my favorite wine...

[DaForce]

Some of the best wines are made here in "convict country"

[studioDIM]

Have any of you Wine experts ever been to Italy or FRance, to taste wines?
Not being bitchy now, but i have tried both american and australian wines (not from NZ yet), and well, they taste INDUSTRIAL.
Probably because the processes to make them is new, compared to the traditional ways of making it.
"Barrique" wines, for instance, are just now topic of HOT debate between traditional wine makers over here in europe (the barrique, or oak cask, is from Bordeaux, originally, hence France) and new wine makers in the US.
Over here, barrique wines take years to mature within those casks, while oxygen seeps through at a very defined speed, slowly maturing the wine while the oak lends it the typical flavour.
The US winemakers say ditch that shit: just throw oak wood powder in, make the process speedy and the taste is gonna be the sameish, just in a fraction of the time.
That's obviously BS through and thorough, as chemistry does NOT work that way (slow diffusion mixes WAY better with the oak flavours and just in the right amount. quick, pushed diffusion just takes over every other taste.), but nevermind: the reasons for that are different.
That's what industrial wines are for: MASS consumption, quick turnaround, and MASS money making.

Believe it or not, there are people here in Italy (and France, i am sure) that create wines for the sake of creating good wines.
Not for the money, not for mass consumption.
And the difference is like day to night.

Please come and have a taste, new world

Lele

[DaForce]

My parents have been basically all over the world tasting wines.
Dad has his own cellar

The only place that was any chop was italy, but they still prefer Australian wines.
It all depends... you may have had shit aussie wine (which there is alot of) but i can certainly tell you there are some amazing wines to be had here.
This is one of the famous expensive wines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grange_Hermitage
hundreds of dollars per bottle... mostly just for an investment not drinking.. but its a fine drop

[jacksc02]

flame on boys!

[studioDIM]

ahahah!
Yay flame on!

I do appreciate that there ARE places which make good wine, and to hell with mass production.
Of course, having been in england while tasting them, i couldn't expect them to be any good (even italian wines sucked big time there for some reason...).

I do reserve myself the opportunity, hopefully, to come taste them locally, as that's how it should be (there are wines i have in our cellar up the Alps which i can drink only there, if i want their taste not to change. Having the bottle do 100kms by car ruins it ).

But hey, would you not say that MOST of the new world wines have mass consumption in mind?

Lele

[DaForce]

I would say 2/3 are for mass consumption

One thing i know for sure.

Coffee is spectacular almost everwhere in Italy/Rome , and SHOCKING in Scotland and pretty bad in England... a good coffee is as rare as hens teeth in those places

So it all depends really doesnt it

[priad]

Good job, I think the reflexions and refractions are too strong probably due to the Hdr.

[percydaman]

Have any of you Wine experts ever been to Italy or FRance, to taste wines?
Not being bitchy now, but i have tried both american and australian wines (not from NZ yet), and well, they taste INDUSTRIAL.
Probably because the processes to make them is new, compared to the traditional ways of making it.
"Barrique" wines, for instance, are just now topic of HOT debate between traditional wine makers over here in europe (the barrique, or oak cask, is from Bordeaux, originally, hence France) and new wine makers in the US.
Over here, barrique wines take years to mature within those casks, while oxygen seeps through at a very defined speed, slowly maturing the wine while the oak lends it the typical flavour.
The US winemakers say ditch that shit: just throw oak wood powder in, make the process speedy and the taste is gonna be the sameish, just in a fraction of the time.
That's obviously BS through and thorough, as chemistry does NOT work that way (slow diffusion mixes WAY better with the oak flavours and just in the right amount. quick, pushed diffusion just takes over every other taste.), but nevermind: the reasons for that are different.
That's what industrial wines are for: MASS consumption, quick turnaround, and MASS money making.

Believe it or not, there are people here in Italy (and France, i am sure) that create wines for the sake of creating good wines.
Not for the money, not for mass consumption.
And the difference is like day to night.

Please come and have a taste, new world

Lele

Hate to break it to ya, but france is not the 'only' premier wine creating country of the world. Ill have to try and find the news link, but I was listening to NPR the other day and they told of a story about how quite awhile ago, californian wines beat french wines in a taste competition, that took place in various locations around the world. Afterwards, the french complained that those same wines would taste like junk several years later, because french wines age better. So many years later, they did a repeat of the competition and the same american wines beat the french wines again.

Ill start looking for the link.

EDIT: Heres a link to the story from NPR. Not sure where the article is that NPR reported from...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5429748

EDIT2: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...05/25/WINE.TMP

Just to state, Im not trying to stir things up or hijack a thread regardless of how it seems in my post hehe

[studioDIM]

I say, come and try for yourself.
We are talking quality AND quantity.
I hate to break it to you, broh, but try and taste a 2 dollars bottle of unbranded wine in Tuscany, then come back and let's talk again.

You are telling me a BRITISH and an AMERICAN BUSINESSES voted over french wines?
Like either of the two know jack about them.
Besides: they did ONLY organolectic tasting (hence subjective to a high degree), and no chemical analisys whatsoever.
Stuff we in Italy do at chemistry school when aged 16 for wines, extra virgin olive oils, waters.

