I buy a pretty wide range of US wines from $10-$150 ish, mostly in the middle.
I share a lot of my wine drinking with non wine geek friends, they enjoy it but have no idea or interest in all the back stories. It is very interesting that almost without exception price has no bearing on their opinion’s, now yes i will qualify that an expensive good bottle is generally liked and the most revered have been the highest priced ( except Bedrock Exposition ) but many higher end wines get knocked down for not being enjoyable.
I am just watching Somm 3 and it starts with Fred’s exact description of a 95 Guigal Cote Rotie, impressive as that is it led me to start thinking that so much of what we discuss here and how we approach wine is about the breakdown of the wine, All the tasting qualities we discuss every post. Do we to some degree now breakdown wine too much ? do you think of it as a tasting experience or purely simple wine experience ?
I know im talking about myself when i feel that it would be nice to get back to just wine drinking as a simple basic pleasure and buy the bottles that i enjoy without any thought to vineyard. maker, age or vintage or varietal etc. I am well aware that i chase wines as much as anyone and I just dont think you can ever turn off being a wine geek once you get the bug but boy wouldnt it be nice to do so.
If I had to guess, most of the ‘higher priced’ wines that your non wine friends do not enjoy are probably earthy or tannic or bitter or acidic - or all of the above. As Scott asked, it’d be great to get some clarification from you.
There’s a reason that Meiomi and The Prisoner do as well as they do - they are very very smooth wines that contain some RS that will cover up any bitterness in the wine and pop the fruit. THAT is what most non wine drinkers seem to be drawn to.
What information is provided the group when pouring? Do you or does anyone else let folks know what is ‘highly rated’? If so this could certainly skew folks and what they ‘like’ . . .
There’s a reason that Meiomi and The Prisoner do as well as they do - they are very very smooth wines that contain some RS that will cover up any bitterness in the wine and pop the fruit. THAT is what most non wine drinkers seem to be drawn to.
I know but they initially are given the wine blind, its a given because im going to drink it myself that its not going to be Yellow tail but after that they have no idea of varietal. Surprisingly they get the varietal correct more often than not
It does seem a bit forced to me when wine geeks try to enjoy wines made to age way too young. It seems like a step in the learning curve. Wines that are interesting and complex, have some buzz. A sense of sophistication and exclusiveness getting on waitlists to acquire, then excitedly consume. I’ve seen many people move through that (to some degree, at least) once they experience great mature wines and get some guidance in how/where to buy them.
There’s quite a bit to learn and experience from tasting too young wines. But, they can also get tiring quickly in a drinking situation. Wines can taste well, but not drink well. Young wines can be tedious or just over-all unpleasant. It shouldn’t be a surprise non-geeks wouldn’t enjoy drinking some of these highly rated wines when they aren’t ready.
But, they are plenty of geek-friendly wines out there that do drink well young, and appeal to non-geeks.
Something similar I experience is “people who don’t know any better, (but probably should)”. I typically like more mature wines. My wife’s family is very much into wine, but doesn’t discriminate.
I’ve helped her to understand the benefits; not so much of “aging to maturity” (as that’s a preference) but of giving a wine the proper chance for its various components to, if not integrate, at least be in balance. Which applies to both geeks and non geeks - drinking a wine when it’s “in its window” is just better for everyone.
Her family hasn’t bothered to grasp this and it leads to things like wanting to open tons of 2016 Sonoma Pinot Noir for Thanksgiving, and 2015 Howell Mountain Cab and Petite Sirah in magnums for Christmas. We tried to help them understand that these were wines that would benefit from a bit more time, to which we heard “we could all be gone tomorrow”.
Sure. Except I will be here tomorrow, sans tastebuds, after pounding tannin milkshakes.
More and more, I am just buying the wines I like, and they often turn out to be not so expensive - though they still cost more than the general public would normally pay! So in that sense I have pretty much turned off being a wine geek, though I can still be wine-geeky in other ways.
But I don’t think my wine experience is a simple one. It is still in many ways a tasting experience. But in practice it is hard for anyone to separate that from the physical environment, the food, who you are drinking the wine with, where you were when you drank it last etc, etc. The complexity of wine is a lot more than the taste of the liquid in the glass - everything else also impacts on the experience. If you sit alone in a white odour-free laboratory to taste your wine double-blind, THAT is the simple wine experience.
Annually, a large group of couples (15-20 or so) get together to have a “wine party.” Mind you, 90% of the attendees are non-geeks but most everybody drinks wine regularly. Every couple brings two bottles of the same red wine. One bottle is brown-bagged and opened for tasting. Everyone tastes and votes for their favorite based solely on what is most enjoyable to his/her own palate. The owner of the wine receiving the most votes takes everyone’s second bottle home.
Last year, I brought an Alto Moncayo (can’t recall the vintage) and it won by a landslide. I knew my audience. This year, I brought a 2015 Geyserville. Want to guess how many votes it got? Zero. Talking with folks after we unveiled the wines from the brown bags, most people said it smelled nice and they enjoyed it, but they preferred something else. It happened to be one of two Zinfandel blends. The overall majority were Cabs and Pinots. The winner was the 2016 Educated Guess Cabernet. Perfectly fine and well-crafted $20 Cabernet but nothing there that would “wow” me.
In larger-group settings like this, where the consumption of wine is very informal, I’ve pretty much given up on trying to impart logic and my understanding of well-made wine on the masses (no votes on this Geyserville pretty much sealed that for me). I’ve taken a small group of couples from this same large group and structured a more formal “tasting/education” session and it was much more well received. I also have given up on trying to conform others who just don’t care as much about the hobby, but I did that very early on in my wine-life.
Interesting. In my test groups (for example, a friend of my daughter, my wife’s sister and her husband and kids, etc.), Ridge Zins (even Three Valleys) go over real well - although this has been with dinner not a blind tasting.
Not anymore. I opened a 2013 over Thanksgiving and the oak was overwhelming. Really borderline undrinkable for me. Once I open my last 2 bottles of Geyserville (I have a 2010 on deck for tonight) I’m done with them.
Just had a 2016 Three Valleys with my wife’s sister and their family and they loved it.
For me, I am drinking the Three Valleys more young (and generally with the people who would like it) and the Geyserville with more age, but I probably am more oak neutral than you are. There are certainly wines that are overoaked and suffer for it, but there are for me a number of wines that I don’t really find hurt by oak and Geyserville is one of those. And, for wines that I age, I am even more neutral on oak if I am confident of the fruit under the oak. For example (and this is now old), I used to stay away from Truchot Charmes Chambertin because young they had new oak and did not really taste like Truchot. Now, 15 years or so later, the Charmes that I stayed away from taste just as much like Truchot as the Clos de la Roche or anything else.
My sister-in-law, in fact, asked me to pick out a case of wines for them while I was in Boston this past weekend and, in addition to the Three Valleys and a couple of halves of Geyserville, I picked out for them Ridge Three Valleys and Geyserville, 2009 of the second wine of Cantemerle, Louis Boillot Bourgogne Rouge, Henry Boillot Bourgogne Rouge, Vajra Nebbiolo, and Vayra Rosso. With multiples of a some things and a couple of bottles of Port, we filled out the case. With the case discount, virtually everything was under $30 (the Geyserville was half bottles). Obviously, I was limited to the store I went to, etc., but this is kind of my idea what someone who likes wine but is not by any means a wine geek should be trying.