Aaron Deacon wrote:

winebabe wrote:The wine is magical. I got to taste that very wine at Vin Expo last June.

We need a "green with envy" emoticon. I can only imagine.

*

Does that work? I'm not sure if the facial expression is one of envy but he's green.
A

*From the "View more emoticons" selection.

Antonius wrote:Does that work? I'm not sure if the facial expression is one of envy but he's green.

I'm not sure either, but it works for me. Thanks.

MAG wrote:A set of Riedel glasses - Vinum, or dream of dreams, Sommelier series

A Riedel decanter

MAG,

On occasion Ellen and I have given Riedel Ducks, which have been well received.

Riedel

Enjoy,
Gary

A Taylor or Fonseca port from the 1963 vintage would be a fine gift -- especially if you got invited to drink it. Recent auctions at The Chicago Wine Company indicate both wines are going for around $300/bottle.

Cathy2 wrote:I posted this recently on the Not About Food board, which may be amusing. The information is as-told and it does offer some substance to mind over matter (if you don't mind, it doesn't matter).

Cathy,

I do not mean to be argumentative, but this thought goes against your, or my own, passion for food. Do you really think your sense of taste is not developed enough to differentiate 'non-descript chocolate cake' from a great chocolate cake? If so, this whole board is a sham. Why are we searching out great restaurant dishes, and products for home, when we allegedly can not tell the difference? When we have an Italian Beef tasting, or a bread tasting, are we really just kidding ourselves that we think we can notice a difference in quality? This MAY work on people who do not appreciated good food and think Old Country Buffet is great. It really seems to be an asinine idea that someone who is passionate about food could not tell the difference.

The same holds true for the wine experiment. You MAY be able to pass off some generic jug wine as something good to casual consumers, but not to someone who has a developed palate. This is currently going on with Charles Shaw, or 2 buck Chuck. The wine would normally go into box wine, but it is put in a 750ml bottle, with a cork, and casual consumers think it's great. It is not.

Best,
Al

The problem here, I think, is that you tend to be giving relatively inexperienced palates a choice between something expensive that probably isn't ready yet, and something inexpensive that's as ready as it will ever be. Add to that the fact that inexperienced wine drinkers like open, fruity flavors, and I'm not at all surprised that in a blind test they'd say they preferred $2 grape juicy wine to a bitter, acidic, opened-way-too-early Bordeaux. I mean, look at the Beaujolais Nouveau thing, people enjoy that wine precisely because it's unchallenging, sweet and fruity, and because it offers a self-declared vacation from the pretentiousness that seems to come with almost every other experience of French wine.

There are lots of areas where what's really good is not easily approachable, in fact its complexity of flavors is often quite offputting and includes many notes that they would find repulsive at first taste. A dry-aged steak has a gaminess to it that might strike many people as spoiled. A nice Roquefort is disgusting to many people and would easily lose to Velveeta.

Mike G wrote:The problem here, I think, is that you tend to be giving relatively inexperienced palates a choice between something expensive that probably isn't ready yet, and something inexpensive that's as ready as it will ever be. Add to that the fact that inexperienced wine drinkers like open, fruity flavors, and I'm not at all surprised that in a blind test they'd say they preferred $2 grape juicy wine to a bitter, acidic, opened-way-too-early Bordeaux. I mean, look at the Beaujolais Nouveau thing, people enjoy that wine precisely because it's unchallenging, sweet and fruity, and because it offers a self-declared vacation from the pretentiousness that seems to come with almost every other experience of French wine.

There are lots of areas where what's really good is not easily approachable, in fact its complexity of flavors is often quite offputting and includes many notes that they would find repulsive at first taste. A dry-aged steak has a gaminess to it that might strike many people as spoiled. A nice Roquefort is disgusting to many people and would easily lose to Velveeta.

???

Mike,

Did you read Cathy's post about the psychological games? This was not comparing fruit-forward wines to young, austere Bordeaux. It also did not give 'challenging' foods to meat and potatoes eaters.

This was about people not being able to differentiate that some crappy food or wine, actually was because it was labeled as something good. Yes, there may be some potential label influence, but would people on this forum not call out something that was disappointing? It seems to happen very frequently on this board.

Best,
Al

Since the discussion of wine can get rather interesting for some of us, could we possibly ask the moderators to start a section for the discussion of wine?
I would love to get into a spirited debate on the Chicago wine scene but would not like to use threads such as this to do so.

Dear Al,

I am sorry for your dismay at my link. I thought I was providing some 'life can be odder than fiction' levity triggered by nr706's comment, 'But as a marketing guy, I know how much expectations can influence an experience.'

