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Want to pick up a bottle of wine on your way out of the country through Pearson? Hope you want Ontario wine, bitches!
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Nov 2, 2018 18:05
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Are the places like the Wine Rack or grocery stores bound by the same policies as the LCBO? E: I think you can get Champagne at YYZ too.
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Nov 2, 2018 18:13
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Subjunctive posted:Are the places like the Wine Rack or grocery stores bound by the same policies as the LCBO? They're bound by stricter policies, and they're all also owned by single corporations which represent exclusively their own brands. We just got wine in grocery stores about two years ago, but the licences are extremely scarce (less than 10% of grocery stores have them) and the selection is still 100% coming through the LCBO or local. And yeah the YYZ selection is not 100% local. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that if they actually featured decent Ontario wine, but it's almost all Peller-owned bulk-wine-in-a-cool-climate trash.
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Nov 2, 2018 18:36
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Subjunctive posted:E: I think you can get Champagne at YYZ too. Maybe it's changed since I went through last, but I was specifically looking for Champagne and they had none, at least not in the terminal WestJet used for international departures.
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Nov 2, 2018 18:40
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Trying to learn me some white Rhône, had the 2013 Domaine des Tours vin de pays de Vaucluse blanc. Very interesting nose, tons of honey, almost heather honey, real pungent. Yellow tropical fruit with some dried fruit in there as well, closest comparison I could think of was Sauternes, even if it's dry. Funny how it has VdP in the name, but is classified as IGP. I got triggered by the low classification vs relatively high price ($36), figured it was some super-Tuscan-ish genius producer. Turns out it's quite famous and the red is called "baby Rayas". Had a Rayas 2003 not too long ago, perhaps not a perfect year for it but definitely something I want to know better. Anyone know this producer? Should I seek out the red? Also looking for other tips on white Rhône, apart from "buy expensive Condrieu, cellar for 20 years". Young, accessible stuff, but quality. White Crozes-Hermitage is a little tricky to get hold of here, is it boring/flabby or worth trying? Ola fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Nov 7, 2018 |
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Nov 7, 2018 19:42
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Ola posted:white Rhône Low end, but great QPR: Pontificis Viognier-Roussanne-Marsanne available at Trader Joes. I would be ok if VRM became a "thing" like GSM. Also Chapoutier Côtes du Rhône Blanc is widely available and pretty good. I've heard White Hermitage can be legendary but that's more than I usually want to pay.
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Nov 7, 2018 20:30
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Comb Your Beard posted:Low end, but great QPR: Pontificis Viognier-Roussanne-Marsanne available at Trader Joes. I would be ok if VRM became a "thing" like GSM. Also Chapoutier Côtes du Rhône Blanc is widely available and pretty good. I've heard White Hermitage can be legendary but that's more than I usually want to pay. Thanks! I'm in Norway though, it doesn't look like Pontificis is distributed here. Chapoutier most def is though. I've often found white CdRs to be flabby, but I trust completely in whatever Chapoutier does. And yeah, I too have heard much about white Hermitage, I've tasted a few young ones and had the same experience as I do with Condrieu. You can sense a whole bunch of power and stuffing, but you know it needs eons of cellaring to eek out expressive and complex notes. So seeking out some aged bottles is also on the agenda, but finding accessible QPR is the main mission.
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Nov 7, 2018 20:43
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Ola posted:Trying to learn me some white Rhône, had the 2013 Domaine des Tours vin de pays de Vaucluse blanc. Very interesting nose, tons of honey, almost heather honey, real pungent. Yellow tropical fruit with some dried fruit in there as well, closest comparison I could think of was Sauternes, even if it's dry. Funny how it has VdP in the name, but is classified as IGP. I got triggered by the low classification vs relatively high price ($36), figured it was some super-Tuscan-ish genius producer. Rayas is a top top producer, 100% grenache from cdp. In the more perfumed direction. Tends to be very expensive at least in the states - check out some of their young vines/other labels like Fonsalette and Pignan (some controversy over whether just younger vines from same vineyard or different wine) which should be easier to find and less expensive. Louis Cheze 'Pagus Luminus' Condrieu is awesome. I'm in NYC so I don't know how easy it is to find.
