Convert money to happiness by occasionally spending it on expensive wine

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 I enjoy a nice wine, but I'm not all that knowledgeable... ... And there are so many wines on the shelf, I tend not to remember which ones we liked or not. It's easier for me with beer...

Same here with me. I am not picky about wine. Unless a wine is really bad, I do not care that much. It's not that I cannot tell differences between bottles, but if asked which of the two bottles I like more, I do not really know. I guess I also do not care enough to remember the nuances between bottles.

However, when it comes to stronger stuff, I often have a definite preference. For example, when it comes to gin, I strongly prefer Bombay Sapphire.

[MooreBonds]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound * Feel free to substitute your favorite poison here. And when it comes to Cognac, my wife bought me these expensive bottles. When I buy them myself, a $50-60 bottle gets me just as happy. Yes, money can buy happiness, but the frugal ones never stop considering cost/benefit ratios. They can then buy happiness in higher volumes.

+1!

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff I can easily drop $40-$50 a bottle at a restaurant but I always end up with the good enough $10 wine at the store. I love wine so I should probably splurge once in a while. You can get a lot better for $20-$30 at the wine store than you can for $50 at a restaurant.

Often times, that $50/bottle in the restaurant is the same $15-$30/bottle wine you can purchase retail, before the restaurant adds their markup.

[bmcgonig]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Maybe you could help, or another poster - but years ago, I recall being served a Zinfandel that was described as 'spicy', and I thought that description fit, and I loved that wine (of course I do not recall the label). Lately, I don't seem to find Zins that I would call 'spicy' - -at least not to that level. A friend of mine claims they have mostly been 'dumbed down', and you have to pay some big bucks and ask around to find a truly spicy Zin. Any truth to that? I suppose I should ask when I'm at a good wine store, I always forget. -ERD50

Al the wines that I've tasted that could be described as spicy were Syrahs, if I remember correctly. I do like spicy wines.

[Danmar]

We generally don't spend more than $20-25 for white wine and a little more for red. Our palettes are not that well developed but usually the $25 chard tastes a little better than the $10 one. Not always worth the extra$ but usually we think it is. I have recently developed a taste for Stella Artois beer and can certainly tell the difference.

[FIREd]

I tasted a truly spicy Zinfandel from Rombauer in Napa earlier this year. I thought at the time that it would be very good with something like pumpkin as it had a slight nutmeg flavor. I am not a fan of zins in general, but that particular one was both very good and quite expensive.

[Tree-dweller]

Uh-oh!!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...ists-warn.html

[kaudrey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Maybe you could help, or another poster - but years ago, I recall being served a Zinfandel that was described as 'spicy', and I thought that description fit, and I loved that wine (of course I do not recall the label). Lately, I don't seem to find Zins that I would call 'spicy' - -at least not to that level. A friend of mine claims they have mostly been 'dumbed down', and you have to pay some big bucks and ask around to find a truly spicy Zin. Any truth to that? I suppose I should ask when I'm at a good wine store, I always forget. -ERD50

ERD50 - it depends on what you want to spend, of course. If you buy an "old vines" zin, they tend to be spicier. Try Four Vines Zin. Frog's Leap is pretty good, and actually, Francis Ford Coppola's isn't bad.

[braumeister]

Threads like this always make me smile because I much prefer a great beer to a great wine, and the price difference is enormous.

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister Threads like this always make me smile because I much prefer a great beer to a great wine, and the price difference is enormous.

For me a good beer is just as enjoyable, each has it moment. Unfortunately I like beer more than it likes me. Still, to expand on an earlier unexplained link, it looks like there may soon be problems with wine prices rising due to shortage.

Quote:

Economists have warned that the world is headed for a wine shortage as vineyards struggle to keep pace with steadily rising demand.

[NW-Bound]

But, but, but only a few years ago, there was a wine glut all around the world. In Europe, the gummint had to buy excess wine to distill into ethanol to help vintners, and paid around a dime for a liter. Even actor Depardieu's vineyard had problem selling anything.

What changed? Did we convince the Chinese to drink wine? After getting them to drink Coke instead of tea? And beer? Where's the demand coming from? This capitalist investor likes to know.

PS. OK, I saw the article. It's not demand going up, but supply going down.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister Threads like this always make me smile because I much prefer a great beer to a great wine, and the price difference is enormous.

There is just so much more variety and complexity in beer as opposed to wine. I occasionally have a Sauvignon blanc as it goes nicely with certain foods, and for some meals I might go from a Cab, up through a Zin or Syrah/Shiraz, a Merlot or maybe a Pinot Noir.

Reminds me of a keynote address I listened to on a podcast - might have been Sam Koch of Sam Adams, or Sam Calgione of Dogfish Head, but he said something like ' When a vintner starts his day, the only question is - skins or no skins'.

Obviously an exaggeration to make a point, but clearly beer has so much more variety, and I find it much more interesting.

