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+--- Thread: American vs. french (/thread-17299.html)
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- summa - 08-02-2001
I hate to say it, but it still seems to me americans have a long way to go so far as the integrity, balance, and subtelty of their wines when compared to france. Is this in part due to their inoculating their wines with yeast, as opposed to using the "wild" strains?
How complex are the yeasts they choose to use? How many strains? Are the french using this practice now more, or still choosing to do it the "natural" way?
- Bucko - 08-02-2001
You srirred up a big mess with that post. The French have been innoculating for years. Wild yeast strains are too unpredictable. Taste is a personal preference. Cheap French plonk is no better than US plonk. Top American wines go head to head with French. Dollar for dollar, I believe the French still have the edge.
Bucko
- summa - 08-02-2001
I guess it's a matter of style...american in pieces, but big, french together, but a bit smaller...even maybe on a dollar for dollar basis...Just trying to bring memories of a past wine filled life back to me...thanks for the help
[This message has been edited by summa (edited 08-02-2001).]
- tomstevenson - 08-03-2001
Don't say thanks and goodbye to this topic quite so quickly summa. As Bucko says, you've stirred up a big mess with your post, but as Bucko would be the first to agree, Forums like a "big mess" - that's what keeps them going. Bucko is right that the French have been innoculating for years. In fact I see more experimentation with so-called wild yeasts in the New World (ie., not only the USA) than in France. And Bucko is right that they can be unpredictable, but that is one of the reasons why they are tried - to see if the local yeasts are stable and can produce something that is more expressive of the terroir.
However, Bucko is wrong to suggest that French plonk is no better than US plonk. The vast majority (and it is vast) is much worse. Perhaps Bucko is used to the sanitized level of French plonk that is exported to the USA?
Top American wines are great by any standards, French included. I'm not fond of identikit Chardonnay and so much oak that I have to remove splinters from between my teeth, so I certainly wish that more American winemakers were less hands-on, but I also recognise that the American wine industry essentially had to start from scratch following Prohibition, that the Second World War held things up, thus you guys have had barely 50 years to get to the point where your best wines can slug it out with the best in the world, whereas the French had 500 years. And the only way that American winemakers have achieved that is by being hands-on, so I'll put up with that while they search their souls for finesse.
- winoweenie - 08-03-2001
Hear Hear Tom! Well said as usual. I'm always amazed at how fast some of the less informed gun-slingers, thinking it fashionable, bash the U.S. wine industry. I can assure you that no Francophile in my area wants to go head-to-head with anything out of their cellar against home-grown products from mine. Four times over the last 5 years the gauntlet has been thrown, The vintage selected, the bottles assembled, and Voila!, in the ensuing blind tasting the challenger has picked Calif or Washington wines over their coveted French. This includes the 1st growths, Super-Seconds, and all thre way down the ladder. The oldest wines we've compared were 1970s, and the youngest 1990s. So line-em'-up podner, I love a good shoot-out. WW Just a note on the Plonk. Gallos' biggest expot market last figures I saw was their generic jugs wines into France!
[This message has been edited by winoweenie (edited 08-03-2001).]
- Innkeeper - 08-03-2001
This is just a rehash of the ole Old World, New World thing. Simply put sometimes old is good, sometimes new is. Personally, do about 50-50. Interestingly, Foodie has his site at www.is-wine.com divided up precisely that way. I find that a convenient way to buy wine, because I can go directly to the style I have in mind.
- Bucko - 08-03-2001
Tom, plonk is plonk no matter where it comes from. I don't drink the stuff but do have occasion to try it frequently as samples.
I will agree from my travels that cheap little French co-op wines can be quite charming. They blow away the majority of our jug wines. However, we CAN do it right. Canyon Road makes a delicious Sauvignon Blanc that I have commented on before. It even won a Gold medal at the Indy International last week. So we can do it; the question is why we do not do it more?
One of my most pleasurable wine experiences was sitting in a small Alsatian cafe eating Tarte Flambe and drinking Gewurztraminer by the pitcher from a tapped barrel - a match made in heaven. It is the whole package in France. Our Victorian country did not develop their cuisine with wine in mind. Wine was thrown in as an afterthought. As such, much of our wine does not match food very well. It may be pretty to drink alone and win gold medals, but it does not lend itself to food. We are beginning to turn the corner a bit in this regard, but I still find myself reaching for that Sancerre or CdP to have with meals.
Bucko
- summa - 08-03-2001
I think that is it, don't get me wrong, I love American wines, and they comprimise the vast majority of my quaffing experience.
I guess it is just my hope that they develop a bit more "finesse". I'm sure, as tom pointed out, it is a matter of experience, the US wine industry being so relatively young.
In my old and dusty memories, which may be off now, I remember Kalin having the most finesse of any of the US wines I'd tried, and his being a microbiologist, I'm wondering to what extent the complexity of the yeasts used can lend themselves to a more complex or integral wine, one with more subtlety.
How complex and what number of yeast strains are used in creating these wines?
Also is it mainly that or the blending which has more of an influence on the number of levels that exist within a single wine?
