
How to get the wine you really want - prostoalex
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21709491-how-get-wine-you-really-want-war-terroir
======
lisper
Twenty years ago I was a tea-totaller, but there was a group of people I
wanted to hang out with who would get together to drink wine so I decided to
try to develop a taste for it. I eventually got to be a pretty hard-core wine
snob. My wife and I even ran a wine-tasting group for several years. Then one
day we decided to start doing blind tastings, and we soon learned that there
was very little correlation between what we liked and what the wine critics
and the market liked. The real turning point came when we did a blind tasting
of Cabernets, all from California. The wines ranged from a $5 bottle of
Barefoot cab up to a $100 bottle of Silver Oak. There were twelve of us in the
group and every single one rated the Silver Oak dead last, and the Barefoot
either first or second. Since then we've repeated similar experiments many
times, usually with similar results. We can still freak out wine snob friends
on occasion by sneaking a bottle of Barefoot in to a high-end tasting.

On another occasion we were at a bed-and-breakfast that served afternoon wine
and cheese. The whole room (including us) was raving about how complex and
delicately nuanced the white wine was. It turned out to be Gallo Rhine Wine in
a box.

(BTW, it's absolutely not the case that all cheap wines taste good. We tried
the notorious two-buck chuck and thought it was absolutely horrible.)

The point is: wine snobbery is bullshit. Find what _you_ like and drink that,
and don't pay attention to anything that anyone else says. If Beringer white
zinfandel is what turns you one, more power to you. (Actually, the worst
possible outcome for a real wine fan is to discover that they really do enjoy
Romanee Conti or Screaming Eagle. I really like Opus 1, but I wish I didn't
:-)

So I think this roll-your-own-wine blender is a terrific idea. I can't wait to
try it. (I wish I'd thought of it!)

~~~
tpeo
I don't quite understand why you winos take your critics so seriously in the
first place.

Critics are just people with opinions. Sometimes they can provide good
justification for why whatever they're reviewing is good or bad. But not one
of them is impartial enough that their opinion can be taken at face value,
specially if you're not into the stuff they're pushing.

This is more obvious with film and videogame. It wouldn't matter at all if a
critic I liked ever said that there's this one Adam Sandler movie that
everyone should totally watch. I'm not into that crap.

~~~
crispyambulance
A good friend of mine is actually a food/wine critic. He has said (and I think
this applies to all good critics) that there's nothing special about the
tastes of a critic. Some people may be more sensitive than others but critics
are pretty much in the same population as the rest of us. The difference
between a good critic and someone flapping their gums on Yelp is the ability
TO WRITE something worthwhile about the subject, be it wine or food.

Boiling what a critic says down to "good/bad" or "like/dislike" means the
reader hasn't taken the time to really understand what was said-- or the
critic wasn't very good.

~~~
ogig
I don't fully buy this. I expect my chosen jazz critic to be knowledgeable,
like, a lot. Same for food and wine. I want to read the words of someone who
has eaten on more places, more foods and more flavors than me, not less.

Your friend might be too humble.

~~~
hexane360
But even then, they're not any better at 'tasting well'. You don't have to
care about the fancy properties of the wine, just whether it tastes good to
you.

~~~
ska
The same argument can be brought when comparing top 40 pop music and jazz,
say. There isn't an objective truth to aesthetics, but that doesn't mean that
everyone's opinions has equal depth or nuance.

Some things you get more out of if you choose to spend time with them, but
will in turn change your own sense of it, and the experience you are having.

So in some sense you actually do become "better " at tasting/listening well -
or at least you become more sophisticated. Which doesn't invalidate the
enjoyment that someone else can get from a more superficial engagement, at
all.

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dejv
Winemaker here. I would like to try those wines, but I don't think you will
get good results out of it.

Taste of wine is mostly structural thing: it is created during fermentation by
polymerisation of different compounds. Even mixing different wines don't give
you good results, unless you fiddle with different ratios (I do as much as 10
for cuvee of two wines, trying to find sweet spots) and then letting it settle
for some time.

Well, it might be fun activity, but I am sceptical that you will create wine
that you will actually like.

~~~
hyperbovine
If I understood the article correctly, this machine will probably not create
wine that you (dejv) will actually like, but may well succeed in doing so for
the >99.9% of people who are not winemakers :-)

~~~
dejv
Well, I am sure given enough time I will likely find some ways to get good
enough results out of it.

The quality of end product will be mostly determined by quality of base wines.
But the problem is that wine is multidimensional => say you want sweeter wine
for which they use Muscadet. This wine is not just sweet, you are also adding
whole set of new tastes to the mix: there will be some acidity and different
set of smell.

Will this taste good? I don't know, you might get lucky and find good recipe
or you might mix some weird combination. The thing is that taking 100 ml of
light body wine and 100 ml of heavy body wine will not give you 200 ml of
medium body.

Anyway, I think they will get enough customers just for novelty of it and some
wines might even taste good.

