The Auswine Forum

My own personal benchmark of wine atrocity has always been Passion Pop, but that may have been supplanted yesterday by my discovery of "Sparkling wine in a can", complete with rip-top. (Artifically carbonated).

Am planning to buy a can for a friend's birthday as a gag, and making her drink it, so will provide a tasting note then.

But it raised the question - is this as bad as it gets, or is there worse out there?

An artificially flavoured lime green sparkling wine from Chile served as the toast wine at a friends engagement party after they had asked me for advice on what cheap sparkling wine to get and then promptly ignored it.

A couple of investment bankers spending 25,000 pounds on vintage Champagne at a wine bar in the UK and not drinking a single drop. Rather, spraying it all over themselves and the room they were staying in, forking out a few extra thousand for cleaning afterwards.

Westcoast Cooler

Romanet party plan wine sales.

Charge $20-30 for wines that are probably worth 3-5 euros at home. And then keep sending more invitations to your work "delivery" address even after telling them to bugger off several times.

Okay, not as bad as the examples above, but damned annoying.

Actually, how about wine based "vodka" cruisers - instant headache!

de-alcoholised wine!

Anything over 14.5% alc.

E&E Black Pepper Shiraz

Indian sparkling wine tried at Vinexpo in Hong Kong in 1998......smelt and tasted like the burn out ring at the SummerNats.....not noice

White Zinfandel .... in fact come to think of it .... anything called wine you can see through.


Also seeing old ladies putting ice-cubes and sugar in glasses of red wine at restaurants. These people deserve a slow and painful death in my book.

Andrew Jordan wrote:White Zinfandel .... in fact come to think of it .... anything called wine you can see through.


Also seeing old ladies putting ice-cubes and sugar in glasses of red wine at restaurants. These people deserve a slow and painful death in my book.

Visit East Timor sometime - it's standard practice to put icecubes in red. And with very little a/c and minimal refrigeration, it's necessary.

Kieran

I can't decide between Kiwi fruit wine or Date wine. I think the Kiwi fruit wins as supposedly the wine maker had to wear sturdy rubber gloves when making the wine as the skin kept peeling off his hands

Glen

Spitting great wine is for losers

An ongoing subtle atrocity is probably the amount of fine wine consumed by people who are not interested really in wine. Champagne would cop it the most. But also scenarios like scarce DRC being consumed by opulent people in a 3 star restaurant in Paris where only some of them are really interested come to mind - I also remember seeing people at Magill Estate restaurant leave Grange in their glasses and buggering off home for example.....

Pelican wrote:An ongoing subtle atrocity is probably the amount of fine wine consumed by people who are not interested really in wine. Champagne would cop it the most. But also scenarios like scarce DRC being consumed by opulent people in a 3 star restaurant in Paris where only some of them are really interested come to mind - I also remember seeing people at Magill Estate restaurant leave Grange in their glasses and buggering off home for example.....

Pffftttttt...I have no problem at all with that...if they have the $$ thats their decision...you are assuming that a rich lay person could not enjoy a DRC...which is more elitist than they are!!

Should only "wine experts" be allowed to drink DRC?? I think not.

Craig(NZ) wrote:Spitting great wine is for losers

I know I'm a loser but did find gratification in pouring Lafite and Mouton and many crappy white/red grand cru burgs into the spittoon on sat night!

Marquis Philips Integrity

without doubt the greatest wine atrocity was witnessing the following scene.

Early 80's, Hockey coach (aka the Blitherer)had been a great collector of Grange from the 70's and to celebrate a particularly siginificant game brought along a 76 Grange for the post match BBQ at the grounds, eye fillet, pate etc. Fringe player (aka Richard. Very appropriate name as you will see) witnesses the Blitherer liberally coating the steaks with a water wheel shiraz. The Blither turns his back and Richard decides to marinate the steak with the Grange and up end the remainder into a fat splattered 10 oz glass to commence quaffing. The Blither witnesses the dying throes of his 76 Grange in a stunned and speachless state.

Adam wrote:

Pelican wrote:An ongoing subtle atrocity is probably the amount of fine wine consumed by people who are not interested really in wine. Champagne would cop it the most. But also scenarios like scarce DRC being consumed by opulent people in a 3 star restaurant in Paris where only some of them are really interested come to mind - I also remember seeing people at Magill Estate restaurant leave Grange in their glasses and buggering off home for example.....

Pffftttttt...I have no problem at all with that...if they have the $$ thats their decision...you are assuming that a rich lay person could not enjoy a DRC...which is more elitist than they are!!

Should only "wine experts" be allowed to drink DRC?? I think not.

I guess what Pelican's getting at is that in the case of a scarce wine it's a very finite resource - it just seems a shame that any of the wine gets drunk without an apparent second look. When it's drunk, it's all gone and there is no more.
cheers,
Graeme

Danny

You are a sick man, see a doctor

watching Asian businessmen pouring Coke into their Grange (bought to impress them by other [wine-loving] businessmen) at a top restaurant,
"just to make it sweeter"

For me the worst was the Italian methanol scandal of the late 1980's. People died

GraemeG wrote:

Adam wrote:

Pelican wrote:An ongoing subtle atrocity is probably the amount of fine wine consumed by people who are not interested really in wine. Champagne would cop it the most. But also scenarios like scarce DRC being consumed by opulent people in a 3 star restaurant in Paris where only some of them are really interested come to mind - I also remember seeing people at Magill Estate restaurant leave Grange in their glasses and buggering off home for example.....

Pffftttttt...I have no problem at all with that...if they have the $$ thats their decision...you are assuming that a rich lay person could not enjoy a DRC...which is more elitist than they are!!

Should only "wine experts" be allowed to drink DRC?? I think not.

I guess what Pelican's getting at is that in the case of a scarce wine it's a very finite resource - it just seems a shame that any of the wine gets drunk without an apparent second look. When it's drunk, it's all gone and there is no more.
cheers,
Graeme

Thank you Graeme. That is what I meant. Although I guess Adam has got me pinned on the elitism charge ! I knew when making that post it could be viewed that way but in the interests of debate I made the post anyway. I'd also admit to a touch of jealousy towards those with deeper pockets than mine when it comes to wine - human nature I guess !

A couple of years ago I spent a few days in Taiwan. In one of the English papers there was a tip for fixing up off red wine.

Just put in half a clove of garlic in the wine. Wait a minute and the wine will be wonderful. A full clove is needed if you want to fix a bottle.

Must try it one day on a "wine" from the Hunter Valley.

darby wrote:
Must try it one day on a "wine" from the Hunter Valley.

Yes. I may do the same one day on some obscure varietal wine which remains obscure (probably) for very good reason.....

GW

Gary W wrote:

darby wrote:
Must try it one day on a "wine" from the Hunter Valley.

Yes. I may do the same one day on some obscure varietal wine which remains obscure (probably) for very good reason.....

GW

Although I'm less than enamoured of Hunter reds... Touché!

Gary W wrote:

darby wrote:
Must try it one day on a "wine" from the Hunter Valley.

Yes. I may do the same one day on some obscure varietal wine which remains obscure (probably) for very good reason.....

GW

Good to see you still lurking and posting and in such excellent form