
The Jefferson Bottles (2007) - misiti3780
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/09/03/the-jefferson-bottles
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mmaunder
So much around wine is bullshit. I lived in Bordeaux for a year and was
involved in wine tourism indirectly. It's all about emotion, the placebo
effect and social proof. Good article. I lol'd at the "notes of undergrowth"
in one section. Wonder what undergrowth tastes like and how she knows. (FT
wine reviewer)

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barrkel
Usually undergrowth means mushroomy, savoury, usually characteristic of pinot
noir especially from Burgundy. I've been told it's increased by including
stems in fermentation. It is a thing and it can be tasted; I'm not sure
undergrowth is the best word for it, but it's a translation on a French word
approximately meaning forest floor: the mulch of rotting leaves etc. It's more
about smell as a component of taste than actual experience of eating rotting
leaves.

There are undoubtedly different flavours in differently made wines. Spend time
tasting and it's evident that grape, region, style and age all have big
effects. But pairing, sequencing and intoxication also affect how wine is
perceived, apart from the psychological effect of price / label, and
ultimately it's subjective. Some people like alcoholic grape juice. Others
like loads of tannins because it's what they associated with wines they were
told were "big". Fashions change too.

Drink around and buy more of what you like, is my rule.

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sverige
This sounds so much like art forgery. No one wants to really dig too much
since there's so much money at stake.

Btw, I've got the PS-1 that Tom Hall used to write the code for DooM if anyone
is interested. ;)

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tbrock
What is a PS-1? PS/2 I've used but never heard of PS1

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theoh
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/1)

It was compact and had an interesting style of case: plastic and clearly
"designed" with style in mind. I just discovered that Richard Sapper was
involved in some PS/1 design.

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kevin_thibedeau
Seems more of a treatise on what the rich kids of the 0.1% do to stave off
their boredom after having everything in life given to them.

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onetwotree
Isn't it unreal that there are people who spend millions of dollars to figure
out if 200 year old bottles of booze are really 200 years old?

I don't normally rage against the rich, but reading this article made me
fantasize about locking a couple dozen raging alcoholics in Bill Koch's wine
cellar for a week.

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keithpeter
_" He especially loved wines that predated the phylloxera epidemic of the late
nineteenth century, when a grape-vine pest decimated Europe’s vineyards,
forcing growers to replant with phylloxera-resistant rootstocks from North
America."_

So we are all drinking New World wines. I was unaware of this and I find it
sort of satisfying to know about.

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nstj
> The most basic difference between Old World and New World wines is
> geographic: "Old World" refers to the traditional winegrowing regions of
> Europe, while "New World" refers to everything else.[0]

So while the root stock is _technically_ "New World" I wouldn't characterise
the wines themselves as such.

As an analogy, you could describe Java as an OO language but if you use it to
write a program in a procedural style that doesn't make your program OO.

[0]:
[http://www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/5204](http://www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/5204)

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wtbob
If you enjoyed this, I can recommend The Billionaire's Vinegar, which is a
great book about this sort of thing.

