On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 5:39 PM, Charles Haynes wrote:
> There is also the "reverse snobbery" effect, which the wine tastings I
> describe actually encourage. It's the joy of finding a cheap wine that you
> really enjoy that you think tastes better than the expensive wines that
> other people are overpaying for. It requires a certain strength of will,
> and it is subject to some of the same "I need a new fix" effects, but it's
> really very satisfying. It is from double blind tastings that I discovered
> that not only do I truly prefer Krug and Salon over "lesser" Champagnes,
> but that I also really enjoy Spanish cavas that are an order magnitude
> cheaper. So not only do I feel justified when paying for a vintage Krug, I
> feel smug when buying an obscure cheap cava.
>
My personal wine tasting experience has been rather different. I tend to
judge wines on how I wake up to them the day after. For instance, a couple
of years a friend of mine brought me a 1996 meerlust rubicon from south
africa. We had some kababs and finished the bottle that evening, it tasted
really nice. The next day I woke up feeling better than usual. Compare that
to a glass of drostdy-hof table wine from south africa (the sort of wine
that is sold in tetra-pak cartons... kind of the south african equivalent
of carlo rossi...just much much worse) which i drank by mistake at
someone's barbeque, it tasted quite awful, and to top that I had the most
terrible head-ache the next day (mind you it was just 1 solitary glass of
wine).
I have had similar head-aches even with premium wines - I had a glass of
DOCG labeled cannonau (2011) from sardegna last year, the taste was OK -
but I had the most terrible head-ache the day after (and someone else
commented a few days after that they didnt like the taste of that wine). On
the other hand there is an estate wine in Kenya called "leleshwa" they
produce shiraz and cabernet-sauvignon at cheaper than drostdy-hof (which is
perhaps the bottom-feeder of the wine world ... ) prices. While the taste
is very variable depending on the bottle, I have never had a headache with
these wines
