Do you need to drink lesser wines to appreciate the great ones?

[Kirk.Grant]

Hell yes…my fiancé is living proof of that.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

It’s important to recognize that some of the “profundity” associated with experiencing something “great” for the first time is derived from it being the first time. In other words, it’s a more profound experience the first time you have that excellent wine than it is the tenth time you have it, everything else being equal.

[Scott_Brunson]

At some point, yes, for a point of reference. But once you’ve got adequate experience, it doesn’t have to be repeated regularly to continue to appreciate the great ones.

One of the great advantages of being in a blind tasting group for the last 21 years is that I taste stuff from up and down the quality ladder on a regular basis. The experience is both humbling and educational. It has kept me grounded in the broader world of wine, rather than just the narrow focus of wines I choose to buy.

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[Steve_Slatcher]

Drinking good quality cheaper wine only makes me question more and more why I bother with expensive ones, which often disappoint. That certainly gjves me a sense of perspective. But which are the “lesser” wines here?

[Daniel_McIntosh]

Drinking good quality cheaper wine only makes me question more and more why I bother with expensive ones, which often disappoint. That certainly gjves me a sense of perspective. But which are the “lesser” wines here?

Indeed. I like a great wine as much as anyone but I far more appreciate and seek out the very decent $15 bottle.

[Jay_Miller]

I’d say it is necessary to have tasted vintages across a range of styles to get a handle on what you like but once you’ve done that you don’t have to keep buying vintages that you think you won’t enjoy as much.

For example I’m glad to have tasted (and therefore have an opinion on ) multiple 2004 burgundies even though it’s arguably the worst vintage of the last 30 years. however if another 2004 came around I would not be a buyer. Even if I was still buying Burgundy.

Sometimes a village wine can be heartbreakingly beautiful even if it doesn’t have the depth or complexity of a grand cru.

I don’t think anyone would claim that dandelions are more beautiful than roses but sometimes a field full of dandelions in the spring can take your breath away. And wouldn’t be improved by replacing them with rose bushes.


This is, of course, different from wines that are actually poorly made (e.g., Christian Confuron to continue with the Burgundy examples). There the only advantage to tasting them is to know to avoid them in the future.


Which leads me to the reverse and to me perhaps more interesting question - do you need to drink great wines to appreciate the lesser ones? I’m inclined to say yes to that one. I find that I appreciate and enjoy village wines more for having tried the “greater” grand crus.

[Robert_Sand]

I do always prefer a “lesser” (but good) wine opened at full maturity than a “great” wine far too young, maybe closed and showing more structure than anything else.
In my opinion it is not a sign of a well educated wine geek when opening “big names” but at the wrong moment. It is far more difficult to present wines, may they be of lesser origin or not, at the perfect time and with careful preparation.

[Richard_Albert]

Anton, there may be answer to your question, the truth may be out there; perhaps a member of the British Royal family(or others of elite/sheltered/rarified elevage) before venturing out into the world of non specially purveyed/selected royal wines may have the answer.


Wading through the semantic variations, I believe yes to OP’s question.
Thinking horizontally, what if you were only exposed to Bordeaux and developed your greatness scale and someone provided your first glass of Burgundy, a very good one with strong, admirable traits; would it, could it be a great one as your first exposure? Or, would it just be different?

[GregT]

Great discussion. Jeff asked my thoughts; I absolutely think you need context, but what the definition and the quality of that context is interesting.

The topic came up when one of my guests mentioned a very wealthy acquaintance who had just got into wine. He decided to go on a yearlong buying spree accumulating (and drinking) First Growths from top vintages, as well as large amounts of great Burgundy, starting with DRC and going on to Roumier, Coche, Rousseau etc etc. The question was whether just drinking top wines young and old could give him that context or should he have drunk their lesser wines, years or lesser producers?

I’ve known people like that and suspect there are various versions of that on this board. Someone becomes interested in wine, is told that he should like Burgundy and decides that’s it, he’s going to be a Burgundy head. Or Barolo or Bordeaux or whatever. And then that becomes their reference point for everything. Those people usually bore me, and of course I suppose I bore them too. But their conversations tend to be about how this bottle isn’t showing quite as nicely as the one they had last month, or it’s really good but you know it’s going to be better in three years, and there’s little curiosity about anything other than that narrow field.

And those people are sad in a way, because they’ve bought into someone else’s world view and have adopted it as their own. So much easier than figuring things out yourself. For your friend’s friend, I would suggest just learning about wine in general, rather than accumulating things someone else might value.

[Craig_G]

Would the greatest sex of your life be as ‘profound’ without the ‘lesser’ sex?

It’s none of your business what I do when I’m alone.

[Howard_Cooper]

A few thoughts.

1. Not anymore. I have been drinking wine for a long time and probably don’t need to try any more lesser wines to appreciate the great ones. Looking at the word do - if it is interpreted to mean present and future tense - the answer now is no.

2. How do I avoid lesser wines? I mean, most of us live in the real world. We go to parties with friends who are not wine geeks. We go to dinner at restaurants where the people we are with are not wine geeks, they want us to pick a bottle of wine from the wine list and the wine list either has nothing even approaching good or nothing within a price range you would pay at the restaurant approaching good. I have had experiences where we were at a friend’s house and they bring out a bottle of wine “because they know I like wine” and the wine was a cheap wine that probably was opened several months ago. Avoiding lesser wines and even poor wines is really difficult. And, I am not even discussing expensive lesser wines.

3. To me, there are two types of great wines. First, the big names - first growth Bordeauxs, grand cru Burgs, Ridge Monte Bello, etc. Second, there is the really good simpler wine that is just a joy to drink. For example, Hudelot-Noellat Bourgogne Rouge, Bernard Moreau Bourgogne Blanc, Cotat Rose, etc., etc., etc. To me, it is easier for a less experienced wine lover to love the first category because they are big and rich and complex, etc. It is simple to see the greatness in these wines. It takes more experience I believe to see the great bottle of a simpler wine that just really hits the spot and is an excellent value and puts to shame all the similarly priced wines that provide a fraction (if that) of the enjoyment of the wines I often love. That is really where all the junk out there really makes you appreciate the art that went into the great, simpler wine.

Really good post Howard, Thank you for your articulation

Yes. Nice post. But, Howard, you accidentally put Cotat Rose in the wrong category.

Not sure, but it really makes my point where it is, doesn’t it?

[Howard_Cooper]

Now for a different point of view. Someone once said to me that I should never have tasted a wine selling for more than $5 a bottle (this was probably 20 years ago so maybe $10 or $15 today). He said that if I had never had a bottle costing more than $5, I would be very happy with the wines I was drinking and drink happily while spending a modest amount of money. But, once I tasted better wines, I was lost - spending more money for wine and could not go back to the cheaper wine because now it tasted cheaper.

[Julian_Marshall]

Howard, your post is spot on.

Of course, to really appreciate a good bottle of Bordeaux, you have to taste one of those under-ripe reds they produce in the Loire valley. Luckily, most are now bought and hoarded by a weird swamp-living hermit in Florida, who looks like Luke Skywalker in Episode VIII (rumour has it that he hurls perfectly good bottles of St.Emilion at alligators, shouting about the Dark Side).

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

For me, the disparity in quality is most evident with Bordeaux. After you have had great (dare I say profound bottles) it’s hard to be satisfied with the merely good ones. Of course since I’ve never had a great red Burgundy, I’m only speculating, but I wouldn’t surprised if the disparity is even more apparent.

Question: if you had started your wine journey with only “profound” bottles, would they have still been “profound?” If you only continued on with “profound” wines, would they have remained “profound?” Did the wine’s profundity require a context, or would it have been equally “profound” on your 21st birthday as your first taste of wine?

That’s the question I see.

Would the greatest sex of your life (or the greatest pizza) be as ‘profound’ without the ‘lesser’ sex (or pizza?)

I am pretty sure that I can be ok with some lesser sex too. Same goes for pizza.

[Robert_Sand]

I am pretty sure that I can be ok with some lesser sex too. Same goes for pizza.

I know some people (singles) who would be ok with any sex at all!

[Chris_Seiber]

I have yet to meet a fellow oenophile who started with only great wines and stayed the course of never having lesser wines.

I’d say having tasted a variety of wines leads one to understand what one considers great, necessitating that one have worked one’s way through ‘lesser wines.’

Therefore, having had ‘lesser’ wines is paramount to discovering what one regards as great wines.

I think probably 0% of us have made it to this point without having had a great many experiences of drinking lesser wines.

So the question rephrases then to be “Do you need to continue drinking lesser wines to appreciate the great ones.” That is a tougher question.

I guess my answer would be this:

(1) I don’t think you need to adhere to a deliberate regimen of drinking one bottle of $20 Bourgogne for every Premier or Grand Cru in order to continue appreciating the latter, and if you are blessed with the means and the cellar to drink mostly high quality wines (and who knows how many years each of us has left to drink them), then I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing so, or that you will lose your appreciation for them.

(2) But I think you will probably appreciate the good and great wines more if you have them as part of a varied overall experience of wine. Not just varied as to price point and quality, but varied as to grapes, regions, age, style, and so forth.

[David_Bu3ker]

Funny note - on the main page for all the sub-forums the title of this topic is cut off at “Do you need to drink less”

[Chris_Seiber]

Now for a different point of view. Someone once said to me that I should never have tasted a wine selling for more than $5 a bottle (this was probably 20 years ago so maybe $10 or $15 today). He said that if I had never had a bottle costing more than $5, I would be very happy with the wines I was drinking and drink happily while spending a modest amount of money. But, once I tasted better wines, I was lost - spending more money for wine and could not go back to the cheaper wine because now it tasted cheaper.

I recall an episode of the Canadian sitcom “Corner Gas,” when a couple goes to another couple’s house and are served a more expensive wine than the one they normally drink, then they go back the next night to the wine they had always had and discover that they don’t like it anymore. I think the woman exclaimed in dismay that “We’ve been upgraded!!”

That’s true of many things. At one point in our lives, an inexpensive choice sirloin with A1 sauce on it was a special treat.

I wonder about that with my kids (age 10 and 14). They have been upgraded by my tastes and cooking, so my son is used to eating prime ribeye and so forth nowadays. It’s probably not ideal, but then, I’m only on this planet for so long, and I don’t want to eat London Broil for dinner on Saturday night just so I won’t spoil my kids. What are you going to do?

[Anton_D]

Now for a different point of view. Someone once said to me that I should never have tasted a wine selling for more than $5 a bottle (this was probably 20 years ago so maybe $10 or $15 today). He said that if I had never had a bottle costing more than $5, I would be very happy with the wines I was drinking and drink happily while spending a modest amount of money. But, once I tasted better wines, I was lost - spending more money for wine and could not go back to the cheaper wine because now it tasted cheaper.

Hi Fi works the same way.

[Anton_D]

For me, the disparity in quality is most evident with Bordeaux. After you have had great (dare I say profound bottles) it’s hard to be satisfied with the merely good ones. Of course since I’ve never had a great red Burgundy, I’m only speculating, but I wouldn’t surprised if the disparity is even more apparent.

Question: if you had started your wine journey with only “profound” bottles, would they have still been “profound?” If you only continued on with “profound” wines, would they have remained “profound?” Did the wine’s profundity require a context, or would it have been equally “profound” on your 21st birthday as your first taste of wine?

That’s the question I see.

Would the greatest sex of your life (or the greatest pizza) be as ‘profound’ without the ‘lesser’ sex (or pizza?)

I am pretty sure that I can be ok with some lesser sex too. Same goes for pizza.

You know why sex is like pizza?
Because even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.