Hacker News Reader

Comment by KineticLensman | Hacker News Reader

In Croatia many years ago, we ordered the cheapest bottle on the wine list. It was disgusting. The locals were amazed that we didn't know to water it down before drinking.

View on HN

That's also typical in Spain. In fact, most family restaurants offer free wine, but it's of that level of quality, so you usually mix it with sparkling water.

Also, it's typical of young people to mix cheap wine with Coca-Cola, and have parties with that.

That's actually a fairy delicious way to enjoy cheap wine, and I dare say it compares favorably to some of the digestifs in the world.

Red wine with sparkling lemonade is a great summer drink, an easy alternative to sangria.

I am so looking forward to 6 months from now; thank you!

It's typical to drink watered down wine with routine/non-fancy/on-the-road meals. The locals call it 'gemišt' which is a germanism (gemischt = mixed). The wine used for this is bottom of the barrel, since it's a shame to waste good wine for this purpose.

Does the alcohol by volume content end up diluted proportionally to something like 2-7% vs the usual 12-14%?

Do they do red wine and coke over there too? Fairly common in some parts of the world, I'd guess it works well with cheap wine (never tried).

Haha, I had the same experience: ordered the house wine at a restaurant—wine they actually made at that restaurant—and it was thoroughly mediocre :P I'm not much of a wine drinker and Croatian wines from local wineries were fine to my taste, but the ≈homemade wine was an unambiguous step down.

When my grandparents lived in Croatia in the pre-WW2 years they used to mix a little wine into their water because the water quality was bad. I guess the wine killed the germs, or at least masked the taste of the water.

It is a tradition there? What is the name of that wine?

Yes, it is a tradition (see other comments here).

> What is the name of that wine?

Sorry, I just don't remember after all this time. Although IIRC the label's picture had a peasant sort of character who appeared to be holding a glass at arm's length (or at least that's how we interpreted it)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com