# What's better wine? 2017 cheap plonk or what's on a 1300 nobleman's table **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** wine\ **Created:** [June 22, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-better-wine-2017-cheap-plonk-or-whats-on-a-1300-noblemans-table/789626 "2017-06-22T19:03:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-better-wine-2017-cheap-plonk-or-whats-on-a-1300-noblemans-table/789626/21 "2017-06-23T14:06:33Z")
Wasn’t there some medieval or Renaissance noble who declared sugar water (as in literally, an aqueous solution of sucrose) to be the finest drink ever? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-better-wine-2017-cheap-plonk-or-whats-on-a-1300-noblemans-table/789626/22 "2017-06-23T14:14:18Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I lived in China for two years and I found some great red wine for around $6(that is USD). I think the lower cost of living played a role. It was wine made and bottled in China, but it was fantastic. > > China, and this was 10 yeas ago, had been very much trying to produce some world class wines, but having a terrible time getting any decent ones going. Has this changed over the last decade? I lived in China from 2011 to 2016, and I never found a good Chinese wine. There were very expensive Chinese wines in the Metro store, but I never gambled my hard-earned RMB on them. Reviews of Chinese wines were hard to come by in English, and so nothing was there to help me. I read a feature article in an airline magazine about a couple of Chinese wineries, but I failed to write them down (no, not “Great Wall”). Run by Europeans of note, they were supposedly good. I know I’ve also read about some Chinese wines winning international awards. Restaurants that served wine were generally foreign or Western or 5 star hotels, and so usually only served imported wines. Imported wine was dirt cheap, and I was able to keep wine a heck of a lot cheaper than I can here in Michigan. There are some really good Australian, New Zealand, and South African wines. My “budget” wine was only 32 RMB and came from Italy, and in general, I really, really detest Italian wines, but this was good for the price. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-better-wine-2017-cheap-plonk-or-whats-on-a-1300-noblemans-table/789626/23 "2017-06-23T16:32:09Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > No one can know because we have no way of knowing what the older wine tastes like. And, modern food and beverage have traded flavor for size and durability. The chicken offered at a stand in a Mexican village is smaller but far tastier. Except that wine making is both an art and a very sophisticated science, and the techniques, knowledge, equipment have advanced enormously over the years, even over recent years. In many cases even the grape varietals themselves have been cross-bred and improved to better adapt to climate, soil, and desired wine characteristics. By comparison, ancient wine was extremely crude stuff, often contaminated, poorly preserved so it was either too young or too oxidated, and frequently mixed with other flavorings or cut with water (even seawater) to make it more palatable. [This article](http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/06/wine-history-paul-lukacs-inventing-wine-how-wine-was-modernized-ancient-wine-tasted-terrible.html) talks about what wine was like from Roman through Medieval times, and it generally sounds like awfully putrid stuff. It did start to improve in the Medieval era, but it was still very primitive, and the cold period of the Little Ice Age from around the 14th century through to the latter part of the 19th might have had an adverse effect on viticulture in much of Europe. > [@Balthisar](#): > > I lived in China from 2011 to 2016, and I never found a good Chinese wine. There were very expensive Chinese wines in the Metro store, but I never gambled my hard-earned RMB on them. Reviews of Chinese wines were hard to come by in English, and so nothing was there to help me. There’s a documentary film called _Red Obsession_ that talks about the growing Chinese demand for good wines, particularly French reds, that’s been fueled by growing prosperity in China. This suggests that they don’t have a lot of good stuff domestically, and it’s been raising fears that this might create scarcities and drive up prices. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-better-wine-2017-cheap-plonk-or-whats-on-a-1300-noblemans-table/789626/24 "2017-06-23T18:16:28Z")
Eh, it might mean that they don’t have good stuff domestically, or it might be that people are looking more for the reputation of French wines than they are for the actual product. Not all wine afficionados are snobs, but there’s certainly quite a bit of wine snobbery out there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-better-wine-2017-cheap-plonk-or-whats-on-a-1300-noblemans-table/789626.md?page=1)