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Nov 9, 2018 05:41
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Speaking of Rayas, and other top producers, I came across this youtube channel with great wine vids. All in French, no subs, but there you go. Coche-Dury bottling by hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRSz-1Lq7qc Chave making Hermitage '14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgqIkVf1wxs Latest video is from Rayas with some beautiful footage and a very relaxed cellar tour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqqg_NRLOEs
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Nov 14, 2018 21:44
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So, I am mostly a beer guy, enjoying sour/funky beers and Saison in particular. As far as wine is concerned I like it, especially with food, but I never really got excited about it before I discovered extra brut / zero nature champagne and white skin-contact / orange wines. Fad-appeal aside, I like really dry wines, often with some tannins and minerality. Stone fruit and citrus are a plus, and a bit of tropical fruity funk, dusty earthiness or brineyness are not dealbreakers. Fizz is fun but not mandatory. I am trying to branch out a little; Riesling is okay, but I rarely drink something that really stands out for me. Soave mostly comes across as apple and citrus, which is a little boring; sometimes I feel they are too sour to drink a decent amount of without the right pairing. NZ Sauvignon Blanc can get a bit cloying with the implied sweetness. The style I have had most success with is Sancerre, but I can't quite articulate why. Does anyone have any recommendations on what to try? thotsky fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Nov 22, 2018 |
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Nov 22, 2018 10:38
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Biomute posted:The style I have had most success with is Sancerre, but I can't quite articulate why. Does anyone have any recommendations on what to try? Dry, stonefruit/citrus/minerality as high points make me immediately think of Albariño from Northern Spain (Rias Baixas is the big-name region for that kind of production). Try that and see how it goes. Spain's sparkling wines, usually but not always called Cava, are also usually pretty fun, in my opinion. They're produced in the same method as Champagne, instead of the bad and shameful method used for Prosecco (I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but not entirely, because I loving hate prosecco), but are generally way loving cheaper because they aren't nearly as good. It's a bit of a minefield because there are some terrible, terrible examples, but if you just want a nice sparkling wine to drink casually for not a whole bunch of money, the higher-quality ones fit the bill. Franciacorta is also pretty exciting -- it's an Italian sparkling wine produced in the same way as Cava and Champagne, and is vastly underrated and basically unknown because Prosecco has sucked up all the air in the room when it comes to Italian sparkling wines.
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Nov 22, 2018 18:16
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Oh man, funky white wines that appeal to beer nerds are my favorite poo poo. Try some Vouvray and Muscadet. White wines from Loire that are traditionally bottled with yeast sediment and have a lot of that sort of character. Muscadet is bone-dry and high acidity with lemon and stone notes, and Vouvray is generally lower acidity with a really unique oily animal fur kind of thing. Sounds weird but you'll know it when you taste it.
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Nov 22, 2018 18:36
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Definitely give dry pet-nat wines a try. They fit what you're looking for spot-on: funky, leesy, often mineral. Be warned though, they're almost all made with very-little-to-no sulphur dioxide, so you will often find some flavours that many find very off putting, from Brettanomyces, which you're almost certainly familiar with, to mouse taint, which I'd consider one of the foulest tastes in the universe. So if the first example you try happens to taste like drinking a bottle of dog vomit, don't necessarily write off the entire category. Another oddball you will probably like are the dry unfortified wines being aged under flor yeast, such as Equipo Navazos OVNI. They are dominated by yeast-derived umami-heavy flavours very similar to dry Sherry such as fish sauce and bitter almond. You might like dry Sherry as well, especially Manzanilla, and it'll be easier to find than the above.
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Nov 22, 2018 19:18
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poop dood posted:Oh man, funky white wines that appeal to beer nerds are my favorite poo poo. Try some Vouvray and Muscadet. White wines from Loire that are traditionally bottled with yeast sediment and have a lot of that sort of character. Muscadet is bone-dry and high acidity with lemon and stone notes, and Vouvray is generally lower acidity with a really unique oily animal fur kind of thing. Sounds weird but you'll know it when you taste it. Oooh, yeah, I forgot about those. Definitely try those as well!
