*food, *drugs

Adding video to channels (Drugs, Food) - requested by Zawash.

I like the twist at the end. Buying a really expensive bottle for a special occasion will actually make you experience a better taste. Our experience of the world is so subjective.

*controversy

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by MrFisk.

I believe that each person has a unique set of tastebuds and linkages from them back to the brain. So taking anyone's advice on what is good or bad is kind of silly. Unless of course a specific critic consistently agrees with something you like. But who has time for that? Try something on your own and if you don't like it don't get it again. Easy enough.

Disclaimer: I love me some wine, so feel free to dismiss what I say as one of those brain-washed wine snobs.

So in other words, taste is both subjective (different people rate wines differently) and subject to preconceptions?

Get outta town!

If you can't tell the difference, great! Buy the cheap stuff and enjoy yourself. You're not "wrong" for liking it. I've been to wineries where I've bought the "$15 easy drinking wine" over the "$30 complex cellaring wine" because I preferred it.

Personally, I've almost never bought an "expensive" (>NZ$50) wine without tasting it first (aside from a few occasions where I know the wine maker and know it's going to be good). If you like the wine and can afford it, who cares?

Once again, it's a subjective thing. It's wine, not medicine. If spending an extra $10 gives a placebo effect of enjoying it better, then it's worth the $10.

OTOH, great food, good company, a happy occasion.... all of these can make an ok wine seem great.

That's all fine but it's ignoring something.

Expensive wine isn't expensive for no reason, there are real world costs such as length of ageing, barrels used, location made etc. If you don't like the taste of this process, that's one thing but it doesn't invalidate the cost of the wine.

Taste is at least 50% psychology.
I once made a raspberry sorbet. Yes, it tasted very much like raspberry (because it was mostly raspberry) and if you work long enough with fruits, it's characteristic shade of red gives you a good hint what it is.
I like to let people taste stuff I make without telling them what they're eating. And then I ask them what they thought they ate. I gave several people that sorbet and out of 12 people, two or three gave me the correct answer what it was on the first try. Every red fruit you can imagine was mentioned by the others, one guy even told me it could be watermelon.
Another time I made a Cassis Panna Cotta (Cassis is french for black currant, you illiterate crouton). That stuff is purple like rain and Joker suits. We served it in a room that was lighted in blue and violet, like a Dario Argento movie. The Panna Cotta looked brown under the colored light. Some people thought they were eating something with chocolate in it.
In both examples I was dealing with people who made a living with selling and producing food.
That's how trustworthy your brain is when it comes to taste. Sometimes you can't tell raspberries from watermelons. And that's why the wine business is at least 50% bullshit.

Yeah, I refuse to pay a premium for a placebo, Not because I feel I am immune to all that subconscious fuckery, but because I'd hate to think I am in any way subsidising wine snobbery.

Also, Champagne vs sparkling wine. They both stink. Idk how anybody puts their nose in a glass of either, regardless of price.

Anyone who thinks alcohol is for anything but getting you pissed up is just silly.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I'm a wine drinker, but it's usually out of a foil bag. And mixed with a mineral water, and shot of apple juice, and a wedge of lemon.

It's a manly beverage.

By chance does your wine come with a straw?

Real men don't care about being girly, they're manly because they just are.

This explains a lot, thanks.

I prefer having myself a Mom Party with a box of select Franzia.

i've had a few really expensive wines. By and large, pretty f----ing awesome. 'Course, it's all subjective, and sometimes you're paying for a label, but on the other hand, you generally get what you pay for.

bud light don't taste like a hand crafted brew. nor does franzia taste like a french cab.

I love me some oaky afterbirth.

This is why I love Trader Joe's... they have a lot of decent wines in the $5-10 range. I've definitely had really good bottles of wine I've bought directly from wineries in Napa or Napa #2 - Paso Robles... but if I'm buying off a shelf in a store there really is no reason to shell out that sort of cash, too many variables.

Second Cheapest Wine has been added as a related post - related requested by RFlagg on that post.

Why Wine Snobs Are Faking It has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.