Please note the post on psychology and food was posted on NOT ABOUT FOOD. It could just as well have been posted in BEYOND CHICAGOLAND as a restaurant to go-to or avoid. In fact, what you read was not initially posted on the board, rather just to a few friends of mine. Why? I recognized these were experiments in the 'mind over matter' department, where the subject shouldn't be aware they are being analyzed. One person recognized the experiment, identified the professor and reported these experiments are posted on the internet. I was not a participant in the experiment, I just happened to hear a lecture and reported the information just as it was told. Non-descript cake was not my choice of words, it was their choice while outlining the experiment. Personally, I would love to go to mess around with their experiment by guessing the expected outcome and acting on the counter-outcome; akin to lying to pollsters.

Recently I was at a wine tasting, where we were presented five different wines to sample. I was sitting near people who were more analytical of the wines than I was. As careful as I was to sniff and taste, I did not observe the smells and tastes they did, that is until they announced their opinions. If on one sniff, they identified grapefruit, then I could peck out the grapefruit with my next sniff. If they changed their minds to honey instead, by golly I smelled the honey. It will probably not surprise you, my favored wine for the evening was the riesling.

Please note, I am not much of a wine enthusiast. I will gladly eat a meal with carefully considered wine and food pairings. I appreciate the amplification of taste a careful pairing will produce. Shirley Corriher, who wrote Cookwise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking, found to taste something fully you need these elements present: water, fat and alcohol:

A Cook's tips for flavorful low-fat food by Shirley Corriher wrote:If you don't have a little fat in a dish to dissolve and carry fat-soluble flavors, they are lost. Some flavor components dissolve in water and some in fat. If we totally eliminate fat, we lose all these fat-soluble flavors. You might have noticed that some fat-free food is truly bland. '

Then there is the dry sherry. Remember that some flavors dissolve in water and some in fat. Alcohol dissolves both fat and water and some things that don't dissolve in either fat or water. Patricia Wells, the famous Paris restaurant critic, once asked me why a little vodka makes such a difference in the taste of a tomato sauce. Vodka doesn't have much taste, and the sauce was boiled for 20 minutes after the vodka was added, so a lot of it boiled off. There must be a flavor component in tomatoes that dissolves in alcohol. Once the alcohol has dissolved the flavor and pulled it out into the sauce, it doesn't matter what happens to the alcohol; it has done its job.

So it all works together.

Now you understand I am somewhat dim witted when it comes to wine, though I doubt either the Dakota or California wine story would impress me. I really had to wonder about the population they attract to their experiments to be bowled over by the potentially not so great chocolate cake. Of course, the results (or the story) could be greatly exaggerated.

Warm regards,

Winebabe wrote:Since the discussion of wine can get rather interesting for some of us, could we possibly ask the moderators to start a section for the discussion of wine?

Hi,

The board FOOD AND COOKING is reserved for these topics. I would say we drifted from the original query (which is not unusual around here) though we are on the correct board.

You are free to commence a thread on wine any time you like. As evidenced above, I will not likely be a contributor. I acknowledge my limitations.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:

Winebabe wrote:Since the discussion of wine can get rather interesting for some of us, could we possibly ask the moderators to start a section for the discussion of wine?

Hi,

The board FOOD AND COOKING is reserved for these topics. I would say we drifted from the original query (which is not unusual around here) though we are on the correct board.

You are free to commence a thread on wine any time you like. As evidenced above, I will not likely be a contributor. I acknowledge my limitations.

Regards,

With all due respect, Wine discussions may or may not have to do with food and cooking per se. There could be discussions regarding the merits of wine lists or lack therof at restaurants, comparative tasting notes, availability of specific wines in the Chicago market, good retail stores, food and wine pairings, and yes, the reasons why Two Buck Chuck sales should be prohibited.

winebabe wrote:With all due respect, Wine discussions may or may not have to do with food and cooking per se. There could be discussions regarding the merits of wine lists or lack therof at restaurants, comparative tasting notes, availability of specific wines in the Chicago market, good retail stores, food and wine pairings, and yes, the reasons why Two Buck Chuck sales should be prohibited.

Wine isn't food? Doesn't it have nutrients and calories (i.e. energy value) just as other foods do? Is there really any difference between a wine list and a food menu? How does availability of wines in wine shops differ from availablity of ingredients in groceries and produce markets? And, I don't buy two buck chuck, but if the guy across the street wants to use it for a coq au vin ... why not?

Okay - enough flaming. I'll be calm now.

