If you have to be “trained” to appreciate a food or drink, then said food or drink is bullshit. You don’t need years of training to eat at the French Laundry and realize that it tastes better than McDonald’s.

I watched the video. I read your rant. I acknowledge that all of the points you make are valid. An educated palate will taste wine differently than an uneducated palate.

I like wine. I am interested in wine. I would truly like to take a course in wine appreciation. However, for myself and many ladies of my acquaintance…

Firstly, Tannins hardly ever have anything to do with hangovers (unless you have an allergy, those are legit). Hangovers for any alcohol, wine included, are almost always due to dehydration. People tend to get horrible wine hangovers because they often drink more wine in ratio to other liquids. Sugars, which do tend…

You know people who pursue wealth because it’s all they know? There are, I believe, people who pursue the most inexpensive things, because that’s all they know. And while there should be no shame in it, people who’ve often been in survival mode due to poverty will exhaust themselves and others with their logic. Which…

My husband and I are into wine, not super snobby but we do a wine vacation 2 times a year (e.g. We drive to Oregon or Walla Walla). There is a noticeable difference in quality and I hate when people insinuate that we are idiots and wasting our money. That being said, our typical wine de jour is something we picked up…

Alcohol is a learned taste. If you drink a lot of it, your tastes will become more sensitive over time. If you don’t drink much of it, the cheaper stuff might appeal to you more. For someone new to wine, a sweet wine is easy to understand, because your taste buds understand sugar. If you drink wine for 20 years, you…

La Crema Pinot Noir is the best wine there is. It's $20-25 a bottle and I will happily spend that (although not every week. Some weeks, it's the $12 malbec).

It’s not funny because she’s poor (lady was not poor FYI, not even close). It’s a funny/weird story, not a funny/haha story, and it illustrates the different perceptions people have about what is expensive.

I really think that the $12-25 range is the sweet spot for wine. You can find some great wines out there in that price point, and it forces you to get off the beaten path a bit, trying “up and coming” regions and varietals/blends.

I agree with this. For myself, I usually buy $20 bottles for general drinking purposes, a $40 bottle for an occasional splurge (a very good day or a very bad day), and I spend around $85 for special occasions (usually my birthday). I’m poor, so that’s as high as I can go for now, but it works for me.

Was it this one? I love love love rosé and am always looking for more of them. ‘Tis the season here in California.

I’ve got to add that drinking a stellar, expensive bottle of wine (especially in good company) just makes you never want to touch the cheapo stuff again. A fancy pants friend of my sisters shared a chateauneuf du pape with me, and I’ve been trying to recreate the experience with cotes du Rhone, but it’s just not the…

Aging wines is totally missing from this conversation. A $45+ bottle of wine should be built to age at least a little and therefore shouldn’t taste as good as a tasty $14 bottle meant for guzzling right away. In order for a wine to taste good in 10-25 years it needs to have harsh tannins and overly bright fruit. These…

Okay but can someone please explain to me why a glass of wine in the USA costs anywhere from $8-$14, but in Europe (specifically Spain and Austria) it’s more like 2 Euro? For great wine!

No one has addressed this yet, so I will: a $40 bottle of wine is not an expensive bottle of wine.

SAY THAT AGAIN! Only buying cheap wine is like only eating the cheapest fast food or only buying the cheapest clothes. We all have budgets, but none of these things add true value to your life and don’t save you that much money. In some cases, it costs more to be cheap.

Let me also add that developing good taste means…

Life is too short to drink shitty wine. It really is.

So which equally corrupt and morally bankrupt bribemaster is gonna replace him as the de facto figurehead of FIFA then?

The problem is the professor didn’t have stupid ideas, they’re very well though out and a pretty damning indictment of certain aspects of the movement these days - proven immediately by the students carrying around mattresses, which as the article explains, makes no sense whatsoever.