Enjoyed that, Joke: thanks. I have to admit that I long ago gave up drinking wines that score highly: because it seems that each parker point over 90 is another $5-6 per bottle, and over 95 it gets worse! So now I go with trying it, if I like it, drinking it and buying more.
The trick, I discovered, is to drink wines that score 86-88 points. They are better -- by far -- food wines than those huge and clumsy wines that score in the ionosphere.
Thrumptysevix years ago, some friends and I would hold wine tasting dinners once every few weeks: one of us would cook and plan a wine list: we'd all chip in and drink things outside our normal price range. One time we did a leg of lamb, stuffed with spinach and apricots: we tasted pinots with it: we had a good French, a good Oregonian, and an extraordinarily cheap Hungarian one. We tasted double blind, so nobody knew which wine was which: the amusing thing was for the first half an hour, the cheapo plonk won hands down: once the others opened up, and the Hungarian lost all its bouquet, things changed, but that $6 for 1.5 L wine with a screw cap was tremendous value for half an hour! In fact, if I had a record of what it was, and could still find it, I'd consider serving it at a big bash where you just open up and pour, pour and pour.
On the other hand, there are occasions when a 1961 Barolo is worth the cost. If I could get my hands on any now -- it would be interesting to see if any of it held up: at 35 years it was great, and at 40 it was still holding up!
N.
ps I've put the bread comments up. Not a success. Not a failure. A lesson from which to learn.
Considering I first learned about wines by living very close to the Napa Valley for a year in the life .. I have to say ... and apologies to all I will undoubtedly offend ... that I have never tasted a Ca. wine that comes anywhere close to our local delights.
I tend to drink in the $15 section, whereas my husband selects from the $25-30 offerings.
His wines are usually better .. but mine give me more pocket money :)
You've actually given me a REALLY good idea for a column.
What I have noticed is that, (we'll leave California out of this, as it skews the analysis) with the exception of the USA, most everyone in the planet prefers their wine to anyone else's. (I'm partial to the explanation that wine is something which doesn't really travel well.)
I don't say it pejoratively, but it brings up the interesting statistic that only one country appears in the upper reaches of the list of nations which export wine, the list of nations which import wine AND the list of nations which drink wine. (In this "well-roundedness" only Germany comes even halfway close.)
Now, WHY this is the case, and what it all means...I'll have to look up and ponder and write about...
Joke, I think that you are correct on that, to an extent (though I think that NZ may approach the US in well roundedness these days: their wines are getting better and better export markets, but they still import a fair bit too). The interesting thing for me, having been raised in the UK (which some would claim was uniquely positioned to judge all wines, because they don't produce any drinkable ones) is that French vintners are beginning to buy up English land to plant vines: they are worried about the impact of global warming on, for example, the champagne grape harvest, and are using the UK as a fall back position. Look forward to celebrating your 100th birthday with a lovely bottle of Kent, a Dom Perignon 2040.
Comments
I have to admit that I long ago gave up drinking wines that score highly: because it seems that each parker point over 90 is another $5-6 per bottle, and over 95 it gets worse!
So now I go with trying it, if I like it, drinking it and buying more.
-J.
One time we did a leg of lamb, stuffed with spinach and apricots: we tasted pinots with it: we had a good French, a good Oregonian, and an extraordinarily cheap Hungarian one.
We tasted double blind, so nobody knew which wine was which: the amusing thing was for the first half an hour, the cheapo plonk won hands down: once the others opened up, and the Hungarian lost all its bouquet, things changed, but that
$6 for 1.5 L wine with a screw cap was tremendous value for half an hour! In fact, if I had a record of what it was, and could still find it, I'd consider serving it at a big bash where you just open up and pour, pour and pour.
On the other hand, there are occasions when a 1961 Barolo is worth the cost. If I could get my hands on any now -- it would be interesting to see if any of it held up: at 35 years it was great, and at 40 it was still holding up!
N.
ps I've put the bread comments up.
Not a success. Not a failure. A lesson from which to learn.
I tend to drink in the $15 section, whereas my husband selects from the $25-30 offerings.
His wines are usually better .. but mine give me more pocket money :)
You've actually given me a REALLY good idea for a column.
What I have noticed is that, (we'll leave California out of this, as it skews the analysis) with the exception of the USA, most everyone in the planet prefers their wine to anyone else's. (I'm partial to the explanation that wine is something which doesn't really travel well.)
I don't say it pejoratively, but it brings up the interesting statistic that only one country appears in the upper reaches of the list of nations which export wine, the list of nations which import wine AND the list of nations which drink wine. (In this "well-roundedness" only Germany comes even halfway close.)
Now, WHY this is the case, and what it all means...I'll have to look up and ponder and write about...
Thanks!
-J.
I think that you are correct on that, to an extent (though I think that NZ may approach the US in well roundedness these days: their wines are getting better and better export markets, but they still import a fair bit too).
The interesting thing for me, having been raised in the UK (which some would claim was uniquely positioned to judge all wines, because they don't produce any drinkable ones) is that French vintners are beginning to buy up English land to plant vines: they are worried about the impact of global warming on, for example, the champagne grape harvest, and are using the UK as a fall back position. Look forward to celebrating your 100th birthday with a lovely bottle of Kent, a Dom Perignon 2040.
N