Hey, winebabe,

Actually, it's Shopping and Cooking, not Food and Cooking, (so whether wine=food is sort of beside the point ) and it's described as: "Suppliers, recipes, bottled beverages, food media and other non-restaurant food chat", so wine certainly works here. But use your judgment--we try to let posters decide where topics fit best.

We certainly gave a lot of thought to having a wine board early on, and I think an early version of the site actually had a "Drinking" board.

Ultimately, we decided to pare down to a relatively small number of boards on the theory that we'd rather have dynamic and vibrant boards with less topical coherence, than tightly focused boards that attracted only occasional posts (see Professional board).

As far as new boards, if and when that happens, it will probably be as a result of how people post rather than how we hope people will post--again trying to let posters help shape the board. So basically, if you want to talk about wine, please post about wine. I know there are a lot of really knowledgable wine folks on here who could contribute, and I certainly look forward to reading about it and contributing where I can.

Cheers,

Aaron

Hi

We have some very wine oriented friends who asked for and got a bunch of the Riedel glasses for wedding presents (I can't remember which line) and after breaking one each time they used them they returned the rest and got something cheaper. They thought them marvelous for drinking, but the breakage if you looked at them crooked drove them crazy.

Lee

I do not have the Riedel Sommeliers, but I understand they are pretty fragile. I have Riedel Vinums which I have had for at least 10 years and have not broken one (and they have received a lot of use), with handwashing.

Last year I bought quite a bit of Spiegelau Authentis Bordeaux and Burgundy stems when they were on sale at Amazon. They seem to be sturdier than Riedel Vinums, although I have broken one of the Burgundies in less than a year. Since they cost me $2.50 a stem (with not tax or shipping), it's not a big deal.

Al Ehrhardt wrote:Last year I bought quite a bit of Spiegelau Authentis Bordeaux and Burgundy stems when they were on sale at Amazon.

What do you think of these glasses?

Aaron,

They are great for an inexpensive glass. It would be really be hard to justify buying Vinums now, after I got these for $2.50 per. If you are seriously thinking about some, you may want to keep an eye on prices, esp. Amazon. Spiegelau was recently purchased by Riedel and there is some speculation that Riedel may not care for such a price difference from their stems.

I do not like them as well as the Riedel Vinums, but they are a LOT less money. They are IIRC 5% lead crystal (not as sparkly clear), a little thicker than Vinums, and the stem is not as graceful. They are shaped like the Riedel Vinum Extreme.

We also have really expensive Wedgwood cut-crystal, which we received many years ago for wedding gifts. They are beautiful to look at, but I hate to use them. They do not perform very well due to their bell shape and small size.

Cheers,
Al

Yeah, I bought a half dozen each of the Bordeaux and Burgundy Authentis a year or two ago when Amazon was selling them so cheaply. I'm perfectly happy with them, and I think they're just very nice glasses for the price regardless of whether they make the wine taste better.

But it's not like any wine poured into one of the Spiegelaus tastes way better than the same wine poured into other wine glasses. Sometimes it does, and it's most obviously noticeable in the nose, but I've rarely been blown away by the difference.

We now have two "Oregon Pinot" Riedel glasses (gotten as part of a tasting at Patricia Green) and next time we open one, I promise to try the wine out of that glass, a generic Riedel balloon glass (maybe generic Pinot?) and a Spielgau "extreme white" glass and report back.

Leek- I'm interested in what your thoughts are going to be after your glass "tasting". I don't care if it's brainwashing or whatever, I just prefer a Reidel glass. I am no wine snob by any means, and certainly don't have a distinguished palate, but I know what I like. I have the obligatory wedding waterford, but rarely use them, and go to my Reidel. I just like the feel and the taste out of the glass. I just don't like the cheap glasses at some restaurants where you can't get your nose in the glass or swirl just a bit. Nothing turns me off more than a red served in a white wine glass. Many opinions on this board regarding this subject, but just one girls opinion.

I was recently gifted with some of those stemless Riedels (merlot & shiraz), and I don't think I've put them to a proper experiment. My first tastes were with a wine that was of a far higher quality than my everyday wines, so obviously it was a good experience. But I need to conduct a proper comparison, which is tough since it will be difficult to do blinded.

Since my first use, I've found the glasses to be my ideal vessel for sipping Laphroaig, although for some this may simply amplify its already unappealing characteristics (which, for me, are the appeal). In fact, a friend commented to me that simply being in near viscinity of me drinking it was nauseating.

tatterdmalion- my husband uses the Reidel stemless for the same thing. Although the Laphroaig peateness even makes me gag, and I love a good single malt. The only thing I don't like about the stemless are the fingerprints. But, they're great for wine tastings, picnics and BYOB's that have jelly jars. I prefer the stem. Once again, just IMHO.

nicinchic, I suffer from that same OCD problem of being bothered by the fingerprints. I find myself holding the glass from the bottom, with the least amount of contact with my fingers - one of these days I'm gonna drop it, and I'll probably be most concerned with the wasted Scotch.

