A few notes from the Heritage Blind Wine Tasting Finals in Las Vegas

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:

originally posted by scottreiner:
For the record, VA doesn't bother me one bit....

Tsk, tsk, it's spoilage, so it's like sayin' that the decomposition of corpses doesn't bother you one bit.

One could say that any fermented product is spoilage, O., such as yogurt, cheese, pickles or sauerkraut. That’s a dangerous road to go down.

Mark Lipton

Every human being is slowly dying, but that's not the same as having a fatal disease.

Not logically responsive to Mark's examples which all result from actual bacterial spoilage. Well, at least yogurt and cheese. I'm not as aware of how the process of pickling entails spoilage, which is not to say that it does not.

 

[mark e]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:

originally posted by scottreiner:
For the record, VA doesn't bother me one bit....

Tsk, tsk, it's spoilage, so it's like sayin' that the decomposition of corpses doesn't bother you one bit.

One could say that any fermented product is spoilage, O., such as yogurt, cheese, pickles or sauerkraut. That’s a dangerous road to go down.

Mark Lipton

If spoilage is defined (as it could be) as "the process in which food deteriorates to the point in which it is not edible to humans or its quality of edibility becomes reduced," then yogurt, cheese and sauerkraut are the opposite of spoilage as the processes - at least to my eyes - improve upon the original product being transformed.

I suppose you could call ML bacterial spoilage, but some think it improves wine. On the other hand, most agree that VA degrades the quality of wine, ergo the term spoilage.

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

Ok, then I’ll try something different. If one is a lawyer defending a dairy company that refused to replace a batch of spoiled milk, one says to the judge: “your honor, just think of it as yogurt or cheese, otherwise you’ll be going down a dangerous road.”

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

ML converts one kind of fixed acid into another, not sure how that could be called spoilage.

 

[Jay Miller]

I suppose you could call ML bacterial spoilage, but some think it improves wine. On the other hand, most agree that VA degrades the quality of wine, ergo the term spoilage.

Hmph! Many people say...

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by mark e:

If spoilage is defined (as it could be) as "the process in which food deteriorates to the point in which it is not edible to humans or its quality of edibility becomes reduced," then yogurt, cheese and sauerkraut are the opposite of spoilage as the processes - at least to my eyes - improve upon the original product being transformed.

To me, the slippery slope part of this argument is that there isn't monolithic agreement as to what's edible or even pleasurable. A relevant study I recently saw (and maybe you did too) from UC Davis showed that Millennials (not that thread, though) are far less bothered by TCA in wine than we are because they have grown up with "baby" carrots that have a high incidence of TCA contamination.

I suppose you could call ML bacterial spoilage, but some think it improves wine. On the other hand, most agree that VA degrades the quality of wine, ergo the term spoilage.

The problem here is that it isn't a binary VA/no-VA situation but rather VA above our limits of perception and/or tolerance, and those limits vary from person to person. If there's an acceptable amount of VA we say that the wine has a "lifted" nose but if it exceeds our tolerance then we call out VA. Another relevant study I recall is a study of beer drinkers that found that they preferred the taste of beer that had had a small amount of acetic acid added.

Mark Lipton

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by MLipton:
A relevant study I recently saw (and maybe you did too) from UC Davis showed that Millennials (not that thread, though) are far less bothered by TCA in wine than we are because they have grown up with "baby" carrots that have a high incidence of TCA contamination.

Reminds me of the Borgias who made themselves immune to their own poisons by ingesting a little every day....