While I’m asking questions, let’s get down to more essential subjects. Is wine better than it used to be?
I’ve been drinking wine (not to excess, of course) for about the last 50 years. My completely unscientific impression is that German wine isn’t as good as it used to be, French wine is nearly as good as it used to be, Italian and Spanish wines are better than they used to be, and American wines are enormously better than they used to be.
I started drinking wine in St. Louis. Most people aren’t aware of it but until Prohibition Missouri produced more wine than any state other than California and produced more sparkling wine than anywhere else in the world. Missouri white wines are still great, its sparklers good, its ports excellent, and its reds barely passable (although they’re a lot better than they used to be). However, it was something of a backwater in terms of wine other than American, German, French, and Italian. I’d never tasted a wine from other than those places and, most especially, from Latin America or South Africa, until I was over thirty.
But back to the question. What do you think? Is wine better than it used to be?
I’m not a big wine drinker–or drinker, period–but I’ve noticed that the wines I like have gotten expensive, often prohibitively so. A decent Chablis runs $50; a good Côtes du Rhône maybe only $40. A good Tokaji is $50-60.
Yes, I realize these are not astronomical prices, but they’re high enough to limit my purchases.
Other than those wines, I don’t find enough difference or pleasure in the rest to be worth my while.
Is the best Petrus today better than the best Petrus of the past? Probably not.
Is low-budget wine better? I think so. And far, far more available. I can get a damned good Cabernet or Zin in any grocery store for $25.
I’m a beer snob – I drink box wine.
Beer snob as well; and American beers are almost always better than foreign IMO.
(BTW/ Plan to be around Ste. Genevivieve, MO in a few weeks; might stop at a winery, might not, but mainly want to see the city with the most French Creole architecture in the U.S.)
The wineries around Augusta, north of St. Louis along the Missouri River, are better.
I love Ste. Gen—spent an enormous amount of time there. I’m not sure I’d describe what’s in Ste. Gen as “architecture”. More like buildings but they’re certainly interesting.
I’ve got a funny story about Ste. Gen. Some very old, dear friends of mine are descended from original St. Gen settlers. Some years ago one of them was going through some old family papers including records from the store her family had owned since the 18th century and ran across a stack of very old unpaid bills. One of them was a bill owed by a member of a family that was to become one of Missouri’s most prominent and wealthy banking families.
The next time she ran into the head of the family (descendants of original settlers tend to know one another) she presented him the bill. No word on whether he paid it.
I’ve been to the Stone Hill Winery in Hermann, my understanding is up the Missouri is German, down the Mississippi is French. I thought the German food at Stone Hill was excellent, the wine seemed fine; still occassionally might buy a bottle of something my wife liked there, perhaps it was a red zin for under $15.
Never been to Ste. G. I did find it fascinating that there are more French Creole buildings there than in New Orleans, which I think reveals that a lot of what people think is French in New Orleans is Spanish.
Wines are definitely getting better. In 1970, I paid about dollar for a bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine. Now, at Walmart, I get a bottle of better wine for about $3.33, and for 5 liters of box wine, it costs even less.
I do remember getting a liter of great Riesling in Germany for the equivalent of $1 in the 70s, when I could refill a 2-liter bottle of OK wine in Rome or Florence for 10 cents.
I think Reynolds is basically correct, except for the “damned good.” “Acceptable” would be better. Heh. But what would I know. He labels me a “fraud, fraud, fraud.”
Although I drink California, my love and real experience is in Bordeaux. Historically, it is an austere style. But the French are evolving. Petrus? Never had it. Don’t know. But of course Pomerol is inherently more luscious, and almost always good.
But many of the left bank austere and monolithic wines (with perhaps the exception of Leoville Barton) are being “softened” over time. I happen to think this is good for left banks. So left banks are getting a tad more merlot grape in the mix. A tweek of petite verdot. And some voodoo. The right bank – well, now we are talking about the rise of the garage wines; the cult wines. Sort of like California’s Screaming Eagle.
I dunno. Maybe good, maybe not.
What I would observe is this. California is uniformly good for the reasons Dave sites. Practices are simply better than they used to be. But they have, for me anyway, become too undifferentiated. Bordeaux? Well. We will always have the terrior. And of course Mr. Perse….
Californias are reliably good. I seldom bother with French anymore, unless it is a really special occasion. The wines from around the rest of the world have improved a lot (New Zealand, Chile, Australia) except for Italians which seem about the same.
Steve