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Nov 22, 2018 19:27
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poop dood posted:Try some Vouvray and Muscadet. Will do, thanks! Kasumeat posted:give dry pet-nat wines a try This one restaurant I like (and where I got into "natural" / orange wines in the first place) has added a bunch of pet nat to their wine lists so I'll try one of those next time I go. OVNI is sold out from the monopoly at the moment, but they'll tell me when they get more. There is a Basque place that seems to have a lot of the Equipo Navazos lineup so I will remember to ask when I go back there. Cheers. PT6A posted:Dry, stonefruit/citrus/minerality as high points make me immediately think of Albariño from Northern Spain (Rias Baixas is the big-name region for that kind of production). Thanks, I'll look into the Albariño; I think I might have had that before, but that might have been something picked at random in a store while on vacation so I don't really retain any impression of it. My experience with Cava thus far has been that it seems somehow generic (probably bias), and I'd sort of come to the conclusion that I'd be better off just saving my money and getting a bottle of champagne a week or two later in hope of discovering cool super-complex stuff like the bottles of Cedric Bouchard/Roses de Jeanne and Pierre Gimonnet Non Dose that got me hooked in the first place (there's really no "cheap" alcohol in my country due to very high tax). Still, it's not like Cava tastes bad, and I'm sure there is a lot of variety so if you have any specific bottle recommendations I'll give it a shot. thotsky fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Nov 22, 2018 |
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Nov 22, 2018 20:59
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Biomute posted:My experience with Cava thus far has been that it seems somehow generic (probably bias), and I'd sort of come to the conclusion that I'd be better off just saving my money and getting a bottle of champagne a week or two later in hope of discovering cool super-complex stuff like the bottles of Cedric Bouchard/Roses de Jeanne and Pierre Gimonnet Non Dose that got me hooked in the first place (there's really no "cheap" alcohol in my country due to very high tax). Still, it's not like Cava tastes bad, and I'm sure there is a lot of variety so if you have any specific bottle recommendations I'll give it a shot. Cedric Bouchard's stuff is top loving notch, I really can't blame you for loving it  In terms of higher-end Cava producers that I really like, my go-tos are Raventos i Blanc and Agusti Torello Mata, both of which are well above average quality of generic Cava. Indeed, the former felt the Cava name was dragging them down, and decided to stop using it entirely because it had been de-valued by the flood of crap with the Cava designation on it. Agusti Torello Mata in particular does some really nifty stuff that sets it apart from other Cava and even Champagne. They make a Gran Reserva that's fermented and aged in oak before being bottled, which makes for a really cool, unusual flavour profile for a sparkling wine in general. My favourite Cava at a low price-point is Villa Conchi. It ain't amazing, but it's a significant step above Freixinet and that sort of thing in quality.
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Nov 22, 2018 21:54
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As a fellow Norwegian, Biomute will shop his naturals or pet nats through the government wine monopoly, which has a pretty good quality filter on those. I think the pet nats might be too "filtered", in the import selection sense, because many of them are too boring to be funky natural and not good enough to be chosen over a cremant or other traditional sparkling - and more expensive than those as well. As in many other areas, old cheap peasant production methods are suddenly expensive artisanal boutique ones. Some suggestions to add to the others: . Casa Belfi. https://www.vinmonopolet.no/vmp/search/?q=casa+belfi They have a prosecco on the lees ("colfondo") which is really nice. Not at all sodastream pear juice like normal prosecco, but leesy, funky, rich and acidic. The rosé is also colfondo, quite dark and with loads of berry. Haven't tasted the two other ones, they look very exciting. Riffault Sancerre - completely different from the rest of Sancerre AOC, very trendy style but great quality and personality IMO. Higher end Rieslings, if you haven't gone there already. Producers which are widely available and have great quality bottles that don't need cellaring: Bassermann-Jordan, Zind-Humbrecht, Immich-Batterieberg, Kühling-Gillot and Battenfeld-Spanier. What's the deal with Riesling and hyphens anyway? Any store in Norway will have some of them, ask which ones are dry and minerally if you haven't searched in advance, some of them are off-dry and sweet. Perhaps branch over into Burgundy and see if you like that as well, look for Roche de Bellene for great quality/price that's easy to find.
