Are we wine snobs?

So, what John says is false?

The work is translated into English from the Italian edition, so how could an American be the principal writer? I'm confused. I was under the impression that this was an Italian-based project. It is remarkably free from snobbery, in my opinion. I don't look at it that often, but when I am trying something out that I have not had before, I will look at the write-ups, usually AFTER I have tried the wine, to see wht they say. If they liked it, I make a note of that.

John, I believe that you are slightly mistaken here. Thomases co-edits I Vini Veronelli with, naturally enough, Veronelli. It is Veronelli IIRC who has the connection to Gambero Rosso.

Mark Lipton (Patiently waiting for the latest edition of I Vini Tommasi)

I think John has it wrong on that point, the contributors are numerous (dozens) and I am not aware of any non-Italian in the list.

But he's right about this guide being more influential in Italy and more international style than even PArker.

Mark Lipton wrote in news:efjg4g$pov$ snipped-for-privacy@mailhub227.itcs.purdue.edu:

Yes, Thanks for the clarification. It's one of those....."I knew that" moments.

UC,

I agree with you about many of the aspects in you statements, but differ with some others - the extent of my agreement/disagreement is really moot, hence the snippage.

I probably disagree, because I am both a food and a wine snob. I spend a great deal of time tasting both food and wine, though through different techniques. For me, both are very intertwined, though can be separated to some degree.

As for the food aspect, I narrow the consumption down to two classes: one, eats to live, the other lives to eat. Oversimplification? Sure, but it works for me, both with food and with wine.

Hunt

Well, I have not really tried everything in the book (heh heh heh) so I can't say. I do like Argiolas wines (and Santadi wines), and they do too, so on that basis I have to say we're in agreement. But I would hardly call Argiolas' or Santadi's style 'international'. Would you?

ha ha

another guide? In Italy? gawd...

To me, saying something like this is snobbery. Suppose you have two wine snobs talling to each other:

"Q: Have you tried the Petrus Pomerol 1998?

A: Yes. Rather nice. Bought three cases last week. The '97, of course, is hopeless. I wouldn't serve it to my dogs."

Hello Nils,

I certainly try hard not to be snobbish when dealing with inexperienced drinkers. "So you like Mogen David Kosher Concord? Go for it!" Of course, it can be very tempting to try to "correct" someone if he says that Sutter Home White Zinfandel is "the best wine I EVER tried!" But the best you can do in that case is to recommend something more classy that might suit his taste, like an Auslese Riesling or Moscato. That's the best way to avoid being seen as a snob.

Dan-O

Nils Gustaf L> Hello good gentles all,

Or you could simply invite them to dinner and serve something really nice, without comment.

"DaleW" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@c28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Hear, hear!

I swear I'll never mention lutfisk again! No, seriously ...

And I enjoy reading them. Only thing is they make me hungry - and makes me look in a thoughtful manner towards the wine cellar (easily seen from the computer I use at home).

It is an old Latin saying, de gustibus non est disputandem, taste is not to be discussed - and a more erroneous Latin saying is hard to find. I most certainly hope we will continue to hear opinions raised, suggestions made, and so on. I just sincerely hope that people are not put off from the group for reasons not always clear to me (I know why I no longer psot in the Italian NG, and quite rarely in the French).

Xina will, I hope, soon arrive, and she will be greeted with pumpkin soup, baked scallops, a casserole of corn and crab meat, and foie gras with an apple gastrique. Hmmmmm - wonder what will be the main course ;) ?

Cheers!

Hello, Nils! You wrote on Fri, 29 Sep 2006 16:57:15 GMT: NGL> It is an old Latin saying, de gustibus non est NGL> disputandem, taste is not to be discussed - and a more NGL> erroneous Latin saying is hard to find. I NGL>

The interpretation of the Latin phrase can be done in several ways :-) Many people paraphrase it as "There's no accounting for tastes!" and I think that includes your opinion!

James Silverton Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

You mean, like a certain poster who put down the girl who wanted to have some fun with wine and cheese and the girls?

You trust the seller's "tasting" over yours? I suppose you might if you know the seller's tastes and agree with them, but if you don't know the wine merchant, and he reccomends a wine because he himself has tried it, how do you know he knows what he's tasting? I'd just as soon try it myself if he has a bottle open.

Yeah, it's not going to be the same as when I'm at home with a big juicy beefsteak, but I can identify some of the elemnts and make a judgement as to whether I think it will work. And yanno, most of the time I've been right, even though I'm far from a wine pro.

That's not disdain of reviewers, or of the review process. That's just selection of an appropriate reviewer.

It's hardly airtight, but it's just an illustration, not a proof. Samples of =anything= outside of context don't reflect the "true nature" of the thing. But with some experience, one can extrapolate and make valuable judgements for oneself. With more experience and some vocabulary, one can make evaluations that will make sense to others, and be useful to them.

