How much do you really know about wine?

[georgegeorgia]

28 minutes ago, 0ffshore360 said:

Crap Pom !

Oh  don't be racist  of our Northern neighbours 

 

I have always wanted to be Scottish though and talk in a Scottish accent 

[SpiritHouse]

2 hours ago, Lacessit said:

After getting the first six questions correct, the quiz gave me a score of 6/10 without asking any further questions.

 

Quiz for the OP - what chemical compound is used as the standard in measuring smoke taint in wine?

 

 

 

It probably timed out. You have 60 seconds to answer all the questions

 

As for your question, with a little help from my friends in the AI-community, its guaiacol? 🙂

 

[SpiritHouse]

1 hour ago, FriscoKid said:

Yeah, it looks like a grift. I just quickly punched in any answers without looking at the questions to see if it would get me to the end. And it did. I still got 4 out of 10 correct without reading anything. And then it ends up being an ad for an online wine shop with an address in Chiang Mai.
 

Buying wine online you have no idea of how the wine has been stored and if it's been damaged by the excessive heat in Thailand. A word to the wise. 

 

To answer your question about storage, we offer same-day deliveries from our climate-controlled warehouses in seven cities. For upcountry deliveries, we use chilled food trucks. See here: https://spirithouse.com/wine-in-a-flash-thailands-new-same-day-delivery/

[Lacessit]

46 minutes ago, SpiritHouse said:

It probably timed out. You have 60 seconds to answer all the questions

 

As for your question, with a little help from my friends in the AI-community, its guaiacol? 🙂

 

Yes. I did work in a wine laboratory for a few months.

[henryford1958]

It's grape juice

[dinsdale]

Two points. One: Imported wine thanks to outrageous taxes which were meant to be removed is way too expensive. Two: Thai wine is sh!t.

[ChaiyaTH]

Enough to buy ones that taste a lot better than those that don't and to have minimal headaches.

[Keep Right]

After multiple reloading, I finally finished the test and got them all correct. This due only to the fact that I have done many wine tours in California, Oregon and Washington State as well as France and Italy. But unfortunately, my palate cannot differentiate between a good wine and a bad one. They all taste the same to me.  I guess I am not gifted with a discerning palate.

[connda]

19 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Advertising gimmick.

Yep.  Went into my ignore list immediately.

[xylophone]

I was tempted to take the test before I realised that it was really advertising the wine company, so I got onto their website and compared their prices with my suppliers, namely, Vinum Lector, VinestoVino and Wine Pro and they couldn't match the prices of my favourite wines, so they won't be getting my business.

 

On the other hand I have to admire their "marketing" to a certain extent, because it has at least got a few people talking about them and possibly visiting their website!

 

I have collected and tasted wines for over 50 years now and toured vineyards in several countries and been a guest of some top châteaux owners in France, so I think I know my stuff, however one never stops learning and I would never have thought I would have a favourite (at the moment anyway) wine which hailed from California!

[Lacessit]

6 hours ago, Keep Right said:

After multiple reloading, I finally finished the test and got them all correct. This due only to the fact that I have done many wine tours in California, Oregon and Washington State as well as France and Italy. But unfortunately, my palate cannot differentiate between a good wine and a bad one. They all taste the same to me.  I guess I am not gifted with a discerning palate.

I agree most wines are difficult to differentiate. Very rarely, there is one that stands out from the crowd. OTOH, bad wines can be really foul.

 

Two reds stick out in my memory. One was a Heathcote shiraz which retailed at $400 a bottle. It arrived at the wine lab where I worked. Only 5 mL was used in testing, staff were allowed to take the rest of any bottle home.

 

The second was a Booth's Premium Shiraz. It only sold from the cellar door, $15 a bottle. Impossible to leave any after the bottle was opened, it had a hypnotic quality.

 

Booth's was a family business, the patriarch was Cliffy Booth. The secret to making that wine died with him, it was never the same after he passed.

[SpiritHouse]

4 hours ago, xylophone said:

I was tempted to take the test before I realised that it was really advertising the wine company, so I got onto their website and compared their prices with my suppliers, namely, Vinum Lector, VinestoVino and Wine Pro and they couldn't match the prices of my favourite wines, so they won't be getting my business.

 

On the other hand I have to admire their "marketing" to a certain extent, because it has at least got a few people talking about them and possibly visiting their website!

 

I have collected and tasted wines for over 50 years now and toured vineyards in several countries and been a guest of some top châteaux owners in France, so I think I know my stuff, however one never stops learning and I would never have thought I would have a favourite (at the moment anyway) wine which hailed from California!

 

Not sure which wines you compared with, but the prices on most of our wines are lower than the companies you mentioned. Add to that, we offer free delivery, same-day delivery in 7 cities and we have unbeatable customer service and online payments (we also have to absorb the nearly 5% card charges). Our Google Reviews are a testament to that. Some other companies charge extra for delivery and sometimes add tax at checkout. 

