Wrong. It has nothing to do with the process of football, it has to do with how you understand the game. If you don't understand what the defense is doing, you don't "get it." Similar to wine. If you can't taste the diverse flavors, you don't get it.

This is all part of appreciation.

What I'm talking about is the fact that you appear to appreciate nuance in other areas of life, just not wine. I wonder why that it is. We're exploring that.

You missed the part about etiquette. If a man is choosing the wine it would be rude to give him a full pour before the ladies at the table have their glasses poured.

The chooser of the wine tastes it; everyone else at the table gets theirs filled after that.

Good point. But 95% of the time, I'm by myself. So in this situation is it worth me tasting it or not ?

"Worth it" depends on how bad you will feel if you don't taste and end up with a spoiled bottle. But even in that situation you could probably send it back no problem. I say do whatever you're comfortable with. Participate in the ritual or don't. :)

That was my original point. It doesn't matter how much they have poured, if there's something wrong with it then it's going back. So I won't feel bad at all.

If I was sampling then I'd participate in the ritual, but if I've just ordered a glass of something then Ill continue to just get them to pour it.

However as I'm often alone, there's usually ony one (or two if I'm lucky) choice of wine to buy by the glass anyway. Which is annoying if there's a bottle of something that I would like, but I need to stick to the house wine.

Swirling releases aromatics, including the smell of cork taint, as well as adding oxygen to the wine. Pouring the wine from a height would also accomplish this, but most waiters aren't prepared to pour from above their heads :)

Of course there's shades of gray, but how many people sit and deconstruct their meal looking for hints of this or that? It's no different to wine, there are some grape varieties I prefer over others (I generally find most Shiraz to be too strong), but I don't obsess over every single flavour and smell when I'm drinking wine nor when I'm eating food.

I stick by my assesment the vast majority of wine tasting is a crock, perhaps there's more to it than good or bad, but not much more.

In my experience, the above statement summarizes the situation very well. My husband and I spent years telling others that we didn't like Italian wines. That is until we found a neighborhood Italian restaurant with a great sommelier who would make a point of recommending different wines to us when we'd go so that we were able to sample a wide variety and decide for ourselves which regions and varietals we liked.

As for those who say that they don't like American wines. I wonder if they live in Athens, Greece where a bottle of Woodbridge (retails for $7) sells for 30Euros or more in restaurants. If that is there sample size it's not surprising that they wouldn't like American wines.

Enjoyment has nothing to do with deconstruction, nor does truly great wine require an educated palate (the "bad" wines with traces of greatness do require an acquired taste, to be able to ignore the bad elements and focus on the good ones).

I frequently drink expensive wine (>$100/bottle) with people who have not drunk good wine before. They recognize and like it from the first sip -- no deconstruction needed. Generally we don't discuss the wine, it is just background to other activity, but their enjoyment of the wine is obvious and genuine. Of course few wines are this good, and price is no indication of quality. However good wines are a joy in themselves (and some that I drink are under $5, though I spend over $1K per month on wine).

And if you were to put a $30 bottle out they wouldn't know the difference.

I was once one who thought wine wasn't suited for me, due to having a wine which tasted a bit sour to me on my first time to try it. After a visit to Italy and having tried out 5 different red wines, ranging from the northern wines to the southern ones all in one dinner, it was then that I discovered the pleasures of identifying the different flavors in wine, and the enjoyment in selecting one that I like.

If wine could only be described as either only "good" or "bad", then I would have a hard time selecting say, Chardonnays. I prefer oaked buttery Chardonnays to the unoaked, more fruity ones, while a seller may prefer things the other way around. So what may be "good" to the seller may be "bad" to me and I would be disappointed if I bought from him what he said would be a "good" Chardonnay.

Incidentally, here in Japan, wines sold on the supermarket shelf are generally described on a 5 point scale for whites (between dry on one end to sweet on the other) and for reds a 3 point scale of "light body", "medium body" or "full body". This may simplify things for the general buying public, but as a result, it is harder to determine if a wine might suit one's particular taste preferences, because they often cover up the fine print describing flavor notes on the back label with a different one containing uninformative data such as the producer, importer, volume and the rating on this general scale.

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448)

This thread shows that frequent flyers and wines do go well together... :D

huh >
for context, they also said no restaurant meal is worth more than $100pp. (presumably incl cheap alcohol)

Depends. If they were the same age (i.e. young) and same type of wine, that's probably pretty true. But if the $100 bottle was essentially a $30 bottle when young, but is now worth $100 because it has a decade or more of added age on it, The difference would probably be easily discernable to anyone.

Whilst I admire your stamina in trawling through all my rambling threads I'm not quite sure of the point you are trying to make.

Why don't you just come right out with it - I won't bite. ;)