> Was it the case that the Silver Oak bottle probably needed some time to open up?
This was a long time ago so it's hard to say. But I've had plenty of reds that tasted great straight out of the bottle, so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. Also, while it is absolutely true that the taste of a wine will change over the course of an evening, it's far from clear how much of this is due to the flavor of the wine changing and how much due to your perceptions changing. Taste buds can get fatigued (I get "wined out" after trying 5 or 6 different wines) and food makes a huge difference too.
My bottom line: I now know plenty of wines that reliably taste great (to me) straight out of the gate and keep tasting great through the whole bottle even if I keep it for a couple of days, and which cost a lot less than Silver Oak. So I just drink those :-)
> IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't.
Yikes. Gonna have to disagree with you on that. The effect of a wine being aerated/oxidized after being opened and/or decanted is obvious even to a casual wine drinker.
> I now know plenty of wines that reliably taste great (to me) straight out of the gate and keep tasting great through the whole bottle even if I keep it for a couple of days
And, by the same token, the taste of red wine degrades fast and is generally completely unrecognizable within 24-48 hours of opening, even if it's well kept with a fancy stopper.
Reading those two comments of yours makes me seriously doubt your ability to make observations that generalize to other people.
Is it really about the bottle being decanted, or being ensured you're getting the wine you asked for? If I order the vegetarian lasagna, but I get the beef lasagna I'll immediately realize something is wrong. I think that's less true for drinking wine, especially if you're not super good at sensing nuances.
There are a huge range of wines that need to be decanted. The effect is not only obvious but marvelous, how they start smelling and evolve into something much deeper, specially on the oldest bottles.
Same with the degradation. I have a vacuum pump for the bottles I left open and the degradation is still obvious.
I didn't make myself clear. I don't deny that decanting and/or aerating will improve many (perhaps even most) reds. But in my experience, for my own personal tastes, any wine that requires this very rarely ends up tasting as good as one that doesn't.
> Reading those two comments of yours makes me seriously doubt your ability to make observations that generalize to other people.
Two responses:
1. What I've said here is not based just on my own experience, but also on the firsthand observations of other people who have participated in blind tastings along with me. And...
2. The general impossibility of generalizing one's own subjective experience to other people when it comes to wine is kind of my whole point.
I'm not sure blind tastings with relative newbies gives the best signal here. If you give someone cocktails for the first time they'll probably like screwdrivers the most; if you let kids choose between doritos and oysters they'll pick the doritos.
After having had a lot of moderately expensive wine over the past few years, I'm sometimes surprised when I go back to a $5 bottle that I like. Usually if I think about it harder, I find that I'm enjoying a combination of sweetness and oak that are pleasant, but not really that fun to dwell on. It's similar to that balance of salt, sugar, and fat that snack foods use to be broadly liked but not have much depth.
Not to say that such wines are bad, but I think you're missing the point to say that expensive wines are supposed to be appreciated by the masses.
> I'm not sure blind tastings with relative newbies gives the best signal here.
Sure, that's why we repeat the experiment regularly (though less formally than we used to). In fact, we just did it a few weeks ago with a friend who is a really hard-core wine snob. He has a 10,000 bottle collection in off-site temperature controlled storage. And he's not just a rich asshole showing off his wealth. He's upper-middle class and really passionate and knowledgeable about wine, as is his wife. Both of them rated the Barefoot cab very highly. No Silver Oak in the lineup this time, but some very comparable bottles, like a Franciscan and a Veeder Reserve, alongside a few other varietals (we were actually trying to see if we could pick out varietals blind). The Barefoot didn't come out on top, but it made a very respectable showing. One of the things we rated the wines on was, "How much would you guess this wine sells for?" My friend gave the Barefoot a $50 rating, and his wife said $130.
Cool, I'll have to give this a try sometime. I've only tasted one wine that retails for over $100/bottle, so I'd be hard pressed to guess that any wine I'm trying costs that much!
I'm curious how the other varietals did. Cabs have so many flavors going on that it might be easier for cheaper wines to "hide behind" oak and alcohol. (Relatedly, the general wisdom for homebrewers is that Budweiser-style beers are much harder to emulate at home than IPAs, because any bad flavors in a light beer will stick out much more than a flavorful ale.) I've heard some wine people talk about how hard it is to find "good" Pinot Noirs for under $30, presumably because that grape has a bit more nuance and it's hard for (at least the snobby) people to find cheaper bottles that don't have sharp edges.
I'd certainly encourage people to try natural wines if they do a tasting. They're on the cheaper end of the good wine spectrum, don't need aging, and almost universally taste better than the median wine at 2x the price. Something like Raisins Gaulois is a good starting point.
I also find myself getting fatigued of "bliss point" snack foods. When I was young I could eat Oreos for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now I might have a couple of Oreos once a year just to reminisce about old times I suppose.
>so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't.
I respectfully disagree. Basically I stick to cheap wines (for budget reasons), and my decanter will turn almost any unbearable red into acceptable. A newly opened red sometimes just needs to be smoothed out via air a bit -- at the extreme of things, if you leave a glass out overnight it will be flat (not to mention, the alcohol will have evaporated of course).
edit: not sure if "evaporate" is the right scientific term
This was a long time ago so it's hard to say. But I've had plenty of reds that tasted great straight out of the bottle, so IMHO any wine that needs to "open up" is not as good as one that doesn't. Also, while it is absolutely true that the taste of a wine will change over the course of an evening, it's far from clear how much of this is due to the flavor of the wine changing and how much due to your perceptions changing. Taste buds can get fatigued (I get "wined out" after trying 5 or 6 different wines) and food makes a huge difference too.
My bottom line: I now know plenty of wines that reliably taste great (to me) straight out of the gate and keep tasting great through the whole bottle even if I keep it for a couple of days, and which cost a lot less than Silver Oak. So I just drink those :-)