Not to mention the VERY racist comment on "French Fries" in the first post, which indeed SETS the tone of the whole competition.

Broh, you're roughly 2500 years behind in winemaking. try and find for yourself a reason about it

And no i ain't being polemic either. i am stating facts

Lele

[percydaman]

I say, come and try for yourself.
We are talking quality AND quantity.
I hate to break it to you, broh, but try and taste a 2 dollars bottle of unbranded wine in Tuscany, then come back and let's talk again.

You are telling me a BRITISH and an AMERICAN BUSINESSES voted over french wines?
Like either of the two know jack about them.
Besides: they did ONLY organolectic tasting (hence subjective to a high degree), and no chemical analisys whatsoever.
Stuff we in Italy do at chemistry school when aged 16 for wines, extra virgin olive oils, waters.

Not to mention the VERY racist comment on "French Fries" in the first post, which indeed SETS the tone of the whole competition.

Broh, you're roughly 2500 years behind in winemaking. try and find for yourself a reason about it

And no i ain't being polemic either. i am stating facts

Lele

I guess you missed the french guy that voted for the american wine twice. but im done arguing. nobody is saying the french wine isn't good, just that the american isn't bad.

[studioDIM]

I didn't miss the one "french fry" that voted.
ONE, sure.
When there is an organising panel with LOADS of money in their pockets.
Buying of judges DOES help, especially if economic interests big enough depend on the judge's choice.
But nevermind that, it IS an hypotesis with no fundation on facts.

I do not doubt you DO produce good wines.
Australia, and New Zealand do too.
What is missing, however, is the multi-millenary tradition which places like France and Italy can boast.
It's like trying to teach the beglian monks how to do beers.
You'll surely be able to have a FEW good beers produced, but you will never be able to match the kind of cultural spread, and knowledge, that hudreds of years of social interaction built up.
On a side note: does it cost more a Liter of beer, or a liter of average red wine?
In italy, wine is by far the cheapest alchoolic drink.
And by cheapest i do not imply in any way, shape, or form "low quality".
In tuscany, for instance, you walk in a supermarket and buy a bottle of wine with no D.O.C. on it (no controlled origin of the grapes and canteens, so it cannot be called "Chianti", for instance) in the Chianti area (starting from just south of Florence), and you might pay it one and a half euros (less than 2 USDs).
That bottle is going to have been made in the same town where you're buying it, and you might walk by the grapes without knowing it.
A pint of beer, in the same town, in a pub, doesn't come any cheaper than 4 euros (6 USDS).

This is what i mean by Wine culture.

Lele

[mcphep]

hey Maxer

that's one powerful image

[Drawehn]

lele,
maybe you should really go and visit the new world to get over your prejudices a bit? open up your mind?

I have been living in both italy (florence) and australia and i have had bad and great wine and food in both countries.

You don't seem to realize that most people in australia come from european countries and the mixing together of many cultures and their traditions results in an amazing varity of great wine and food.

[Drawehn]

...maybe I should add, that I am no Australian but German...

Great work maxer btw! Love your images.

Viele gruesse

[studioDIM]

lele,
maybe you should really go and visit the new world to get over your prejudices a bit? open up your mind?

I have been living in both italy (florence) and australia and i have had bad and great wine and food in both countries.

You don't seem to realize that most people in australia come from european countries and the mixing together of many cultures and their traditions results in an amazing varity of great wine and food.

Maybe i didn't say it properly.
Anyone, given funds, time, some sunshine and some help, can create a good wine.
And hey, Italy DOES have shit food and shit wine, which generally goes to the unawares (i have to say, with some pleasure from the part of the givers, especially when serving the unwary).
Sorry to say, coming here and "living" here for a bit doesn't quite cut it.
We're no freshly built society, nor a business oriented one with many plugs for people to fit right in and produce.
Do you speak Italian? You were in Florence, did you pick up some accent as well?
They're so jealous about language there...
And did you pick up an accent from Florence, or from Prato, or the Mugello area? Or maybe the Chianti?
Did you learn the colorful swearing that comes with the red wine?
Did you sit down playing cards on a bottle of red with the elderly?
Did you listen to their drunken stories?

Italy's SO varied within itself that if Rivoli was to go to Florence and ask for a coffee in a bar, he'd be spotted as non Florentine. After all he IS from a hundred or so kms south.

Sistah, there's a LOT more than coming here, spending money, and pretending to enjoy it.

As to what trips i have done, it is irrelevant to the point.
The shadow of the fast food culture is long enough, and i DID have my years of tasting it abroad, don't you worry about it.
In fact, i came back to Italy PRECISELY for the food and culture, surely not for the economical situation or the lively work market.

Is it me and my twisted sense of the new world that says that both australians AND people from the US are a VERY small population on a VERY big landmass?
Or that they built, and developed over the years, primarily as a MASSIVE SCALE industry?
100 kms in australia might just be ONE vineyard, for what i know.
In italy and france, probably three entirely different cultures could be crossed over.

But sure, the new world CAN and indeed DOES produce some bottle of good wine.

Lele