What is a "good" wine?

One that tastes good. And what tastes good to one person doesn't necessarily taste good to everyone else.

We all have different tastes.

Do you remember that old saying regarding sex?....."the worst I ever had was wonderful"? This does not apply to wine. It's very subjective and it's easier to define what bad wine is because there are certain attributes to bad wine that are almost universally thought of as being undesirable in a wine whereas good ranges all over the map. Some folks like oak, others abhor it, some like soft plush tannins others want grip and structure. That being said, I like wines with balance. Fruit but not jammy or over concentrated, acidic but not astringent, tannic but not harsh, mature but not oxidized. I don't mind a little Brett but I don't want to taste mouse turds and I don't mind a little oak I just don't want splinters.

My thoughts on this run to the simple, a good wine dosen't make you look for the 'spit bucket'.

M E Sievert

"Leo Bueno" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Any wine, if you like it. Other people may have other tastes, educated/experienced or not. Anders

Anything over 90pts.

Only kidding :) I agree with the other comments - it is a very personal thing. For me...

A good wine has to have a refreshing quality - acid, astringency, or something savoury about it - but not too much of course, so balance is important. Beyond that, it should be either a) characterful, with rough edges that others may call faults or b) wonderfully elegant and classy. Intensity of flavour and length is good, and I usually find them to be highly correlated. Complexity is over-rated - a good wine can have one good clean dominant aroma/flavour - if I can find 2 or 3 good aromas/flavours I am very happy. More than that and compexity is usually wasted on me. It can be of any variety, colour or level of sweetness - I really don't understand people who say "I only drink white wine", "Ugh, that's sweet" or "I hate Merlot".

I was in a blind tasting group with 7 other wine tasters for a number of years. We, over the years, probably tasted nearly 1000 wines using the 20 point UC Davis system. There was always remarkable agreement regarding the characteristics and preferences of pretty much all wines. We used to remark about that. Sure there were favorites; the uniformity, however, was quite something.

Kent

I think that there's a common sense of what is best and what is worst.

Of course there are preferences, often linked to special moments in our lifes, but if a wine is bad... is bad.

I had a very bad wine a couple of evenings ago. Anybody was sure about it.

The UC Davis system is very fair, there can be slightly differences in each ones score, but statistically, best wines have very good scores for anyone.

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• Tell me "What is a good book?" or "What is a good song?" or "What is a good movie?" and then think about your question, "What is a good wine?"

earle

Definition of "good wine": a wine that I like.

Seriously.

Mike