The secret is that a lot of cheap wine is pretty darn good. I imagine there's somewhat of a correlation between price and quality, especially at the absolute bottom end of the pricing scale. But it's a very loose correlation.
Hot dogs are a decent example, they're all now "meat" and many are "pure beef" when they used to be the disastrous remains of who knows what. And even they are being destroyed by just how cheap hamburger is - the original fast food was hot dogs and that's almost entirely gone now.
Curious about this history. According to Wikipedia, fast food was common during antiquity, while the hotdog wasn't invented until the 1400s. White Castle seems to be recognized as the origin of modern day fast food and it opened as a hamburger joint.
But, I think it's a bit rich to call it the origin of fast food. Modern fast food in terms of what we think of as technology and business model is a bit broader than that. And just "food you get fast" is obviously far older. The original "fast food" in that sense was getting bread from a baker.
Particularly when we just got finished talking about fast food in antiquity. I suppose that explains why nobody said such a thing.
According to research from the University of Guelph, hotdogs are comparatively uncommon in fast food because hotdogs are harder to cook consistently and have a shorter window of enjoyability which makes them less suited to fast food than hamburgers.
The corporate parent of Carl’s Jr. bought Hardee’s in 1997, but Carl’s stayed pretty much the same.
What really defines fast food is mass production and uniformity.
Interestingly, I always assumed that “fast food” meant the type of food; so a hamburger, even if not made from mass produced ingredients, would always be a “fast food”.
In context, though, the original commenter considered things like street hotdog vendors to be fast food. That is not unlike the kind of delivery you would find in antiquity, even if the actual food product differed.
> What really defines fast food is mass production and uniformity.
Technically, what really defines a term is how it is used in a certain context and how it works towards reaching a shared understanding, which was achieved with the original use of fast food found in this thread. You are right that the definition that emerged here does not align with definitions found in other contexts, but those other contexts are irrelevant to this particular context.
> It’s a weird thing - people in the USA know what you mean by fast food and somehow McDonald’s under a heat lamp counts (rarer now but still found) but burgers at the gas station under a heat lamp don’t count.
The best wine I've ever drank cost less than $3 and was produced in a tropical (21 South), 800m altitude region of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Never assume wine is bad because it's cheap or from somewhere.
Do you remember what this was called, or specifically where? If I'm ever there I'd love to find this!
But usually if you want something that's exceptional you have to spend a lot on throwing away the unexceptional parts. Not every year will be good, and even if the weather was good there's still no guarantee the wine will be amazing. Yet the costs are there. That's why there's a very hefty premium on brands that only deliver the top-top-top quality. (Obviously they sell the grapes/wine that did not make it under a different brand, but sssh.)
I don't think they can - wine is usually sold by vintage year. "Origin" is usually weaker (e.g., 50% of grapes must be from the declared origin) and my understanding is that is where you can "adjust" year-to-year.
As to the matter of price, most of my wine tasting friends (including some with proper wine collections) are perfectly ok paying 5-10 euros for a bottle, as long as they like the wine - some of them have even made it a specialty to find good and cheap wine.
At the other end, I was once served wine without knowing what it was at a friend's place. I took a sip, then something happened in my head, and I started crying (I cry when food is really good) . I still remember that particular bottle, and the, well, infinite landscape that had suddenly opened in my mind (I know it sounds utterly ridiculous , but this is how it felt). No other wine has had the same effect on me, and it turns out the bottle was worth about 400 euros!
So, I think the biggest problem with all those blind wine tastings is that they equate price with quality. Because those two are, as goes for everything in life, only ever so loosely related.
One secret is that most nicer restaurants allow you to bring your own wine, provided you pay a "corkage" fee of usually $10-40. So if the wine is say, $30 retail + $20 corkage, you are better off than paying $90-120 for the same bottle at the restaurant.
That doesn't necessarily mean better, but you might be paying for scarcity in the flavor.
My point is more-so that the more general consensus of quality has asymptotic diminishing returns after around that point.
Scarcity is the number one factor that determines the price of an expensive wine. A good quality wine from a recent vintage will cost less than an equally desirable wine from an older vintage, simply because people haven't drank most of it yet.
> Scarcity is the number one factor that determines the price of an expensive wine.
just because something is rare doesn't mean it's good; a random rock on a beach is one of a kind but you couldn't sell it for a penny
> good quality wine from a recent vintage will cost less than an equally desirable wine from an older vintage, simply because people haven't drank most of it yet.
no, if it's less expensive it's because there is work involved in cellaring a wine and that adds value
That is precisely what I am saying. Rare (and because of that, expensive) doesn’t make a wine good.
> no, if it's less expensive it's because there is work involved in cellaring a wine and that adds value
Yes, for wines that are hundreds of dollars, but that doesn’t necessarily add any quality. For wines that are thousands of dollars, they’re just scarce.
To a person who can't tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine, expensive wine is "strictly ostentatious" by definition.
...except Franzia, which sucks.
For those among us who have recently been laid off - Bota Box Nighthawk Black is a decent/drinkable red if you're on a budget.