~~~
Retric
I would say the odds improve as you have more options. Worse case the ideal
mix is 100% wine X. But, given a set of wines odds are some mix will end up
being better.

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personlurking
I guess I'm spoiled. I get the wine I really want by living in Portugal.

There's so much good wine here that even the cheap stuff is good quality
(we're talking $3 for a bottle). Unfortunately, I've found myself slightly
allergic to reds (unless I only have a single glass) so a lot of the local
market is off-limits thus I stick to white and 'green' (sweet wine).

I know of some local places here in Lisbon where a small glass of red is 75
cents. The best are Porto's wine 'caves', though, where one can try some
really great varieties - five for 12 bucks. Great value for the quality and
with prices that don't break the bank, it's of course possible to explore more
of what the national market has to offer.

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wtvanhest
I have developed a new theory about wine and selecting bottles you/I like.

The theory is that pallets for wine develop over time as you drink more,
similar to how beer will change. When I was 16, all beer tasted terrible. Then
at 19 we 'upgraded' to bud light.

Now 15 years later I drink for taste and I like IPAs,or other non standard
pilsner.

For me, I'm a beginner wine drinker so I do not want the complexity of fancy
wine. I ask for 'beginner, fruit forward' and not expensive wine and have had
amazing results. The problem is that pallets are different so blind taste
tests won't solve the problem

In 15 years, I'll probably 'upgrade' again.

~~~
cloudjacker
There are also physiological changes that affect this and perception of
anything (and our other senses affect taste).

So really, you can just reduce it down to your age.

~~~
wtvanhest
Good point.

------
achou
I have that Asian gene that limits how much alcohol I can drink, so I never
drank more than a few sips of wine until I was well into my 30s. One day some
friends and I went to a nice restaurant to celebrate a milestone, and we
ordered a ~$120 bottle of syrah based on an app that showed critics' ratings.

It was a revelation. Whenever I had had wine before, I always picked wines
that were considered "approachable." Sweeter, fruitier, and so on. But this
wine was different, highly complex and paired beautifully with food (a first
for me). Afterwards I chased down the wine online and found one of the few
places that sold it, and had a few bottles shipped from across the country.
Trying it again later with my wife, who also rarely drank, she agreed it was
something special. Since then I've explored other wines and have found that my
favorites are generally not the ones that are pushed as approachable for
beginners.

I guess the lesson is, if you want to understand what the fuss is all about,
don't be afraid to try ones that have more to offer than fruit and sugar.
Tannins, full-bodied structure, and balance can be extraordinary.

I have found that there tends to be a sweet spot around $40-100/bottle for the
best quality/price. Though to be fair, there are plenty of good wines for
less, and plenty of duds in that range and above.

------
DonaldFisk
Before reading the article I thought it was going to be about taking people's
DNA samples and using that to select the wine
([https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2016/10/us-startup-
claims-...](https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2016/10/us-startup-claims-it-
can-match-wine-to-your-dna/)) or using the phase of the moon
([http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive...](http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/08/09/377901/index.htm))
but it actually sounds quite sensible.

I occasionally drink wine (in the restricted sense, i.e. made from grapes),
but I prefer beer. There's a lot more variation in flavour (because there are
at least four ingredients in beer, and umpteen different recipes), and even
the very best beers - things like Trappist ales - aren't obscenely expensive.

------
noir-york
Quelle horreur!

 _They found that most customers are stick-in-the-muds. Instead of sampling
different regions, grape varieties and vintages, they tend to order the same
plonk every time they go out._

And the solution isn't the Vinfusion, its getting rid of the snobbery and not
making people feel like fools for not knowing their wine.

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dec0dedab0de
I was hoping this would be a guide to tweaking the linux wine. This does sound
neat though, kind of like the paint mixing machines at department stores with
a personality test on top. I wonder how far this could go, maybe something
could suggest different ingredients based on your mood, and what mood you want
to be in. Or maybe even using various biometrics to determine your overall
"state" and the best way to alter it.... Just Friday afternoon musings.

------
buckbova
> Traditionalists may be appalled by all this, but they should not be. In Mr
> Wimalaratne’s mind, the function of the Vinfusion system is in principle
> little different from the blending of grape varieties that goes on in many
> vineyards, to produce wines more interesting than those based on a single
> variety.

After spending a couple weeks in central coast and napa recently, tasting
probably ~100 glasses, this kind of sounds insulting. Especially after seeing
how much effort goes into cultivating the grapes, crafting these wines, and
how they're stored and aged.

