Wines – A glass or the bottle?
My reflection is:
Aren’t wines made to be enjoyed?
Shouldn’t it feel great to drink the wine?
Allow me to explain!
A bottle of wine is intended to be opened and consumed and never was made to be kept open for few days. This is due partly to the size of the bottle I believe, and partly due to the culture – a bottle is opened for lunch and finished at dinner if needed to.
Nothing prevents a wine from changing once the bottle is opened. The fact remains that you can spend money on any gadget to keep the wine somewhat preserved once it’s opened. The wine has been in the contact with the air and will not stop evolving. It will reach its peak taste, followed by deterioration. Some bottles take longer than others.
Your palate will determine at what point you would enjoy it the most.
So, I will get to the point:
It seems to be an ongoing trend to buy these big, inky, excessively bold and expensive wines. The issue here, is that these wine showing excessive concentration aren’t pleasurable to the drinker, therefore one glass is enough.
Or maybe it is enjoyable just for one glass……..but you still PAY THE PRICE OF THE FULL BOTTLE.
On the other end of the spectrum, elegant or balanced wines don’t make you stop and think – you (and your palate) just want more.
So, what is the purpose behind these wines such as those that are unapproachable (in terms of taste and price)?
This leads to my following position about these “reviewed” wines.
The beauty in wines is the diversification and the all pleasure as a result of trying them. “Emotions” it is – we like the wine, or we don’t like it, and that is as it should remain.
What matters most is your satisfaction and the pleasure you are experiencing, and how well you connect with the wines.
Too often, people base their taste on the taste of others – whether they base it on someone who has been given a great deal of credibility over the years, or it is someone who is paid in exchange for a positive review of a wine not deserving of such praise, there are still too many people depending too heavily on the preferences of these critics. And until this still the case, pricing will still high based on reviews.
What we must remember is that all of these people (some of whom who purport to know better) don’t have the same genes, so wines taste differently to each other’s as well. The individual wine drinker needs to develop a sense of his own preferences and his own taste. A person should purchase and drink what he enjoys, rather than simply on reviews and predictions.
Often people mistake considering great wines for wines that can’t be consumed. First, not all wines will actually improve with age. But good wine will improve with time if it has the characteristics (fruit, wood, mineral – in proper balance). But a “bad wine” will still be bad in twenty years or more.
So why give the benefit of the doubt?
Now more than ever, very few people can afford these wines that are supposedly intended for aging and even less to drink them. How many of us can say we have tried some 1961 or 1975…very few, being that they are rare and very expensive.
So why take a position on things that you have never experienced, and maybe will not even like? Times have changed, technique and progress play an important role today in the making of great wines.
So, because these wines are not yet approachable (according to some critics), they are given the credit of great wines. This type of wine has become more of a commodity or money-based market, as opposed to a wine market based on quality. Wines were never made for that.
Realistically speaking, how many people could pretend to have tried all these wines from prominent appellations and at the greatest expense? Very few.
And more importantly, is it what you liked?
Each individual should be determining based on their own palate and preferences, not on palates and preferences of others, particularly when reviews are written about undeserving wines, for the wrong purposes.
And as times change and there is a movement in the direction of a more realistic attitude and approach to wine appreciation.
To those who have started to believe in their own taste, I say, “GOOD FOR YOU.”
So:
• Again, a wine can get better with aging, but it still has to be good when tasted young.
• Why buy a bottle and open it, only to tolerate one glass and then have to save the rest for another time, because the wine is not enjoyable enough maybe…?
The purpose of the wine is to bring pleasure to the consumer.
• Yes, you can invest in a bottle that can improve with age – but you want to know what the wine tastes like if consumed young.
So, stop buying Just on rating or other, but try a bottle before investing in the case.
• What you must ask yourself, is whether the wine is right for your own taste.
Also, a little hint – to enjoy fully your reds should be served around 58 degrees F (Cellar Temperature). It will have plenty of time to open up and give you complete satisfaction.
Rather than to open a wine at so called “room temperature,” approximately 70 degrees – that is too hot. Room temperature meaning all these time as a cellar temperature.
