On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 5:39 PM, Charles Haynes <[email protected]>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....