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Nov 22, 2018 22:00
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Biomute posted:There is a Basque place that seems to have a lot of the Equipo Navazos lineup so I will remember to ask when I go back there. Cheers. Speaking of Basque wines, be on the lookout for Txakoli. It's fizzy, dry and low alcohol. Pretty delicious stuff. There's a wine bar I go to that has been serving a lot of Portuguese whites lately, including some delicious sparkling wine. I think they'd be in your wheelhouse: dry, mineral, saline, etc. Can't remember the names off the top of my head, but I'll look some up and report back. Re: Cava, my experience with it matched yours until I went to Spain this year. Turns out that a lot of the good stuff just stays in Spain and most of what we import (at least in the US) is mediocre at best. I've had much better luck with the various non-Champagne sparkling wines from France: Cremant d'Alsace, Cremant de Bourgogne, Cremant de Loire, etc.
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Nov 22, 2018 22:25
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If you want dry rieslings, I can’t recommend a better one than Donnhoff Hermanshole GG. Fantastic acidity, minerality and dry as a stone river.
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Nov 22, 2018 22:51
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Yes, all the classic Riesling producers have amazing quality. Dönnhoff, Von Buhl, Keller, it goes on for a long time. But they're often not that approachable fresh from the store. Dryness is not a problem, there's hardly anyone worth mentioning that makes a wine with involuntary residual sugar these days, but young, very expressive, dry and pleasurable is often a bit of a challenge, certainly a for a price conscious shelf stalker.
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Nov 22, 2018 23:18
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I was taken aback by the wide variety of grapes grown for Portuguese white wine production when I went there this year. It seemed like you could get a Portuguese take on pretty much every major style. The most unique and best stuff I drank there were these oaked whites that were still mineralic, light and dry , a combination I have never experienced before. One was described by the sommelier as being made from some grape that had almost gone extinct due to Port wine production, and it tasted very gently oaked. It was probably the most balanced wine I have ever had, yet not boring in the least. Another was very intensely oaked and a little briney; the oak expressed itself as aniseed, almost licorice, so it reminded me of ouzo. Wish I had taken notes or pictures or something.
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Nov 22, 2018 23:26
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Biomute posted:I was taken aback by the wide variety of grapes grown for Portuguese white wine production when I went there this year. It seemed like you could get a Portuguese take on pretty much every major style. That sounds really cool! consensual poster posted:various non-Champagne sparkling wines from France: Cremant d'Alsace, Cremant de Bourgogne, Cremant de Loire, etc. Hell yes I love that stuff. Look for the producer Paul Zinck, his Cremant d'Alsace is some real quality poo poo, both white and rosé. If you're not familiar, "cremant" means "creamy" in French and refers to the creamy texture of the carbonation, which is a bit less than Champagne. In general, Cremant denotes sparkling wines that are made with the Champagne method in regions other than Champagne.
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Nov 23, 2018 08:18
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I will check that out, thanks!
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Nov 23, 2018 08:25
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Ola posted:Battenfeld-Spanier. I can heartily second this - really beautiful wines. Searingly, tooth-meltingly acidic, with really expressive fruit. I like the Moelsheim bottling (vineyard?) very much at a good price, and any of the GGs are a nice step up.
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Nov 23, 2018 10:48
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pork never goes bad posted:I can heartily second this - really beautiful wines. Searingly, tooth-meltingly acidic, with really expressive fruit. I like the Moelsheim bottling (vineyard?) very much at a good price, and any of the GGs are a nice step up. I think I'm more tolerant of sourness than many others. I guess I am a subtaster. I used to love eating green, unripe redcurrant when I was little. Merely mentioning it to people who have sensitive taste buds throws them into convulsions. About the wines I mentioned, they have more things in common besides acidity and hyphens. Bassermann-Jordan and Immich-Batterieberg both have beautiful labels:   Kühling-Gillot and Battenfeld-Spanier are owned by wife and husband. Met the husband at a tasting once, they seem like super dedicated people, almost like wine athletes. I guess Zind-Humbrecht from Alsace is the odd one out, but it has very recognizable bottles with that elegant narrowing of the lower bottleneck. Have never experienced anything other than great quality from these, most at good to fair prices.
