Before we crucify the Zin!

Cafe Society
1

There have been several threads in GQ recently where a lot of people in passing have dissed White Zinfandel. Now, I am not a wine connoisseur - I love wine but I just recently started, so with at most a hundred (two hundred at most) bottles behind my belt I consider myself completely inexperienced. Now, I’ve had White Zinfandel several times, and while I did not love it, I found it to be shy and inoffensive – it’s certainly not something I am going to turn down over not having a glass at all. It’s not complex, it’s not strong, it’s not sour, it’s just a slightly sweet wine that goes ok with something like fresh fruit - why is it such a big deal if somebody likes it?

I’m just trying to understand the sentiment when somebody reacts to White Zinfandel like it was cork-flavored vinegar (which is what it might turn into if you leave it sitting on a shelf for ten years, but I digress). Is it offensive because it’s so bland, mild and inoffensive as compared to say a good Syrah? I can understand having refined palate, and being able to pick up a lot of subtleties in fine wine, cheese, or whatever – but unless you are tasting some really sharp unpleasantness I can’t see how it could make anything worse. Now, is there some sharp unpleasant taste in White Zin that I can’t pick up because I’m just a regular joe schmoe?

Several younger people I have met in the past few years confessed to me their dislike of wine and champagne in general. They didn’t grow up drinking wine like I did, and to them a Cabernet tastes like grape paint thinner. Giving a non-wine-drinker Brut on New Years is like giving somebody unsweetened Armenian style turkish coffee in a mug to somebody who has never had coffee. I bet a lot of people who call this ‘general dislike of wine’ immature or unrefined would not be able to drink good coffee that didn’t come in Starbucks cup.

I mean, why the passion in hating something? I mean, I’ve heard people foaming at their mouths over american cheese, white zinfandel, red sweet spumante, white sweet spumante, starbucks coffee and many other things. Right, I am not a particular fan of any of those things either, but to me, the only people who have no taste are people who don’t have anything that they actually like, not people who prefer something I could possibly consider simpler, milder or more childish.
Happy New Year everybody, and hope somebody can chime in with a line or two that might explain the position a little better to me.

Sincerely,

Groman

2

[QUOTE=groman]
There have been several threads in GQ recently where a lot of people in passing have dissed White Zinfandel. Now, I am not a wine connoisseur - I love wine but I just recently started, so with at most a hundred (two hundred at most) bottles behind my belt I consider myself completely inexperienced. Now, I’ve had White Zinfandel several times, and while I did not love it, I found it to be shy and inoffensive – it’s certainly not something I am going to turn down over not having a glass at all. It’s not complex, it’s not strong, it’s not sour, it’s just a slightly sweet wine that goes ok with something like fresh fruit - why is it such a big deal if somebody likes it?

I’m just trying to understand the sentiment when somebody reacts to White Zinfandel like it was cork-flavored vinegar (which is what it might turn into if you leave it sitting on a shelf for ten years, but I digress). Is it offensive because it’s so bland, mild and inoffensive as compared to say a good Syrah? I can understand having refined palate, and being able to pick up a lot of subtleties in fine wine, cheese, or whatever – but unless you are tasting some really sharp unpleasantness I can’t see how it could make anything worse. Now, is there some sharp unpleasant taste in White Zin that I can’t pick up because I’m just a regular joe schmoe?

Several younger people I have met in the past few years confessed to me their dislike of wine and champagne in general. They didn’t grow up drinking wine like I did, and to them a Cabernet tastes like grape paint thinner. Giving a non-wine-drinker Brut on New Years is like giving somebody unsweetened Armenian style turkish coffee in a mug to somebody who has never had coffee. I bet a lot of people who call this ‘general dislike of wine’ immature or unrefined would not be able to drink good coffee that didn’t come in Starbucks cup.

I mean, why the passion in hating something? I mean, I’ve heard people foaming at their mouths over american cheese, white zinfandel, red sweet spumante, white sweet spumante, starbucks coffee and many other things. Right, I am not a particular fan of any of those things either, but to me, the only people who have no taste are people who don’t have anything that they actually like, not people who prefer something I could possibly consider simpler, milder or more childish.
Happy New Year everybody, and hope somebody can chime in with a line or two that might explain the position a little better to me.

