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Comment by maxander | Hacker News Reader

So they’ve figured out how to turn water (and ethanol and some reagents) into wine. Neat!

But I’ll believe that it’s good only after hearing about how it fares in blind taste tests.

I am hearing about lab-made wine for decade or two. There was famous experiment by some university in Japan that took Domain de Romanee Conti, which is one of the most expensive wine, analyze it on HPLC machine and then took precisely same compounds in same quantities and created another wine. After they mixed it they realised it was not good at all and doesn't really tasted as a wine.

The thing with wine is that it is structural: the taste and smells are created by letting compounds build into complex structures, those structures are build during growing as well as during fermentation. Just by examining some potentionaly compound(s) that are present in good wines and adding them to solution doesn't make a better wine.

Sure you might be able to use some cheap base wine and enhance it with flavouring to create bit better wine, but creating wine from scratch would be very difficult process. On the other hand, most of the industrial wines (those cheap wines in grocery shops) are created this way.

Blind tasting wine will probably not turn out great, since the color, price and bottle design can actually change the taste one perceives.

We already know that self proclaimed aficionados can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine.

It’ll be interesting to see if they can tell the difference between authentic wine and lab-made.

I saw some vegan mince the other day that looked indistinguishable from the real thing.

> We already know that self proclaimed aficionados can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine.

We can? That is very interesting. Is there some article or reference material about this where I can read more about it?

Individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine. In a sample of more than 6,000 blind tastings, we find that the correlation between price and overall rating is small and negative, suggesting that individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines slightly less. For individuals with wine training, however, we find indications of a non-negative relationship between price and enjoyment. Our results are robust to the inclusion of individual fixed effects, and are not driven by outliers: when omitting the top and bottom deciles of the price distribution, our qualitative results are strengthened, and the statistical significance is improved further. These findings suggest that non-expert wine consumers should not anticipate greater enjoyment of the intrinsic qualities of a wine simply because it is expensive or is appreciated by experts.

https://www.wine-economics.org/aawe/wp-content/uploads/2012/...

Thank you.

I see it more to be case of palate: people without wine training prefer cheaper wines, because they are build around primary aromas and might include some sugar or sweet tanins. It is like giving people tea with sugar or not. Most will prefer sugared version, producers of those cheap wines are aware of it and create their wines this way.

Expensive wine are usually more complicated and don't give you those basic pleasures, especially true for Old World Wines. It takes a while to people to build appreciation of those wines as there is huge culture component behind it.

You might see wine as pleasure giving beverage, in this case you are better with some nice fruit driven bottles which are usually cheaper.

Expensive wine are usually more complicated and don't give you those basic pleasures

But do the more expensive wines really give any more pleasure, or have people trained themselves to find it pleasing? Could someone be trained to appreciate the traits found in less expensive wines?

> But do the more expensive wines really give any more pleasure, or have people trained themselves to find it pleasing?

From my perspective, yes. A truly great wine is one that you want to sit with and follow from a palate and aromatic perspective over an evening or even a couple days. They evolve, improve, and continually impress from first sip to last.

2 Buck Chuck and other cheap "wines" doesn't evolve or improve, it's a static drink (for lack of a better term) that starts to degrade with oxidation in hours. If you tried to save a glass or two to look at the next day it would be borderline undrinkable.

What most people won't tell you though is that once you get to the $25+ per bottle wines there isn't much difference in those wines and the incredibly expensive ones. Furthermore most incredibly expensive wines aren't truly "great" wines and often disappoint in blind tastings. BUT (and it's a big BUT) every now and again you taste an expensive wine that is positively sublime. That's what keeps you coming back.

Thats actually good question. People do get trained to enjoy more complicated wines (they don't need to be more expensive, but they usually are).

I would use analogy with pop music and classical music or modern jazz. For a lots and lots of people your club-night-out pop music will give more pleasure than sitting in auditorium listening to Rachmaninoff.

Drinking wine and spending time learning to appreciate the wine are two very different paths. Whenever it is worth it is another question. But there are differences between cheap-industrial-pop wines and fine wines.

But doesn't that quote refute "We already know that self proclaimed aficionados can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine." assuming aficionados would be considered expert wine consumers?

It seems like a bit of a grey area - I don't know how to classify a "self-proclaimed aficionado" -- is that someone that really knows wine, or just a wine enthusiast that knows less than they think? (as opposed to a professional sommelier who has had professional training and certification, or at least proven experience)

preferring the cheap stuff is not the same as not being able to distinguish between cheap and expensive stuff. These tasters can tell the difference, and prefer cheap

Unless I misunderstand you, that’s an absurd overstatement at best.

My wife is a somm as are many of our friends. I joined in on many of their study sessions as each of them went through various phases of their certifications.

Granted I’m lucky to tell a Pinot from a Chardonnay, but watching trained Simms do blinds is impressive. It’s a mix of a very specific process - they work from “the grid”, picking apart specific properties of a taste one bit st a time - as well as incredible amount of practical knowledge that comes from tasting an absurd amount.

It’s another thing to say that tastes don’t necessarily correlate with price - any honest somm will tell you that. But anyone with a reasonable amount of experience can tell a $5 bottle of Cupcake or a two buck Chuck and something less industrial.

I know there’s a lot of excitement for lab made - it’ll rightly be seen as just another technique eventually.

I believe you're misunderstanding OP.

You're speaking of somms being able to distinguish flavor profiles - which of course is a skill and I don't think anyone would deny that.

What OP said is that cheap vs. expensive wine is indistinguishable (At times). There have been blind tastes tests with 2 Buck Chuck and expensive bottles, and 2 Buck Chuck won.

https://www.popsugar.com/food/Wine-World-Reels-2-Buck-Chuck-...

The flavor profiles of cheap and expensive wines don't really correlate so this argument is flawed. 2 Buck Chuck and other cheap bottles have flavor profiles that tend to be sweeter and less acidic when compared to more expensive bottles of wine, especially from the old world.

I think the correct statement is that most people actually prefer cheap "industrial" wine as it's more approachable (sweet with low acid), especially in youth, than many expensive bottles.

Even that article you linked to stated "There are those who feel that the results should not be taken into account as the judges are not true, trained wine professionals. The California State Fair competition is dismissed by some critics as representing broad-based consumer tastes rather than the palates of true wine connoisseurs."

Blinding the average Joe with cheap vs expensive wine is not a good barometer for the quality of said wines from an well seasoned wine drinker's perspective.

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