[This message has been edited by summa (edited 08-03-2001).]
- tomstevenson - 08-03-2001
Did you scan my reply a tad too quick Bucko? I was actually stating that the "vast majority (of French plonk) is much worse". There are some charming inexpensive French wines, but I would not classify any varietal wine or, indeed, any AOC wine as plonk (acknowledging the fact that most wines sold as AOC are "plonk" in quality ... and that many Vins de Pays are hugely superior and not always cheaper ... but I digress). Plonk is by definition a wine of no abode. In the USA you call it Jug wine (which might be why you confuse an AOC wine served in a jug as theoretically plonk) and in France it is Vin de Table - no grape variety and no origin. The word plonk derives from 19th century rhyming slang for the most ubiquitous Vin de Table - blanc de blancs. Our charming Cockney friends not being fussy about pronouncing their own language let alone French would say "Blanc de Blanc(s) Plonk!". The Australians re-invented the word in the 1930s (not surprising considering that the somewhat less than charming British establishment sent so many Cockneys to serve time there for having the gall to steal a loaf of bread) and, ironically, in more modern times someone came up with Plonk de Plonks, little realising I suppose the origin of "plonk". Talk about digression!
[This message has been edited by tomstevenson (edited 08-03-2001).]
- Thomas - 08-03-2001
If Mr. Sanity could enter the fray a bit...
Thanks IK for recognizing and commenting on what I tried to do on our site. I believe there are definite differences in Old and New World styles, Unfortunately (for the Old World and for guys like me and Roberto) far too many Old Worlders are taking up New World thinking--it's for marketing to the U.S., which leads me to my next point.
Those in the U.S. who were weaned on Left Coast wines often have trouble accepting the Old World style, which I believe, like Summo, often offers more finesse and less up-front-in-your-face-fruit-wood-alcohol.
Having said all the above, I also believe that generalizing is a bad practice. I drink wine from every part of the globe. I like some, do not like some, find some reasonable but nothing to write about, find some deplorable. To me, that is the fun of wine--there is so much across the globe I shall never make it to the end before my end. The problem with most consumers is that they seek consistency and sameness (witness our marvelously over-marketed culture). I seek variety in wine, women (please don't tell my wife), song, seasons and opinions. Yet, in all my variety-seeking, I prefer finesse over bombardment.
As for plonk, when you drink wine daily you are bound to encounter plonk--make the best of it and move on. But if wine drinking is a once in a while thing, then go for the best--always.
- Scoop - 08-03-2001
Nice etymology for plonk, Tom. I'll certainly repeat it (but I'll cite you, of course -- horse!).
Cheers, steers,
Scoop
- Botafogo - 08-03-2001
Verne, was your blind tasting done with appropriate food or was it a "mine's showier than yours" circle jerk with communion wafers and distilled water? Just wondering as wee do the same thing all the time and the Italians win hands down.....
- tomstevenson - 08-03-2001
Excuse my ignorance Foodie, but when you say "Left Coast" which way are you facing?
- hotwine - 08-03-2001
We face north, Tom, from whence come the enemy hordes. "Left coast" is thus specific politically and geographically. (Please 'scuse me Foodie fer buttin' in.)
[This message has been edited by hotwine (edited 08-03-2001).]
- Thomas - 08-03-2001
Sorry Tom, I keep forgetting this is an international group of misfits...
- Botafogo - 08-03-2001
Tom, I shall commence immediately to call the under $6 section of our Hot List Plonk di Plonk! Thanks, Roberto
- wondersofwine - 08-03-2001
Tom, while we have you on the line (so to speak), and defining Britishisms or Cockney, a question came up earlier about a reference to "hock" wine. I think it used to be a broad term for Rheingau wine (from Hochenheim perhaps). Is this correct?
- Bucko - 08-03-2001
Sorry Tom, misunderstood.....
Bucko
- summa - 08-03-2001
<is beginning to understand these tertiary meanderings of thought in the threads and is enjoying them>
Thanks all =D I get it now lol....conscious style choice, generated by the illusionary "American Palate"
I Fully agree with foodie that generalisation is bad but I'd not tried much wine in a loooong time unfortunately.
[This message has been edited by summa (edited 08-03-2001).]
- tomstevenson - 08-04-2001
Left coast is specific politically and geographically: like it hotwine (not withstanding the fact that your country's Left is nearer to our Right - post-Thatcher anyway). And you're right wondersofwine, Hock does derive from Hochheim. There's an old wive's tale that it goes back to Queen Victoria's favourite German wine (she owned a vineyard in Hochheim), but in fact it goes back much further, to the 17th century. It was first mentioned, I think, in Oldham's PARAPHRASES FROM HORACE (1681), originally referring specifically to wines from Hochheim itself, but became synonymous with Rhine or Rhenish wines as a whole in the 18th century. So much so, in fact, that Christie's had to qualify the Hocks from Hochheim as "Hock Hocheim". Hope that satisfies.
Tom
[This message has been edited by tomstevenson (edited 08-04-2001).]