 

Also, if you buy straight from an importer it will be hard for anyone to compete on price. But that is not our market, we focus on those who appreciate convenience and great service, and also at a great price (which is a lot lower than on many other places for the same product).

 

But feel free to contact us directly on our website and lets see what we can do. 🙂

[SpiritHouse]

10 hours ago, dinsdale said:

Two points. One: Imported wine thanks to outrageous taxes which were meant to be removed is way too expensive. Two: Thai wine is sh!t.

 

Your first point is partially correct, and there is not much we can do about it. We were the first to introduce the new prices last year after the tax deductions, but the change resulted in only a 10–15% difference, not as much as we had hoped.

 

It’s worth noting that several countries in Asia are more expensive than Thailand, so we are not the worst. 😊

 

As for your second point, I largely agree. I had a few fairly good experiences, but they don’t hold up well overall at present.

[Lacessit]

18 minutes ago, SpiritHouse said:

 

Your first point is partially correct, and there is not much we can do about it. We were the first to introduce the new prices last year after the tax deductions, but the change resulted in only a 10–15% difference, not as much as we had hoped.

 

It’s worth noting that several countries in Asia are more expensive than Thailand, so we are not the worst. 😊

 

As for your second point, I largely agree. I had a few fairly good experiences, but they don’t hold up well overall at present.

Thai wines have several handicaps to contend with. The first AFAIK is they don't have any laboratories which are dedicated solely to wine testing. Australia has two.

 

Second is the winemakers obviously don't know how to fix a stuck ferment. Most Thai wines IME still seem to carry residual unfermented sugars. I don't know if winemaking is a reserved occupation in Thailand.

 

Third is air pollution, smoke taint ruins good wine, and there's not too many places in Thailand where grapes are free of it.

 

It does have me wondering how California wines will fare, after the Hollywood Hills fires.

[Lacessit]

4 hours ago, xylophone said:

I was tempted to take the test before I realised that it was really advertising the wine company, so I got onto their website and compared their prices with my suppliers, namely, Vinum Lector, VinestoVino and Wine Pro and they couldn't match the prices of my favourite wines, so they won't be getting my business.

 

On the other hand I have to admire their "marketing" to a certain extent, because it has at least got a few people talking about them and possibly visiting their website!

 

I have collected and tasted wines for over 50 years now and toured vineyards in several countries and been a guest of some top châteaux owners in France, so I think I know my stuff, however one never stops learning and I would never have thought I would have a favourite (at the moment anyway) wine which hailed from California!

Have you ever been to Australia? We produce world-class wines. Margaret River, Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Heathcote, Rutherglen, Warby Ranges, Hunter Valley.

[connda]

Given the number of GF and wives I've had, I know a lot about whine. 

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, connda said:

Given the number of GF and wives I've had, I know a lot about whine. 

Given the number of GF's and wives you have had, perhaps they had reason.

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

Have you ever been to Australia? We produce world-class wines. Margaret River, Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Heathcote, Rutherglen, Warby Ranges, Hunter Valley.

Indeed I have and I have relatives living in Melbourne and friends living in Perth and the Gold Coast, and I really do appreciate the Australian wines, and they form part of my "cellar" of wines.

 

I do also believe that they are "world-class" wines and seek them out whenever/wherever I can and I have visited vineyards just outside of Perth and also in the Mornington Peninsula, and I am a great fan of Australian wines. I did buy a few bottles of extremely good wine made by a Doctor ????? a few decades ago, but cannot remember his name now (died a while ago).

 

In fact my current favourite Californian wine is a Petite Sirah, known in Australia as Durif and the Australian version of it is a really full-bodied wine which is often made as a "blockbuster" wine and the ones I have tasted are far too tannic for my palate.

 

Just as a matter of interest on this subject, I took a bottle of Penfold's Grange over to France on one of my visits, just to share with a French winemaker with whom I was staying, to get his opinion – – needless to say he said it wasn't great, but I didn't expect much else given the propensity for French winemakers to believe that they are the best in the world when in some cases they can be – sometimes!!

 

I can assure you I am a great fan of Australian wines and continue to try them from all of the regions.

[still kicking]

On 3/13/2025 at 7:56 PM, Jim Blue said:

Anyone actually made red wine from those little grapes ? Is it easy?

It is esier than milking almonds 

[dinsdale]

On 3/14/2025 at 6:03 PM, Lacessit said:

I agree most wines are difficult to differentiate. Very rarely, there is one that stands out from the crowd. OTOH, bad wines can be really foul.

 

Two reds stick out in my memory. One was a Heathcote shiraz which retailed at $400 a bottle. It arrived at the wine lab where I worked. Only 5 mL was used in testing, staff were allowed to take the rest of any bottle home.

 

The second was a Booth's Premium Shiraz. It only sold from the cellar door, $15 a bottle. Impossible to leave any after the bottle was opened, it had a hypnotic quality.

 

Booth's was a family business, the patriarch was Cliffy Booth. The secret to making that wine died with him, it was never the same after he passed.

Not a wine drinker then. Definitely not an Australian wine drinker. $400 for a Heathcote?