Taking some wine to friends house.

On 20/03/2011 12:14 PM, Paul Arthur wrote:


It was Sheldon. Don't expect it to make sense.

A few years ago my wife bought me a bottle of vintage port. It was
wonderful stuff. I confess to being naive about vintage port. I had no
idea there would be so much dregs in the bottom of the bottle. I would
estimate that 10-15% of the volume of the bottle was dregs. Rude surprise.
 
On 21/03/2011 12:59 PM, Steve Pope wrote:

Perhaps it has more to do with the bastardization of the language than
being a fun part. Think about the origins of the word....vin... wine.
amd age...age.... age of the wine. It has been adapted by people to
apply to things like cars and music and most us us understand that it
refers to thins of a particular year or era. Since the term originated
in the wine business, a vintage wine should still reflect the specific
requirements of a vintage wine. It can't just be old.
 
"Paul Arthur" wrote

The OP was talking about a wine from Chile though. Most of their stuff is
modest priced filtered wine. Nothing to decant.
 
Ed Pawlowski wrote:

I separate the types of wines that benefit from "breathing" into
two categories.

1. Good/great wines that are made even better by giving them some air

2. Wines with at least some amount of off flavor(s) that can
alleviated from breathing

There are many low cost wines (like Chilean) that fit into category two


--
Mort
 
Re: [email protected]

Dan Abel wrote:


Completely agreed. The the word "vintage" has several different meanings,
just like thousands of other words in the English language, and care must be
taken to avoid ambiguity.

Semantically, the way we sort out words which have multiple meanings is
through the obvious context in which it is used. One needs to be careful of
using such words if there is the possibility of ambiguity created by a less
obvious context known to the speaker but not inherently obvious to the
listener. In this case that less obvious context intended by the writer is
the use of vintage to mean antique or very old wine. Unfortunately the word
"vintage" in the context of a discussion of wine already has a different
long standing and familiar meaning where the two words hook together in
context to form a standard term used to describe wine, the year of harvest.
Using the word in that context but expecting it to be understood as some
different meaning of the word is quite ambiguous and likely to be
misunderstood. And, unless a date appears on the bottle, it is just
incorrect.

The word "vintage" by itself does not mean "old". Vintage can also define a
period of time, of origin, or refer to a specific age range, and should
always be used with such a qualifier. However it does derive from the latin
"vinum" meaning "wine".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vintage
 
wrote:

There is never a reason to decant any wine, if there is sediment just
don't shake it up... oh, I see now... yoose decant into a fancy
schmancy bottle so your guests won't know you're serving
Boone's Farm. Maybe I'll buy some $50 bottle of vodka so I can decant
too! LOL-LOL

What a buncha phony baloney pretentious schmucks!

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. . . .
 
On Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:48:13 -0400, Dave Smith
wrote:


That only proves that when home made and home bottled each bottle is
different... even winerys produce the occasional bad bottle.
 
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:40:09 -0500, "Nunya Bidnits"
wrote:


WTF are "fine wines"... are those like the emperor's new clothes?

A "Fine Wine" is no more definitive than a "Fine Piece of Ass". ;)
 
On Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:53:07 -0400, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


It's very rare to find dregs in any commerially bottled wine, all are
filtered... if you buy direct from a winery before bottling then there
can be dregs... don't shake the bottle. Some pretentious snobs like
to pretend that wine has to breathe so they make a big phony show of
decanting. If someone brought me any commercially bottled spirits
with the seal broken I'd flush it down the toilet.
 
On 21/03/2011 10:54 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:


Sometimes it goes far beyond improper use. Remember a few years ago some
politician or municipal administrator was the subject of a lot of
controversy for using the word "niggardly". It seems that someone of a
particular racial group thought it was a slur against his people. It
seems that there have been numerous complaints, all in the US, over the
use of the word, all from people of the race for whom a racial slur
sounds similar to it.
 
Re: [email protected]

Steve Pope wrote:


But in wine, that is exactly what it means, the year of production. It's
really not a subjective term in that respect. (See another post I made in
this thread on the importance of context to words with multiple meanings.)
Interestingly, while it can mean "of a particular age range or origin" but
also isn't actually synonymous with old. It can mean old or antique, but
requires that context, otherwise vintage can also mean any given time and or
place of origin, for example, artisan beers of late nineties microbrewery
vintage.

It's amazing to me that anyone can learn English later in life as a second
language.
 
Re: [email protected]

Dave Smith wrote:


Sounds like your winemaking friend did something strange or accidentally
made something really good.

Some truly fine, long ageable wines do not taste very good if you open them
right away. I understand this is often true of first growth bordeaux wines
for example.
 
Re: [email protected]

Dave Smith wrote:


Given the poor state of the average person's working vocabulary these days,
a public official might think twice about the wisdom of using that word in
public discussion vs the opportunity to show off their command of the
language. Best case, the average person doesn't understand the message.
Worst case, as you described above.
 
Re: [email protected]

James Silverton wrote:


A lot of old wines throw sediment after long storage in the bottle. This
tends not to happen in table wines. Sweet white wines like Sauternes,
Beeren/Trockenbeerenausleses and Eisweins will throw off a white sediment,
sometimes even looking like small stones. These are easier to see than in
red wines. These sediments are a natural byproduct of aging. Truth be known,
as was explained to me by a research chemist, it is all really a process of
decay, even though we think of aging quality wines as an improvement.

It's just that some decay tastes a lot better than others. ;-)

There are a few unfiltered wines on the market, for example, certain Zins,
but that is not the same as the sediment found in old cellared wines.

And no, it cannot redissolve.

The process of candling (placing a light source under the neck of the bottle
as it is slowly decanted so as to see when the sediment is approaching the
neck) is the time honored traditional way of eliminating sediment. Or you
can just use a filter.

MartyB
 
On 22/03/2011 1:49 PM, Nunya Bidnits wrote:


This was home made from canned grape juice and fermented in plastic
buckets. I would never expect much from it. He feels comfortable making
the stuff and is quite happy with the cheap crap that he produces. I
seriously doubt that whatever he did to it that would make it improve
that much with age was anything but an accident.
 
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