I get it though and perhaps this will work for some bar/restaurant. Whatever
happened to house red or house white for those who don't care or know?

~~~
Grishnakh
Yep, it's insulting in just the same way it's insulting that people now
program computers with high-level languages like C++, Java, Erlang, Python,
Lua, etc., instead of using patch cables or punch cards. Or in the same way
that people now just get on a jet airplane for $200-500 and fly across the
country, instead of using a covered wagon and worrying about being attacked by
natives.

The "house red" isn't something that everyone likes. Would you go to a
restaurant that only has one dish for dinner, with no choices at all? I
wouldn't. Most people seem to like dry wines; personally I hate those.
Ordering "house red" is likely to get me something I don't want to drink, so
why would I do that? That's like going to an ice cream shop where there's no
choices, and I get served some tapioca with nuts in it (i.e., ice cream I
really hate).

~~~
buckbova
> it's insulting in just the same way it's insulting that people now program
> computers with high-level languages like C++, Java, Erlang, Python, Lua,
> etc., instead of using patch cables or punch cards

It's hardly the same thing. Someone still has to produce the wine and then
it's blended by the machine. For a software comparison it's probably the
difference between hand crafted software by a group of professionals and
someone picking a wordpress template and adding plugins.

> The "house red" isn't something that everyone likes. Would you go to a
> restaurant that only has one dish for dinner, with no choices at all?

The "house red" is still a glass of wine from a bottle, just not chosen by the
patron. There's still a wine list to choose from for the more picky customers.
Restaurants also have something called the "special of the day" or "chef
recommended" and that's basically what we're talking about here. You can go to
the menu or take the "special."

------
makeset
There's an excellent opportunity to apply machine learning here to
automatically let you discover what you like. Starting from a set of varietals
and/or random blends, it would generate new blends based on your rating
feedback, eventually converging towards your preferred tastes. In addition to
arriving at your optimal wine(s), a further analysis of the results (plus
qualitative labels from experts) could also generate knowledge useful to you
elsewhere, like "You like full-bodied left-bank Bordeaux, and also California
Merlots. You dislike light-bodied wines in general."

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phmagic
The article mentions the customer configuring 3 sliders of wine
characteristics, that might be too much decision making for me at a
restaurant.

I'd still ask a sommelier standing nearby to pick something for me.

------
ArkyBeagle
The trouble I have with wine is that I pretty much like all wine. I don't like
extremely sweet wines, or very light in color wines because they're usually
too sweet. But in my range, I can't really tell the difference.

So the $3.00 WalMart Oak Leaf is just fine with me.

I've read wine snob reviews of it, and they tend to be "hey, not bad."

------
woliveirajr
There are wines that suit your taste and wines that don't.

I'm acetic that all wine recommendations are good.

------
toyg
The "70% disappointed" figure has nothing to do with anything but the fact
that 95% of UK restaurants and pubs sell _appalling_ wine. A merlot is a
merlot, but if you can only order shit merlot you'll be disappointed
regardless.

------
hairy_man674
In South Africa, our family troll past-time at parties was to re-label wine we
brought. We used the same wine everytime (our personal favourite) and
disguised it with some fake fancy label.

------
munificent
> Instead of sampling different regions, grape varieties and vintages, they
> tend to order the same plonk every time they go out.

Of course they do! The problem with wine is that the _user experience of
selecting one is shitty_. If you study how users work, to get them to explore,
you need a couple of things:

1\. They need signals and affordances to give them hints as to which new
actions are most likely to be what they want.

2\. After they have made a choice, they need to be able to quickly get
feedback to determine if it was what they wanted.

3\. They need to be confident that if they try an action and it isn't what
they want, that they can retract their attempt easily and without negative
consequences.

Wine fails at pretty much all of these.

1\. The packaging and terminology around wine is inscrutable. The labels
usually mention brand (sometimes), location, and variety. As far as I know,
most of those have little internal correlation. Two wines from the same winery
can taste totally different. Likewise, two wines from the same area, and using
the same variety. If I like, say, Chateau LeBlah Merlot from Bordeaux, that
doesn't give me much confidence that I can predict what Chateau LeBlah's
Cabernet is like, or a Bordeaux with a different variety, or whatever.

The label also tells you the year and the price. Again, those numbers often do
not correlate with anything I can easily discern in the taste of the wine.

2\. This is half there. I can take a sip and tell if I like it. Well, except
that doesn't work out as well as you'd expect. Food and environment has a huge
impact on taste. There is also the social experience of drinking. If a friend
says, "Oh my God, you have to try this, it's amazing!" then it probably will
taste better to me.

If I like a glass, did I really like it, or did I just like the experience? Or
did I feel pressured to like it? Or did the high price tag convince me I
_should_ have liked it and if I didn't I just don't have a refined enough
palate? Should I stick with it to see if I acquire a taste and understand what
all the fuss is about?

3\. In theory, most restaurants let you try a taste before you commit. But
that in itself is a high pressure social act. The rest of my companions will
watch my taste it and pass judgement. It's stressful being on the spot.

