@Pavlov No matter what the question, no matter how rhetorical, someone out there will think it needs an answer.
My uncles (mostly gone now) used to make a big thing out of which beer to have with Twinkies. And one of them just had to try to find out. It was epic. And disgusting!
@thismyusername It's a fine line between relaxing after a long day of explaining to a 3 year old why you can't eat cat food for every meal, ass-wiping, getting gum out of hair and, "Holy shit, did we leave little Timmy at the park" level drinking.
It's pretty rare that we don't have wine with dinner. I'm not a high-level connoisseur though. I can tell good wine from crap but I can't tell awesome wine from really good wine. Which is great because it makes life a little less expensive.
@SSteve here's the secret: nobody can tell the difference between good wine and awesome/expensive wine.
"In one experiment, he got 54 oenology (the study of wine tasting and wine making) undergraduates together and had them taste one glass of red wine and one glass of white wine. He had them describe each wine in as much detail as their expertise would allow. What he didn't tell them was both were the same wine. He just dyed the white one red. In the other experiment, he asked the experts to rate two different bottles of red wine. One was very expensive, the other was cheap. Again, he tricked them. This time he had put the cheap wine in both bottles. So what were the results?
The tasters in the first experiment, the one with the dyed wine, described the sorts of berries and grapes and tannins they could detect in the red wine just as if it really was red. Every single one, all 54, could not tell it was white. In the second experiment, the one with the switched labels, the subjects went on and on about the cheap wine in the expensive bottle. They called it complex and rounded. They called the same wine in the cheap bottle weak and flat."
@JonT I've read about the red/white experiment but I have a hard time believing it. I can tell the difference between, e.g., zinfandel and barbera and pinot noir. I'm sure I'd be able to tell the difference between pinot noir and chardonnay even if the chardonnay was dyed red. I'm going to need independent verification before I put any faith in that. It has too much urban legend smell about it. A smell redolent of leather, cherry, and mahogany.
@SSteve I believe it completely. Our brains are weird and powerful and perception is incredibly, almost disturbingly persuasive.
If these experts were blindfolded and given two glasses and told one is white and one red, I bet the results would have been different. But because the dye completes the illusion and they have no reason to believe that the wine isn't red, they taste what they believe they should be tasting.
Doesn't seem hard to believe in the slightest. We're not as smart as we think we are.
@JonT Ok, I agree you can trick people into tasting and smelling things that aren't there. But in a blind taste test I contend that people with a reasonable knowledge of wine can tell the difference between common red and white varietals.
Meh. Except for Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill.
But my wife likes other kinds that need to be racked and kept cool and in the dark... its pretty much all we get from woot anymore.
@duodec I single handedly kept Boone's Farm in business back in the 80's
@Pavlov
@duodec At least they waited until after he died . . . Mr. Gary Pooffinpanties there just kinda ruins the joke.
@Pavlov No matter what the question, no matter how rhetorical, someone out there will think it needs an answer.
My uncles (mostly gone now) used to make a big thing out of which beer to have with Twinkies. And one of them just had to try to find out. It was epic. And disgusting!
@duodec don't leave us hanging bro! what's the answer?
@earlyre 5 minute mark:
As he notes, one of the 'inventors' of Captain Crunch cereal is actually a winemaker in California now
And with that we've probably disillusioned Pavlov enough...
@duodec sorry about that, I embedded it with the timecode but apparently that didn't take.
So is this poll the wrong poll, or is wine an integral part of parenting?
@thismyusername I'm not a parent but if I ever become one I know it'll damn sure be an integral part of it for me.
@thismyusername It's a fine line between relaxing after a long day of explaining to a 3 year old why you can't eat cat food for every meal, ass-wiping, getting gum out of hair and, "Holy shit, did we leave little Timmy at the park" level drinking.
@JonT I don't know. I still prefer beer and my wife that was more into wine has started loving beer in the past year more than wine.
Wine is a well-stocked item in my home.
It did occur to me that a nice wine fridge would get a lot of the bombers out of my fridge. Hint hint!
(Implicit in this is the totally trolling observation, "Why would anyone drink wine when there's beer?")
Wine is... about the only thing I still buy from Woot.
It's pretty rare that we don't have wine with dinner. I'm not a high-level connoisseur though. I can tell good wine from crap but I can't tell awesome wine from really good wine. Which is great because it makes life a little less expensive.
@SSteve here's the secret: nobody can tell the difference between good wine and awesome/expensive wine.
"In one experiment, he got 54 oenology (the study of wine tasting and wine making) undergraduates together and had them taste one glass of red wine and one glass of white wine. He had them describe each wine in as much detail as their expertise would allow. What he didn't tell them was both were the same wine. He just dyed the white one red. In the other experiment, he asked the experts to rate two different bottles of red wine. One was very expensive, the other was cheap. Again, he tricked them. This time he had put the cheap wine in both bottles. So what were the results?
The tasters in the first experiment, the one with the dyed wine, described the sorts of berries and grapes and tannins they could detect in the red wine just as if it really was red. Every single one, all 54, could not tell it was white. In the second experiment, the one with the switched labels, the subjects went on and on about the cheap wine in the expensive bottle. They called it complex and rounded. They called the same wine in the cheap bottle weak and flat."
Source.
@JonT I've read about the red/white experiment but I have a hard time believing it. I can tell the difference between, e.g., zinfandel and barbera and pinot noir. I'm sure I'd be able to tell the difference between pinot noir and chardonnay even if the chardonnay was dyed red. I'm going to need independent verification before I put any faith in that. It has too much urban legend smell about it. A smell redolent of leather, cherry, and mahogany.
@SSteve I believe it completely. Our brains are weird and powerful and perception is incredibly, almost disturbingly persuasive.
If these experts were blindfolded and given two glasses and told one is white and one red, I bet the results would have been different. But because the dye completes the illusion and they have no reason to believe that the wine isn't red, they taste what they believe they should be tasting.
Doesn't seem hard to believe in the slightest. We're not as smart as we think we are.
@JonT Ok, I agree you can trick people into tasting and smelling things that aren't there. But in a blind taste test I contend that people with a reasonable knowledge of wine can tell the difference between common red and white varietals.
@SSteve
Here, smell my finger.
@Pavlov Ok, but I'm not going to taste it.
Check Snopes. The "experment" has a lot of issues.
I had some ice wine once, and it was awesome!