Now, for somebody like me to go to a wine tasting, make a few comments on what I might notice in a wine, write them down so I can remebmer them, and predict how well it might do with some foods with which I am familiar, would not be pretention. For me to go further than my ability (for example, to the extent of DaleW's reviews) would be pretense on my part, because I am not really able to isolate and identify the flavors (though when told to me, I can sometimes discern them separately). It would seem to be a useful trick, since (I would presume) a wine that has melon notes would go well with meals which would go well with melon. This is helpful pairing an unfamiliar wine.

... and it's why I have favored California wines. I am familiar with them. However, I am expanding my horizons, and learning about other wines too. It's a slow process, since I can't be drunk all the time. :)

Jose

... and it may well be wasted, because they aren't paying attention. "Try this, I think you'll like it. Let me know what you think." at least focuses the attention, so that your classy wine has a chance to make an impression.

Jose

I always took it as "not to be argued with".

Jose

I didn't put her down. SHE said she was very dissatisfied with her experience. I explained why. .

Yes. I have no confidence that I can judge a wine apart from food. They taste bitter and harsh. From what I have read about Italian wines, they are SUPPOSED to taste bitter and hash apart from food.

"Before getting into the wine, though, it is important to talk about the food. Wine is made to drink with food. Serving a relatively mild cheese or mild olives can really enhance the tasting experience as they will both taste good with most red and white wines. Even just crackers or bread with olive oil will do the trick if you don't want to get too fancy. But some wines, especially those from Europe, can be difficult to enjoy without food."

Sometimes it works out that way. I have established a close working relationship with one seller in particular, whose recommendations I trust.

I don't get any pleasure from it, so I don't generally take tastes in stores, though occasionally I do so to be polite when a distributor's salesman happens to be in the shop and asks me to try something.

Yes.

But a trailer of a film is not like tasting a wine without a meal. The trailer is something made of the parts of the film; the wine is exactly the same, in different circumstances.

Despite deacdes of reading about and drinking wine, I cannot fathom wine review language, other than 'dry', "highly extracted", 'raisiny', and 'elegant'. What 'vegetal' is, I have no idea. What 'earthy' is, I have only a vague idea. I understand 'complex' and "long finish", too. But after that, I am lost. It is my belief that wine review language (and reviewers' taste preferences) are highly biased toward F____ wines and Northern Italian/Tuscan wines. Sicilian and southern Italian wines, which are so vastly different, confuse reviewers, who downgrade and dismiss them because they are so different. I am actually not that fond of Sangiovese-based wines. I prefer Northern and Southern Italian/Sicilian/Sardinian wines.

Feel free to ask me about Italian wines, any time.

Well, yes, that could be included in what I meant by "without comment". I mean without a big buildup. When I bring a bottle to someone's house, I bring something really good. It usually prompts positive comment without my having to say anything.

Uh... you said, "It sounds like you have no clue as to what you are doing.". Then you said, "You have NO CLUE as to what you are doing." You followed that with "How...charmingly naive...." after which you started shouting at her in all caps, ending with "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

In some circles that would be taken as a put down.

You might find that if you do both for a while, you will learn how to associate what you taste (alone) in a wine with what it will taste like with food. For example, a wine that is very tannic will probably not taste all that "good" by itself. However, upon tasting it by itself, I will note that it is tannic. This tells me that it probably wants some big food to go with it - a steak for example. A wine that is not tannic is likely to pair well with something lighter, like duck or lamb.

Similarly, if I taste a chardonnay by itself, no matter what it tastes =like=, I can taste oak (or not), butter (or not), and these are clues to me as to what they might pair with.

The more I do it, the better I get. You can too, if you can get over the idea that doing so somehow betrays the idea that wine is meant for food.

The analogy can work if you consider that each individual scene is exactly the same, but in different circumstances. The classic example is that a smile can be made into a leer by pairing it with an appropriate prior scene.

Neither can I. And I don't understand some of your words, though some of the words that don't resonate with you are in fact meaningful to me. Earthy, for example. Perhaps it's because the wines I've had have been different (from each other) in that respect, and the wines that you have had have mostly been similar in that respect, so it never came out of the background for you. But that doesn't make the use of the words we =do= know into snobbery, or the betrayal of wine's essential nature with food.

So don't listen to them. That doesn't make =your= (or my) tasting of wines into a bad thing.

I asked about Tocai Friulano. But talking about wine isn't the same as drinking it. I'm looking forward to opening that bottle, perhaps with eggplant as you suggested, perhaps with scallops, with which I suspect it would also do nicely. I'll get four tries at it.

Jose

John, as noted below Thomases didn't write for Gambero Rosso. But an understandable mistake- GR and WA often agree on the wonders of modern winemaking. I have pretty broad tastes, but up until last two years the Tuscan and Piedmont sections of GR 3B have read like the de Grazia Brotherhood of Oaky Winemaking (though Giacosa has always slipped in, and recently both Mascarellos and Marcarini made the list). We sometimes joke that Gambero Rosso is Italian for "More Oak! More Vanilla! More Chocolate", and Tre Bicchieri means " Tres Oaky"

I've heard good things about the reviewers of the northern white areas like Friuli. Usually if I think that the few Southern Italians I try that get 3 glasses are as much the product of lumberyards as vineyards, but that's a small sample.