? Every discussion on the motd
having to do with wine ends up as a flame war about wine
dorks, and yet if someone had instead posted a highly
technical question about an X-man, it would be seriously
debated for three screens with no one pointing out how
dorky it is.
\_ You forgot one other distingiushing characteristic. As
comic dorks age, they realize that a better use of their
comic collection is to keep it in good condition and sell
it, ending up with a net profit. Wine dorks on the other
hand, drink up their stupid and expensive hobby. Which
is of course the point.
\_ Lots of wine people collect more wine than they
drink. However, drinking it is a lot more fun
than selling comics. Collecting comics will, for
instance, probably not get you laid. Collecting
wine probably will.
\_ I dispute that. And I will further state that
people who will fuck you because of your comics
collection are far better lays than people who will
fuck you because of your wine collection. -dans
\_ Not 'because' of the collection, but because
you shared it. I wouldn't touch any chick
that was into comics, BTW. Yuck.
\_ The notion that one might have a collection of
*anything* he/she was really into and not
share it with an SO is just bizarre. And your
idea that `chicks' who are into comics are
yucky is silly and juvenile. I'm going to
make an equally ridiculous logical leap and
guess that you won't touch women who have
tatoos or dyed hair or who perform what, to
you, must seem like bizarre deviant sex acts
such as oral and anal sex. I hope you enjoy
your boring, missionary sex, with your boring,
missionary chix. -dans
\_ I think you miss the entire point,
which is that you tend to have a lot
more fun with women after you've shared
2 bottles of wine with them than after you
read Sandman #1 together - in general.
BTW, tattoos are nasty on women. You are
right that I don't touch that. More for
you, I guess.
\_ Wow. So getting drunk and having sex
can be fun. I'll be damned. You can
do that with a bottle of Old Grandad
as well.
\_ Not if the woman has any class
or taste you can't.
\_ Well, I would probably hate the
women you spend time with just
as much as you would hate those
I spend time with. Yes, it's
a class thing. I just think
people like you are shit, and
obviously it's mutual. So fuck
you.
\_ You need some anger management
classes. I don't hate you
at all.
\_ Don't be stupid. Breaking this down into
wine/comics is a useless generalization.
I suspect dans' point is more along the
lines of "conservative snob != fun".
But naturally women that read comics
never ever drink.
\_ I went to an Exploratorium presentation on The Science of
Wine. It was funny to watch all of these very nicely
attired and sophisticated people degenerate into lushes.
\_ "Wine people" are as bad as restaurant groupies. The
word you are looking for is "pretentious". And for once,
amazingly, I agree with psb about "head->ass". I'd
even go so far as to say that "x goes well with y" is no
more than a general guide; if you're ever in a restaurant
where the sommelier looks at you funny for ordering, say,
red with fish (or for any reason), leave. -John
\- good sommaliers have come up with some neat pairings
and recommendations. but that's true of more than just
wine and food ... like pears go well with some cheejes,
chocolate and orange is a a classic combination,
chocolate and thyme is not. i can both think over
cooking a good steak is a waste and you have poor
taste or order such well done, yet support your right
"have it your way".
\_ The short chain organic molecules in wine do combine over
time to create the esters and phenols that create the
distrinctive smells of different foods. It is not just
your imagination if you smell leather or chocolate in
a wine, especially a well aged one, the exact same chemicals
that help give something its distinctive odor might be in
your wine. Don't assume that everyone has their head -> ass
time to create the esters, phenols and aldehydes that create
time to create the esters, phenols & aldehydes that create
the smells of different foods. It is not just your
time to create the esters, phenols and aldehydes that
create the smells of different foods. It is not just your
imagination if you smell leather or chocolate in a wine,
especially a well aged one, the exact same chemicals that
help give something its distinctive odor might be in your
wine. Don't assume that someone has their head -> ass
just because you cannot smell them. -ausman
\_ Dogs have much larger sections of their brains devoted to
smell than humans. It would be amusing to train a dog
to distinguish all these subtle wine distinctions.
\_ Dogs have much larger sections of their brains devoted
to smell than humans. It would be amusing to train a
dog to distinguish all these subtle wine distinctions.
to smell than humans. It would be amusing to train a dog
to distinguish all these subtle wine distinctions.
I think it would not be too hard to modify the drug dog
training for this purpose.
\_ Everyone recognizes different smells in wine, you are
absolutely correct. The "head->ass" part comes from
my subjective observation that people who pontificate
about how marvelous wine xyz is because it smells like
the orgasmic fart of the black-striped Angolan bog
fungus or whatever tend to be pompous morons. "Wine
people". -John
\- jim ausman: there is a difference between
"ok i can see why you say this has a hint of
raspberry" after tasting something and taking
two of those head->ass adjective vectors and
using them as a basis to pick a wine. i'm saying
those little cards in stores that talk about how
one wine has a hint of nutmeg and chocolate and
cherry and other has a soupcon of lemon zest
crossed with clover honey is not useful. more
useful would be a 10 word vocabular that actually
mean something. maybe a good analogy is to
crayola. i understand you need to go beyond
RGB and "blue green" to describe some colors.
and you do get a sense of what color is meant
by peach or salmon or olive green ... but do you
have any fucking clue what color "raw umber" is?
ok tnx. (raw umber is the color of "dirt").
\_ There is no "raw umber" crayon; it was
"burnt umber," and it's been discontinued.
I agree that the cards in wine stores aren't
useful to someone who isn't a wine snob, but
certain wine snobs can quite accurately
determine a specific wine in blind taste
tests, so there's clearly something there. -tom
\- are you such an authority on crayons you
you didnt even bother to google this?
BTW, wine snobbery is about attitude, not
resolving power.
\_ tom -> smacked |
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