Sincerely,

Groman
[/QUOTE]

The only issue I have with your post is the phrase “Armenian style Turkish coffee.” :slight_smile: Seriously, people like what they like, even if there’s no harm in gently introducing them to foods that will widen their horizons. I certainly have my food snob side, but it generally extends more to people who depend overly on processed foods. Case in point: one co-worker of mine mentioned that her husband was raised in a family that not only uses Cool Whip on desserts by default, but actually didn’t know that it was an imitation of real whipped cream. The sad part? They live in dairy farm country!

3

[QUOTE=groman]
Is it offensive because it’s so bland, mild and inoffensive as compared to say a good Syrah?
[/QUOTE]

Ding-ding! We have a winner. To me, it is a waste of good grapes. I’d rather drink water.

I find it offensive because people think it’s “good wine” and so they break it out at parties and dinners instead of getting something drinkable, which means I have to drink water. If it was a “live and let live, we all get what we like” world I wouldn’y object to it in the slightest. The problem is that, like fast food, bad sex and popular literature, the crap eventually drives the good stuff up in price (because producers would rather make money than keep me happy, the bastids!) or totally out of the market completely. A great Zinfandel is a marvelous wine…full of flavor and depth, with a peppery berry structure I adore. If I mention that to people, get what they get me for my birthday? I’d really rather they saved their money. The effort was nice, and I appreciate that they think of me, but all I’ll do with the stuff is pawn it off on someone else. This is The Peril Of The White Zin Menace.

4

[QUOTE=silenus]

I find it offensive because people think it’s “good wine” and so they break it out at parties and dinners instead of getting something drinkable, which means I have to drink water. If it was a “live and let live, we all get what we like” world I wouldn’y object to it in the slightest. The problem is that, like fast food, bad sex and popular literature, the crap eventually drives the good stuff up in price (because producers would rather make money than keep me happy, the bastids!) or totally out of the market completely. A great Zinfandel is a marvelous wine…full of flavor and depth, with a peppery berry structure I adore. If I mention that to people, get what they get me for my birthday? I’d really rather they saved their money. The effort was nice, and I appreciate that they think of me, but all I’ll do with the stuff is pawn it off on someone else. This is The Peril Of The White Zin Menace.
[/QUOTE]

I’ve seen it work the other way. My Evil Ex with No Morals and No Remorse was a native Muscovite. The East European taste in wine is much sweeter than the Western taste, generally speaking. Now Evil Ex was acculturated to dry wine, brut champagne, etc. His family, however, was not.

Imagine our horror on witnessing his parents dumping sugar from the bowl on the table into a very nice bottle of brut champagne on New Year’s, because they thought it was too sour! After that, we always had a couple bottles of white zin for the older generation - why spend $20 on champagne if your guests would actually be much happier with a $4 bottle of something sweet?

5

[QUOTE=Eva Luna]
The only issue I have with your post is the phrase “Armenian style Turkish coffee.”
[/QUOTE]

Sometimes I can’t help but throw in my own private in-jokes if I ever bother reading my own posts sometime in the future. I was a Georgian (country, not state) bakery and I asked the elderly Georgian gentleman behind the counter if they had Turkish coffee (even though it wasn’t on the menu), and he smiled, said “Of course, but let’s call it Armenian coffee”, and winked. This parallels entirely with a similar reply I got from a persian restaurant about Greek coffee - “Sure, but it’s Turkish coffee here.” I find the whole Greek/Armenian/Turkish thing highly amusing and ever since then have been using convoluted names to describe what is essentially the same thing (I am aware of the fact that each culture has its own peculiarities in making this coffee but they tend to disappear by the time the tradition gets to California).

I even accidentally caused some jaws to drop and eyebrows to go up when somebody mentioned Armenian numerals and I (without thinking, I should know better) said “Of course, but let’s call them Georgian style Turkish numerals” entirely non-chalantly. Then I realized that not only is that just not funny, nobody in the group was aware of the coffee thing, it really hits across a lot of cultural sensitivities. It’s that uncomfortable feeling of having a lot of people go silent because they interpreted your shower joke as a holocaust reference and not a personal hygiene one like you intended in your head.

6

[QUOTE=Eva Luna]
I’ve seen it work the other way. My Evil Ex with No Morals and No Remorse was a native Muscovite. The East European taste in wine is much sweeter than the Western taste, generally speaking. Now Evil Ex was acculturated to dry wine, brut champagne, etc. His family, however, was not.