Sometimes I go cloth cocktail napkin around the glass, until husband catches me. Tells me to relax.

I really like the stemless glasses, they use them at Avec. Maybe that's why I like them, I like Avec! But we have 2 of the generic Pinot balloonish "O" glasses, and for some reason out of those I find that I end up spilling wine on myself, which I don't think I do with the stemmed version. Maybe I put more in them, because of my viewing angle?

leek wrote:But we have 2 of the generic Pinot balloonish "O" glasses, and for some reason out of those I find that I end up spilling wine on myself, which I don't think I do with the stemmed version. Maybe I put more in them, because of my viewing angle?

Hi Lee,

We have the Riedel 'O' Pinot glasses and the bowl is so wide, they are very difficult to grip (especilly if a lady has small hands). I still like them for BYO's, though.

Best,
Al

Tonight we tried the experiment - 3 different glasses, one wine. We used Riedel Oregon Pinot Noir, Riedel tasting, Riedel Pinot Noir (shown left to right below). The Oregon specific one has a narrowed top. We drank 2002 Patricia Green 4 Winds, Oregon Pinot Noir. Maybe we have been brainwashed, but the wine tasted the best and had the best nose in the Oregon-specific glass. It seemed less acidic. The tasting glass showed it off least well, the regular pinot was OK, but the Oregon pinot made it seem better. How odd, but, that's what happened.

Leek- I know, it's just something that people that haven't tried the glass tasting don't understand. Easier to say it's brainwashing. You've inspired me to get out my stemless and try a white tasting.

I once did a tasting that Riedel put on to show the differences in the glasses. We each received a vinum chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, bordeaux, and burgundy glass, and they poured each wine into each glass. I did find a big difference between the red and white glasses, but the differences within each color was very subtle. For personal use I have the smaller riedel vinum "gourmet " glass for everyday, since it goes in the dishwasher, and is a good generic glass, and then I use the vinum bordeaux for better red wines.

-Will

LTH,

Being a sucker for Myth Busters and Urban Legends - I took the plunge this evening and tried out the Wine Glass experiment. Unfortunately, the GF has misplaced her digital camera leaving me the literary equivalent of naked.

Nonetheless, my little mad experiment yielded interesting, if not stunning, results.

First off, I took this fairly seriously and tried to control as many elements within my control that could have thrown off the testing.

So, I used four different wine glasses which i drew blind numbers for order of tasting. In order of tasting:

1. CHARDONNY EL CHEAPO - Standard cheapo, generic stemmed glass which appears to me to be more for a chardonny (sp?) than for any red.

2. STEMLESS GENERIC ULTRA MODERNO - You know, those new style uber-moderno stemless wine glass for the really lazy bastards like myself.

3. LENOX LONG STEMMED, OVER-SIZED BURGUNDY - My top of the line . About $50 for four. Though one broke while taking it out of the box and thus my reason for not investing in more $$$$$ glassware.

4. OLD COUNTRY TALL GLASS SICILIAN-STYLE - I don't know what to call this glass. It's tall and thin and a bit taller than the glasses I rountinely drank all my vino out of in Italy about 10 years ago or so.

The subject varietal was a very good Raymond Reserve Napa Valley 2004 Merlot. Retails for between $20 and $30. Received a couple of 90+ ratings from the wine publications/critics. I let in breathe for about 25 minutes in the bottle.

I used ice-less, Brita-filtered water to cleanse my palate, nothing else!

I then proceeded to act in the following manner from #1 thru #4:

Pour a couple of ounces in the glass, sniff, swirl, sniff again, taste for 15 seconds in the mouth, swallow. Fully cleanse palate with water and repeat. Two tastings for each glass.

The Results:

The best glass to drink the wine out of bar none was the generic, el cheapo $2 Chardonny glass. The Merlot was full of flavor, had a wonderful bouquet, showed legs on the glass. Wonderful.

The worst, by far, was the Italian style glass. Dead. Nothing. No spark, no smell, no oomph. Completely deadened the wine.

The stemless uber-moderno glass was slightly better than the Italian style. Clear subtle flavor, no bouquet at all. Ehhh.

The relatively expensive Lenox glass was second best but decidedly inferior to the El Cheapo. Good bouquet, nice legs, but taste and flavor lacked the ommph and burst of the El Cheapo.

Wow.

Bster