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Nov 23, 2018 11:59
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Starting with the Albarino/Alvarinho. It stands between the Soalheiro Vinho Verde or the Fefinanes Rias Baixas, leaning towards the latter since it is apparently drier, although the former does seem a bit more popular. Will report back with my novice opinion.
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Nov 23, 2018 12:58
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The Albariño de Fefiñanes was sold to me as bone dry and more sour than the other option I was looking at so I went for it. I paired it with linguini and pan fried scallops in a garlicky and very lemony soup. The aroma of the wine is floral, leading into an indistinct stone fruit or maybe candied pear, with a hint of citrus/gooseberry at the end. It feels like a cross between a Riesling Trocken and something like The Crossings Sauvignon Blanc., but maybe I just rely on those as touchstones since that is what I have drunk the most of thus far. The taste is a lot like the aroma, but with the stone fruit becoming more identifiable as peach. When had as an aperitif there is a hint of minerality, but with the food pairing described above that goes away and a lot more sweetness is brought out of the wine. It has a good bit of acidity, but there is no drying astringency, tannin or salinity, which I kind of miss even though I get that is probably quite rare in white wine. I think it was good and I would buy this bottle again, but I will continue looking for something... weirder maybe? thotsky fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Nov 23, 2018 |
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Nov 23, 2018 20:56
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Biomute posted:something... weirder maybe? Not Riesling then, but definitely Riffault or Casa Belfi. Or both.
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Nov 23, 2018 21:05
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Funky, dry, cool white: find some Coenobium, iirc it’s a bunch of nuns + Giampiero Bea making orange wine and it’s good as hell. Definitely an orange wine benchmark for me. I’m thinking about making skin-contact white myself next year and trying a few wines out for reference. Just had a Joseph Swan Pinot gris “Cuvée Orange” that was a really nice balance of primary flavors + secondary skin contact stuff. Also if you haven’t tried Eastern European whites get your rear end to the wine market carrying Georgian/Hungarian/whatever wines. If you’re a weird beer nerd and you want to get into weird white wines then Georgia should extremely be your poo poo. Blue Danube is a great importer to look for here on the Best Coast. Dunno about other areas but you should be able to find them easily enough.
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Nov 23, 2018 21:55
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Trying a slightly more upscale Cava. I could not find any of the recommended ones, but I did find a Recaredo Terrers Gran Reserva Brut Nature 2012, which I hope is in the ballpark. It's definitely much closer to what I'd expect from a good Champagne, and at a somewhat cheaper pricepoint. It has a lot of that same mustiness. I'm going to guess that's from the whole autolysis thing that happens when it is left on the yeast/trub (I guess it is called lees in winemaking?). Looking it up, this one had 59 months of that before bottling so that makes sense. There's a golden raisin note in both the aroma and the flavor, and prominent spice notes that I've not found in any other white sparkling wine thus far. Black pepper, maybe cloves, cardamom and a hint of cinnamon. It kind of reminds me of garam masala to be honest, and I really dig that. It's bone dry, slightly mineralic and the spices and carbonation help dry it out even further. It makes for a fun sip, because the fruity raisin and yeasty opening makes me expect a sweet wine, maybe a noble-rot type, but then it's just immediately dry and spritzy. It makes me wish I had some Mediterranean food to pair it with, and I will definitely be checking out more Cava. thotsky fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Nov 24, 2018 |
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Nov 24, 2018 21:45
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Can we talk skin-contact/orange wines for a moment? There does not seem to be any consistent style to them, which I guess makes sense as it's just one technique used in the whole wine-making process. Maybe age is the defining factor, but I've noticed some wines use it to add a little structure and character, while others seemingly build their entire wine around that orange/natural character, so much so that it seems like a completely different genre of wine to me. An example of the former is Alfredo Maestro Lovamor. I love that wine, there's no carbonation, but the added texture from the skin-contact and a slight tart/bitter finish makes it as versatile food-pairing-wise as a champagne in my opinion. I might not serve it with steak, but lighter meats are no problem. The latter would be something like Radikon Ribolla Gialla, which has a thick rich mouthfeel without really being sweet. The complexity reminds me of something like a Belgian Lambic, but there was no overt sourness or Brettanomyces in my example, just a very intense fruitiness with a slight bitterness and maybe some heat in the finish. It's almost like a fortified wine or something; it's really weird. The hipster restaurants in Oslo that serve these wines seem to go for wines that live somewhere in the middle based on my limited experience with them. Stuff like COS Pithos Bianco and COS Rami, both of which are good and dry, but more full-bodied and less refreshing than the Lovamor. I'd love to find more restrained, versatile and refreshing examples like the Lovamor. I think I had a Vacheron Sancerre that I somehow mistook for a skin-contact wine so I've been looking at those, but I wonder if perhaps I've just confused it with a different wine or something. Do other people in this thread enjoy these kinds of wine?