Usually, I just pick something and stick with it. If I'm not enthused about
it, I'll slowly work my way through it sip by sip. I would feel weird ordering
something else with a full glass sitting there. And I don't want to just gulp
it down to move on to another glass because I don't want to drink too much.

If I'm buying wine at a grocery store, there's less social pressure, but I'm
even more committed. I have to buy a whole bottle, and I can't return it.

Of _course_ people stick with the one or two wines they know. The whole system
points directly to that as rational behavior.

~~~
epitron
Applying usability to wine is a great way to improve the experience. Great
post.

Someone in Japan tried to tackle the problem by setting up a sake tasting room
with 120 vending machines:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM8pMZrBGRI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM8pMZrBGRI)
(Japanese video)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNRvfMihI0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNRvfMihI0)
(English video)

It solves a few of the usability problems: there's a top ten most popular
sakes list on the wall, you're buying it from a machine which removes any peer
pressure, each sake has notes on the front about the type and acidity level,
and they give you a cucumber to cleanse your palette in between drinks.

------
cmdrfred
I worked at a very high end restaurant for a while. To me it appears that wine
tasting is an attempt to justify going out and drinking for most people. Wine
snob sounds better than functioning alcoholic.

------
JohnStrange
The awesome thing about wine is that you don't know what you want until you
accidentally find another great wine.

------
dredmorbius
I'm looking at a set of areas in which information acquisition is difficult,
and in which choices or decisions have very strongly social implications.
These are quite frequently areas in which choice is very strongly ruled by
fads or fashions -- strong and often rapid shifts in preferences, but without
a long-term persistence -- a winner in any one period will be likely to revert
to mean in another (though other influences may sway this).

The areas I've identified:

1\. Clothing and fashion -- the _practical_ reasons for distinctions are few,
and often _counter_ the popular choices. But these have a _very_ high
signalling rate for social status and alignment.

2\. Management practices. Here, the problem is that determining _actual_
quality is quite expensive, most especially in time (results may take years,
and there's a high noise element to measurement). At the same time, adoption
signals group allegiance and has strong carry-on effects with in a market
(consulting services, training, education, organisational systems, etc.).

3\. Programming languages, tools, operating systems, editors. As with
management tools, measurement is hard and takes a long time. At the same time,
there are network and lock-in effects which can develop, as well as
organisational and market-signalling effects.

4\. Food and diets. "Fad diet" is a well-developed concept, going back to the
1960s. The concept of food as a social identifier is much, much older, and can
be an element in keeping social groups separate or allowing for their
integration. The segregation of Chinese and Muslim populations in Indonesia,
for example, derives in part from the affinity for pork by the first and
absolute aversion by the second group. That's contrasted to the situation in
Thailand, where the Buddhist indigenous population doesn't have a pork
aversion and mixes far more freely with the Chinese immigrant elite (from Amy
Chua, Harvard scholar and author).

5\. Pop music. Beyond a certain base musicality, hit tunes in the 1940s -
2000s were largely a result of both highly focused marketing and some degree
of organic development. Experiments with "artificial" hits (within selected
group populations) has seen different choices evolve within different groups,
from the same base set of songs. Again, music is very highly associated with
social identity.

6\. Wine. Fads emerge here because it seems so difficult to objectively
identify _and communicate_ distinguishing characteristics among different
wines. The market offerings are huge, and quite confusing, with information
aquisition by individuals difficult and expensive. Choices are very strongly
influenced by advertising, marketing, and chance exposure.

There are numerous other goods or behaviours which could be treated similarly.
Sports choices, physical fitness training modalities, books (like wine:
expensive to judge), etc., etc.

------
sdegutis
Not a fan of wine in general, it's too sweet. Even the dry ones.

~~~
projektfu
Poe's law strikes again. I honestly can't tell if this is satire. Entertaining
either way on several levels.

------
fatdog
I've had a lot of fancy bottles in a lot of fancy places, but all things
equal, I've never tasted a good wine in poor company.

------
draw_down
Most wine I have in a restaurant is good. If they do a good job picking wines
there shouldn't be a problem and you should trust their staff. If they don't
have good wine selection I guess you could get a glass of wine from this
thing, but it's probably a better idea to get something they do a good job of
selecting. After all not much sense in trying to find the best wine in a beer
bar.

If they don't do a good job selecting things then why are you there?!

------
baldfat
I want a WINE that runs all the Windows programs in Windows without a hiccup
(Adobe Suite included) but then again as a HACKER WINE means Wine Is Not an
Emulator.

[https://www.winehq.org](https://www.winehq.org)

~~~
johan_larson
But does WINE scale out smoothly?

Can you find staff who know how to work with WINE, once you land that fat VC
series A check and are ready to hire?

And can anyone afford WINE in the Bay area, given the housing situation?