Not so sure about the affordability difference - if you are happy with a $10 bottle of wine, that's 3-4 servings, or 2 generous servings. A $10 six-pack of craft brew - call it 3 servings? Not much difference. Of course, two cases (8 six-packs) brewed for $40 or less is half that.

-ERD50

[HFWR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound ...if I cannot tell the difference, I will not pay for the difference.

+1000

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha Wine equals alcohol, which of course we probably wouldn't be drinking if we were good people. Ha

So be it...

[NW-Bound]

I often think that my palate is defective. When I read descriptions of some wines, I would try to analyze the flavor to see if I would detect the various floral notes, the scents of fruits, various berries like they described. I failed!

Peasant's taste, peasant's budget, millionaire bank accounts. It works for me so far.

[ejman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound <SNIP> Peasant's taste, peasant's budget, millionaire bank accounts. It works for me so far.

Wow, me thinks you be onto something pretty significant here NW -Bound -the essence of the ER philosophy.

[NW-Bound]

I've got to tell a real story here.

Not being a connaisseur of wine, I buy wine pretty much haphazardly from various grocery stores like Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Fresh & Easy, etc... And I rarely go above $10/bottle, so my wines are fairly lowbrow.

Then, one time I had a bottle of Chardonnay that I liked so much. Needless to say, I did not remember where I bought it, so I soaked the bottle to keep the label, so that I could buy another one. Remember that this is a guy who drinks wine somewhat indiscriminately. Yet, he found something that was personally memorable.

For the next few months, whenever I frequented our usual grocery stores, I would look for that bottle. Nope! So, I thought perhaps it was discontinued, and gave up the search.

Then, on an RV trip, while stopping at a Walmart, we walked through the store as we usually do, and I saw my favorite bottle there! So, what happened was that I picked up that bottle on an earlier RV trip and forgot about it. For some reasons, we do not shop for groceries at Walmart when we are at home, hence my search for that bottle was in vain.

I would be embarrassed to tell y'all what that inexpensive bottle was, so it shall remain unnamed.

PS. Just now, it occurs to me that I could have looked for it on the Web. I can be so absent-minded, it scares me sometimes.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound I would be embarrassed to tell y'all what that inexpensive bottle was, so it shall remain unnamed.

Sutter Home, Arbor Mist, Woodbridge, or...heh...Oak Leaf Vineyards.

[NW-Bound]

Another personal story. When in Spain a few years ago, I picked up a bottle of inexpensive white wine in a grocery store. It was a few euros as I remember. It was so thin and lousy, which would make two-buck chuck here taste like a million buck. See! My palate is bad, but not that bad, and it could still tell something.

The above is not to say that Spain does not have good wine, but rather that due to higher COL, 2-buck chuck in the US beats the pants off 2-euro chuck on the other side of the pond.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Sutter Home, Arbor Mist, Woodbridge, or...heh...Oak Leaf Vineyards.

I am not tellin'.

I still frequent this forum, and I have a bit of reputation left to protect, I think. I am a bit bashful that my taste is so pedestrian, that I like something so common.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 There is just so much more variety and complexity in beer as opposed to wine...

I do not drink everyday, but I give equal opportunity to all alcoholic beverages, and have to disagree with you although I am not an expert in anything.

I think a beer's taste and flavor is much more pronounced than that of a wine, which is subtler and may require a more delicate palate.

As for me, I usually drink with food, and I often pay more attention to the food. Perhaps I need to concentrate more on the drink to appreciate it appropriately.

[NW-Bound]

It appears that few people read the linked article in the OP's post.

The author does not say that the expensive wine makes the drinker happy because it is guaranteed to be good. It is mainly because it is expensive!

You can do a scientific analysis of more than 6,000 wine tastings, which found a negative correlation between price and quality. Or you can look at the wines which win medals at wine competitions, where it turns out that winning one competition gives you no greater likelihood of winning the next one, and where if you enter the same wine two or three times in the same competition, it can appear all over the place in the final results.

The more you spend on a wine, the more you like it. It really doesn’t matter what the wine is at all. But when you’re primed to taste a wine which you know a bit about, including the fact that you spent a significant amount of money on, then you’ll find things in that bottle which you love. You can call this Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome if you want, but I like to think that there’s something real going on.

The author went on to explain that if we spend a lot of money on a bottle, we would pay more attention when drinking it, and more readily discover its quality. And if we are happy, then that's money well spent.

But my frugal self think that, conversely, inexpensive wines also have qualities which we do not care to discover due to our prejudice. Remember a recent thread about movie going, where people oohh and aahh at Sandra Bullock's butts, which may belong to a body double?

As for me, I happened to like that bottle which I forgot that I got from Walmart. I have not tried it again, but wonder if my being conscious of its origin would adversely affect my enjoyment of it. If so, that would be sad.