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Nov 25, 2018 15:52
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I think there’s a fun arguement to have about skin-contact white wines and inherent characteristics vs characteristics of process. Using new oak, stopping/preventing malolactic, or going full carbonic by gassing with CO2 are all 100% process to me. Not good or bad, just that those kind of decisions lead to a wine that speaks at least as much about its vinification as it does about terroir. Sous voile, I think, is generally a wine of process. But orange wine (ie white wine with skin maceration) falls right on the line. Vinifying white grapes as you would red grapes absolutely results in a wine that you can identify by process, but only as it relates to “normal” white wine making. Make a red wine the same way and it can be pure terrior. I lean more towards orange wines being terroir > process, but it can definitely go both ways.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:22
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idiotsavant posted:I think there’s a fun arguement to have about skin-contact white wines and inherent characteristics vs characteristics of process. Using new oak, stopping/preventing malolactic, or going full carbonic by gassing with CO2 are all 100% process to me. Not good or bad, just that those kind of decisions lead to a wine that speaks at least as much about its vinification as it does about terroir.
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Nov 29, 2018 14:55
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Also for your orange wine question try matassa cuvee marguerite. It’s very refreshing, affordable, good, and more available than a lot of cult skin contact wines. Passionfruit and minerality. The 2016 vintage strips your enamel like a motherfucker though, this years is more refined.
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Nov 29, 2018 15:03
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The focus on terroir and the grapes in winemaking is interesting; most brewers rank the importance of malt and recipe extremely low compared to yeast and the fermentation process. I've heard more than one top-of-the-line brewer describe the brewing process as "making sugarwater". In the sour beer world blending is likewise gaining reputation as the place where the magic happens. Whether or not the focus on terroir is mostly marketing is probably the oldest wine debate ever, but I would not be surprised if there were good marketing "stories" to have about process as well; it certainly draws plenty of nerds to beer. straight up brolic posted:Also for your orange wine question try matassa cuvee marguerite. It’s very refreshing, affordable, good, and more available than a lot of cult skin contact wines. Passionfruit and minerality. The 2016 vintage strips your enamel like a motherfucker though, this years is more refined. Sweet, that wine is available for me. It's the 2017.
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Nov 29, 2018 15:38
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Biomute posted:The focus on terroir and the grapes in winemaking is interesting; most brewers rank the importance of malt and recipe extremely low compared to yeast and the fermentation process. I've heard more than one top-of-the-line brewer describe the brewing process as "making sugarwater". In the sour beer world blending is likewise gaining reputation as the place where the magic happens. 10-12 years ago, the wine trends were a lot more about process, it was the times of "flying winemakers" and "great wine can be made everywhere". It came out of Bordeaux which still has quite a bit of process in their stories. Champagne does too, particularly blending from aging vats. They both talk mostly about terroir though, perhaps Bordeaux should speak the softest because while Burgundy has single vineyards dating back to medieval times, lots of Bordeaux was marshland drained by the Dutch in the 1600s. And the ranking goes by chateau, so they can buy and sell vineyards without changing their position in the ranking. Can't say that it isn't a good place for wine though. Lots of the natural wine scene is also about process, skin contact, amphorae, etc in addition to biodynamic viticulture. And often the story is a derelict vineyard used previously for high quantity, low quality which has now been taken over by a sensitive genius with handcraft process. But terroir has such a big position in wine, everyone who makes wine has a terroir-story no matter what. In fact, it's such a big thing everywhere that I can hardly buy anything without a label bragging about their address, even if the place has no tradition or particular above-average suitability for the product. Oh, are these pickles from Belgium you say? And this toilet paper is from eastern Poland, so nice! What about these lightbulbs, ooh from Shanghai, wonderful.
