# What to do with this wine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** wine\ **Created:** [March 1, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768 "2013-03-01T22:08:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![araminty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@araminty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/araminty)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/21 "2013-03-06T20:45:52Z")
> [@FrankJBN](#): > > It sounds interesting as Tasmanian wine - keep in mind that just means Australian wine. I don’t understand what you mean by this. Do you consider Tasmanian wines inferior to Australian wines in general? IS Californian wine inherently better or worse than American wine? Or are you just proud that you know that Tasmania is part of Australia? ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/22 "2013-03-06T21:26:42Z")
Boy From Mars who is a wine sommelier here in Australia suggests you cook with it - likely not worth drinking as it will have lost most of its flavours. But he’s a wine snob, so what would he know?! Crack it open and see. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/23 "2013-03-06T21:39:56Z")
> [@FrankJBN](#): > > grape juice should have grape flavor. Wine, not so much. Yeah, there’s very few wines I would identify as having clear grape flavor. That’s usually not a desired trait, depending on what you mean by “grape flavor.” About the only ones I could think of that are grapey are Concord grape wines (like Manischewitz) and maybe Muscat. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/24 "2013-03-08T07:23:39Z")
> [@FrankJBN](#): > > “it had lots of sediment, and no grape flavor.” > > Not unlike a recent '82 Mouton. > > That a wine has sediment is not uncommon; that a wine has “no grape flavor” is quite common. > > grape juice should have grape flavor. Wine, not so much. By “no grape flavor” I meant that the wine was almost tasteless, I cold not identify any flavor of wine origin. It was like purple colored water. ---
**Author:** ![FrankJBN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@FrankJBN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrankJBN)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/25 "2013-03-08T15:28:09Z")
Araminty asks what I mean by “It sounds interesting as Tasmanian wine - keep in mind that just means Australian wine.” By stating that tasmanian wine is just Australian wine I mean just what I said, I can’t see how it is confusing. tasmania is a region in Australia, thus, tasmanian wine is Australian wine. Australian wine is very common, so there is no reason to be “thrilled” by being presented with a bottle of wine produced there. Arqaminty also asks: “IS Californian wine inherently better or worse than American wine?” California wines are generally acknowledged to be the finest American wines, although they are indeed American wines. Tasmanian wines lack that distinction - that is to say they are not thought of as the finest Australian wines although Australian wine is what they are. They are just another Australian wine. Put another way, it would not be all that thrilling to receive an American wine. A California wine - still not that thrilling. A Sonoma county wine a bit better, a Carneros wine a little more exclusive, a wine from grapes from only the winery lake vineyard something to be thrilled about. Receiving an American Wine from New York even less thrilling than a wine from California. An Australian wine - not all that thrilling. A Barossa Valley, a little more so, but no where near thrilling yet. Penfold’s Grange - thrilling. Tasmanian wine - eh, got anything from New York? Bearing in mind the whole time that the consensus here is that this Tasmanian wine has likely gone bad, therefore it would be a bad example of tasmanian wine. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/26 "2013-03-08T19:49:56Z")
Why is it that some wines can go for hundreds of years and be good and expensive and some go bad? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/27 "2013-03-08T20:13:47Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Why is it that some wines can go for hundreds of years and be good and expensive and some go bad? Because they are crafted with that in mind; 99% of wine isn’t. And pretty much no wine can go for 100’s of years without a high likelihood of them going bad. Wine designed to improve with age isn’t very palatable brand new. It’s a big investment in winemaking, then in committing to store it properly. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/28 "2013-03-10T03:53:41Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Because they are crafted with that in mind; 99% of wine isn’t. And pretty much no wine can go for 100’s of years without a high likelihood of them going bad. Wine designed to improve with age isn’t very palatable brand new. It’s a big investment in winemaking, then in committing to store it properly. About the only wine I know of where most of them could have gone hundreds of years w/o going bad is [Madeira](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira_wine). Of course, depending on your tastes, it may have started out bad… Pull the bloomin cork already; I’m curious how this Tasmanian wine tastes. And why are so many people getting banned? Everytime I look at a thread, it seems, one of the main contributors has a “BANNED” beneath their name. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/29 "2013-03-10T04:37:33Z")
> [@FrankJBN](#): > > California wines are generally acknowledged to be the finest American wines… Receiving an American Wine from New York even less thrilling than a wine from California. This is kind of misleading. The best New York (or whatever-region wines) are certainly much better than the lowest tier of Californians. California makes a _lot_ of wine, and naturally a lot of that is average or worse. Personally, having virtually no experience of New York wines, I’d definitely be more interested in a random bottle from there than a random Californian. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768/30 "2013-03-11T01:02:19Z")
Some New York wines from Long Island are quite good. My Brother-in-law makes quite a few of them. Upstate New York generally produces more lower quality wines but there are some that are quite good as well. They don’t have the reputation (or pricetag) of the best CA wines, but there are quality wines produced in a number of locations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-this-wine/651768.md?page=1)