[/QUOTE]

I’ve been drinking wine as long as I can remember, and probably had my first taste when I was five years old, but that was in Russia. I haven’t considered that if you really grow up on really dry wine then white zinfandel might taste sweet enough to even be offensive. My favorite table wine of all time is the relatively sweet Kvanchkara but I am well aware that a lot of people give me that “Is there cream sherry in this merlot?” look when they first try it. Acquired taste, I s’pose.

7

[QUOTE=groman]
My favorite table wine of all time is the relatively sweet Kvanchkara but I am well aware that a lot of people give me that “Is there cream sherry in this merlot?” look when they first try it. Acquired taste, I s’pose.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, as a confirmed Slavophile (Causcasophile? is that a word?) I once wasted a perfectly good bottle of Kvanchkara on a bunch of American friends. I tried explaining that comparing it to a nice Shiraz was like comparing apples and oranges, but alas, most of them ended up taking a couple of polite sips and leaving the rest. And these are people who like experimenting and trying new foods.

8

Sweet wines…blech. You may be onto something here. I got all my formative exposure to wine from dry reds. Past a certain point, sweet wines taste like soda pop to me. About the only whites I like are Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, which are so dry they are almost flinty.

9

[QUOTE=silenus]
Sweet wines…blech. You may be onto something here. I got all my formative exposure to wine from dry reds. Past a certain point, sweet wines taste like soda pop to me. About the only whites I like are Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, which are so dry they are almost flinty.
[/QUOTE]

If there was an entire spectrum of wine from syrup to brandy, I’d try them all! :slight_smile: Happy New Year East Coast!

10

[QUOTE=groman]
If there was an entire spectrum of wine from syrup to brandy, I’d try them all! :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

There is - haven’t you ever tried Manischewitz? :slight_smile:

11

The problem with white zin is not that it’s sweet or that it’s pink. Plenty of high quality sweet wines exist, including Chateau D’Yquem, a very sweet dessert wine considered one of the best wines in the world. Rose wines can also be very high quality.

The problem with white zin is that it’s low quality and one-dimensional. It’s made for non-wine drinkers. It’s not like other bad wine, where you might just have picked out a bad bottle of Merlot or Cab Sav, and you can just try another bottle to get a good one; it’s that there is no high quality white zin out there. It simply doesn’t exist. So yeah, it gets a deservedly bad rap. It’s the Budweiser of wine. Sure, people like it, but they generally aren’t the type who are picky about what they drink.

And, for the record, there are some great sweet wines out there that get no exposure at all. Try some Alsatians or some Mosel (from Germany). Sweet, but complex and not syrupy. Fantastic!

12

[QUOTE=groman]
It’s that uncomfortable feeling of having a lot of people go silent because they interpreted your shower joke as a holocaust reference and not a personal hygiene one like you intended in your head.
[/QUOTE]

Now wait a minute, what are you saying about Turkish Armenians here?

:stuck_out_tongue:

-FrL-

13

Let me state for the record:

Wine does NOT have to have a multi-dimensional taste to be good.

Sorry, wine snobs, but it is true. Just because a drink tastes nice instead of complex doesn’t make it bad wine.

Which is why so much of it is sold. Most people drink something because they like the taste, not because Wine Spectator rated it as a 93 with hints of apricot and cinnamon (as if they could really be tasted through all the tannin). :stuck_out_tongue:

14

I dunno, I’ve always suspected that a fair bit of wine snobbery exists simply to sell you really expensive stuff in a bottle. Sometimes, all I want is something that’s cheap and reasonably tasty to drink with dinner. I like the occasional white zin. I have no illusions that it’s great stuff, but I’d like to be able to buy it without having to smuggle it out inside my coat under the disapproving glares of the wine snobs.

15

[QUOTE=Athena]

The problem with white zin is … that there is no high quality white zin out there. It simply doesn’t exist.

[/QUOTE]

It does, or at least there are better quality ones out there. They’re just harder to find. I’ve had a few pretty good ones, but I have no hatred for the Beringer’s or Sutter Home’s of the world either. They might not be what I buy for my own wine rack, but I wouldn’t turn a glass or two down at a BBQ or something (unless the beer was better!)
Some of the nicer ones:

V. Sattui - I think it’s only available at the winery, but it is great for a picnic on a summer day.

Windsor Vineyards

Buehler Vineyards

Montevina - The sweetest and lightest of all of these, but still not a bad little blush.