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Nov 29, 2018 16:15
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Ola posted:Lots of the natural wine scene is also about process, skin contact, amphorae, etc in addition to biodynamic viticulture. And often the story is a derelict vineyard used previously for high quantity, low quality which has now been taken over by a sensitive genius with handcraft process. Thanks, that's a real interesting post. Do people actually buy into the bio-dynamic thing beyond it being a sign of possible "sensitive genius" influence? A friend I drink wines with likes the natural wines I bring over, but gets pissy if I tell him it's bio-dynamic as he's big into being a sceptic and it's basically astrology/witchcraft or whatever. It seems like a lot of the most hyped producers do bio-dynamic stuff but don't advertise it?
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Nov 29, 2018 17:59
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Biomute posted:Thanks, that's a real interesting post. Do people actually buy into the bio-dynamic thing beyond it being a sign of possible "sensitive genius" influence? A friend I drink wines with likes the natural wines I bring over, but gets pissy if I tell him it's bio-dynamic as he's big into being a sceptic and it's basically astrology/witchcraft or whatever. It seems like a lot of the most hyped producers do bio-dynamic stuff but don't advertise it? Yes, that's right. Superstar producers like Leflaive and Romanée-Conti are biodynamic but you won't find a label on the bottle. They aren't part of any organization and they wouldn't hesitate to violate a principle or two if it meant saving the harvest: quote:The estate is now run along biodynamic principles. How have the philosophies of Steiner influenced you? https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2014/02/the-drc-interview-aubert-de-villaine I think that's a pretty good testimonial. That guy would do anything in his power to get max quality from his wine, at any cost, and through trial and error he's picked the elements from biodynamics that he can see has effects. But I don't know if he follows lunar calenders or uses divining rods. People have all sorts of opinions about it as you can imagine. I think what constitutes "biodynamic" ranges from complete druid bullshit to some very healthy agricultural practices. It requires high effort and comes at the price of lower yield, I don't think anyone does biodynamics in order to fake anything or maximize profits. So I take it as a quality indicator, the winemaker has probably put real costly effort into it. It's like if someone goes on a bullshit fad diet. Even if it's pseudoscience, if it means changing from Domino's every day to fresh vegetables every day, it's probably going to have positive effects.
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Nov 29, 2018 18:15
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Ola posted:People have all sorts of opinions about it as you can imagine. I think what constitutes "biodynamic" ranges from complete druid bullshit to some very healthy agricultural practices. It requires high effort and comes at the price of lower yield, I don't think anyone does biodynamics in order to fake anything or maximize profits. So I take it as a quality indicator, the winemaker has probably put real costly effort into it. It's like if someone goes on a bullshit fad diet. Even if it's pseudoscience, if it means changing from Domino's every day to fresh vegetables every day, it's probably going to have positive effects. Sure, but do most consumers buy into it? Like, is a sizable part of the the people who seek out bio-dynamic wines convinced it is somehow a safer, ecofriendly or more spiritual approach, or are most people just wine geeks looking for eccentric/good wines?
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Nov 29, 2018 18:35
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Biomute posted:Sure, but do most consumers buy into it? Like, is a sizable part of the the people who seek out bio-dynamic wines convinced it is somehow a safer, ecofriendly or more spiritual approach, or are most people just wine geeks looking for eccentric/good wines? I think my view is common among reviewers and enthusiasts, that's probably where I got it from. I think most consumers might muster a tiny "hmm that feels nice, I am a good person" when they pick up the bottle, otherwise they probably don't care.
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Nov 29, 2018 18:51
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