Tasting Wine

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
:) They are using real corks less and less and are using plastic corks which probably dont go bad thats why some people want to switch to screw on caps because alot less wine goes bad.It would be hard to get used to a screw on cap since I associate it to really cheap crappy wine.
 
GB- i myself am considered to be the "wine expert" by my crew (tho, to self-proclaim things, i'd call me a wine whore), and am generally the one to "do the honors" with the tasting at the table. this is of course, silly, as i keep telling everyone, my tongue is not wired to your palate, so we all like what we like. bitter beer, sweet wine, whatever. people should definately do the exploring on their own time, home/whatever, rather than sending stuff back for no reason (v.rude).

any place worth its salt that sells wine by the glass (and i'm including olive garden here, not just hoity-toity places, ok?) will give you a lil taste before they pull you a full one. it's ok to change your mind once or twice at that point. alternately, go hang out at your local liquor/wine shop, as lots of them do scheduled tastings at some point in the week.

ronjohn, i too rarely find wine i don't care for, once in the general ballpark realm of what i feel like at the time...

and jp, that is in fact one of the reasons that some places are going towards foam "corks" or screwcaps (aka "stelvin closures" for peeps that like to avoid the s-word). a wine without a cork cannot get "corked". also, the scarcity of quality cork trees has a good chunk to do with it. don't be scared of the screwcap, plenty of lovely things from australia/new zealand, and almost all of bonny doon's stuff now comes sans corkscrew.
 
college_cook said:
I'm not expert yet, though i hope to be one day, but If you are very familiar with the wine produced by a certain grape, and somthing is definitely off, is it appropriate to send it back? It's not really the restaurants fault, but should you have to drink a wine that tastes like a Riesling ( generally sweeter) when you order a Chablis ( generally dryer)?

Yep, if something is definitely off then it is always perfectly acceptable to send it back.

John
 
college_cook said:
I'm not expert yet, though i hope to be one day, but If you are very familiar with the wine produced by a certain grape, and somthing is definitely off, is it appropriate to send it back? It's not really the restaurants fault, but should you have to drink a wine that tastes like a Riesling ( generally sweeter) when you order a Chablis ( generally dryer)?

Not necessarily because the same grape that is grown in different parts of the world will taste different depending on the soil, climate, storage (oak vs. steel, new oak vs. old oak, etc.). For instance, a chardonnay from Napa will taste decidedly different than one from Rhone. A Pinot Noir from the Santa Ynez Valley will taste much different than a Pinot from Burgundy. So, if you were feeling adverturous and say you wanted to try a Cab from Argentina, and it doesn't taste like what you expected (a typical California cab), like you said, it's not the restaurant's fault. Just make a mental note that you don't like cabs from Argentina and finish the bottle in peace.
 
fireweaver said:
any place worth its salt that sells wine by the glass (and i'm including olive garden here, not just hoity-toity places, ok?) will give you a lil taste before they pull you a full one. it's ok to change your mind once or twice at that point.

That's true, but every restaurant with an extensive wine list will only have a selected portion of their wines available by the glass, so this strategy can only apply to those wines particular wines only. It's a good strategy if one is only going to limit themselves to the wine by the glass selection.

Beyond that, it's all about familiarizing oneself with the grape and the region it is grown in. Generally speaking, wines grown in the Old World (Europe) and wines grown in the New World (Americas, Oz, NZ) will have different characteristics. OW wines tend to be more acidic, less oaky, and have more minerality. NW wines tend to have more fruit, oak, and less acid.
 
I agree that not liking something -- wine or otherwise -- isn't an excuse to send it back. Bad wine is really that ... bad wine. Otherwise consider it an education. i had a freind once who was a wine coineseur, and he sent the wine back BEFORE it was opened (i.e., "I asked for a 79, this is a 78). Once opened, the wine has to be bad before you send it back. Ditto food. I mean, you cannot decide you don't like anchovies in a caesar salad, fish sauce in Vietnamese food, etc, after you ordered. On the other hand, if you've expressly specified that you cannot eat something ("does this have peanuts in it?") then, of course you send it back. I hate dining out with fussy eaters, but the flip side of that is that I have some freinds and relatives with health related issues, and have taught them how to order.
 
Back
Top Bottom