16

[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
Wine does NOT have to have a multi-dimensional taste to be good.

[/QUOTE]

No, it doesn’t have to, but in general more complexity = tastes better. It’s not just something people made up to make themselves look smart. Even white zin has more complexity than water or kool-aid, which is why it tastes better to a lot of people.

What I don’t get is the hatred for the “wine snobs” as some people put it. My mother-in-law can’t wrap her head around Mr. Athena and I liking various different types of wine, but if you give her a Coke instead of a Pepsi she has a fit. Most people tend to notice subtle differences in their standard food/drink choices. But if you enjoy the differences in your wine, you’re suddenly a “snob.”

17

[QUOTE=Athena]
And, for the record, there are some great sweet wines out there that get no exposure at all. Try some Alsatians or some Mosel (from Germany). Sweet, but complex and not syrupy. Fantastic!
[/QUOTE]

You are going to hate me. I just tipped out 4x1l bottles of Mosel that we purchased in Germany 3 years ago, to make more room in the cellar for new wine. My wife and I are not great white wine drinkers anyhow, and the Mosel was way too sweet for our palates, so we ditched it. It was really cheap stuff though (2-3 euro per bottle), so I didn’t feel too bad, and it was all replaced with some nice complex New World reds (including a half dozen NZ Pinot Noir - divine and hard to get cheap in Europe) and a punt on some French wine (Appelation Minervois) which paid off.

Si

18

Well, it can’t have been that good if you poured it out! I wasn’t saying all Mosel is good… I’ve definitely had some bad ones, but there’s good ones as well.

Funny on the NZ Pinots. I’ve got so much NZ and Australian wine in my cellar at the moment that I’ve declared a moratorium on buying more. It’s the opposite over here on this side of the pond - NZ and Aussie wine is everywhere and cheap, but it’s next to impossible to get a decent French wine for under $20 (~12 Euro, 10 pounds)

19

[QUOTE=Finagle]
I dunno, I’ve always suspected that a fair bit of wine snobbery exists simply to sell you really expensive stuff in a bottle. Sometimes, all I want is something that’s cheap and reasonably tasty to drink with dinner.
[/QUOTE]
I consider myself a wine geek (which I separate from “snob” in the sense that I don’t judge other people’s preferences, though I’m picky myself), and there are lots of perfectly drinkable wines in the ten-dollar-a-bottle range. Someone who spends thirty dollars on a bottle just to have spent thirty dollars is equally as ignorant about wine as somebody who thinks there’s no difference between a five-dollar wine and a fifty-dollar wine.

And the way I read that other thread (and the ones that occasionally pop up on this subject) was a little different than it seems to have been interpreted. I didn’t respond there, but if someone asks me about bringing a white zin to a party, I will counsel against it, not because I personally think that choice makes the person out to be a rube (though I don’t drink white zin), but because they take the risk of appearing to be a rube to the majority of people at the party who may not be as charitable as I am. In other words, it’s a social choice, not a wine choice.

20

[QUOTE=Athena]
What I don’t get is the hatred for the “wine snobs” as some people put it. My mother-in-law can’t wrap her head around Mr. Athena and I liking various different types of wine, but if you give her a Coke instead of a Pepsi she has a fit. Most people tend to notice subtle differences in their standard food/drink choices. But if you enjoy the differences in your wine, you’re suddenly a “snob.”
[/QUOTE]

Well, everybody has preferrences, but if somebody has a fit over having Coke instead of Pepsi, or somebody else drinking MGD, or putting american cheese on a venison burger, they are being a snob. If they themselves prefer not to do it, that’s their choice, but preference does not suddenly make something inedible. It’s like dissing Bob Dylan simply because you like Yeats – you don’t have to use everything the society considers refined as some sort of a pinnacle of frames of reference. It just screams of “Mom! Look at me! I’m appreciating <…> on a level the proles cannot. Ma! Mooom! Are you looking? Mom! Look, I’m high society”, I wonder when people like that actually pause their impression management to actually enjoy things they claim to enjoy? Do they wait until I’m not looking? :slight_smile: