Transcript: Expensive vs Affordable: Can a "Wine Newbie" Tell the Difference

- Oh, hey, there's some girth.

- Yeah. It goes...

- Not used to hearing that, do you?

- Hi, and welcome to another breathtaking episode of Lucky Rock wine Lounge, I'm Jesse Inman.

- And I'm Aaron 'Big Homie' Inman.

- And we have our first ever guest, Shelyn. We couldn't find anybody else, so we asked Shelyn to come and join us.

- So Shelyn, I hear that you're a little bit of a wine newbie?

- Yeah, fairly new, only about... Only worked in the wine industry for about nine months now.

- And when you're buying wine, do you ever find it intimidating?

- Absolutely. It's definitely being surrounded by so many different types of wine, more than I ever have before. Once you're in the industry, I feel like you almost have to have even more knowledge in terms of buying wine in the grocery store.

- Sure.

- And being able to...

- And if you're talking to people at a tasting room and you don't know what you're talking about, you start kind of, did you make it up or do you just like ?

- Definitely make up. It's definitely more about storytelling than I think.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, or you could start a YouTube channel where you pretend to know a lot about wine and then build your credibility.

- I have no idea what I'm doing but I know I'm doing it really, really well.

- All right, it's that time folks. Do all the things, comment, like, subscribe.

- Yeah. Even Shelyn did it.

- So generally, consumers use price as an indicator of quality. And so we're gonna remove that today when we taste two white wines and two red wines. One of them is going to be around $17 and the other one's gonna be double that price. So I think that's 69.

- Yes, and then we'll have Shelyn taste the wines and decide which one she likes better and why. And then we'll come in with our 'expert' opinions and see if we agree from an 'expert' point of view.

- What do you think about that, Shelyn?

- I'm excited to drink.

- I think now we commence trying the wines.

- Yeah, so we are gonna start with the white wines. This is Chardonnay. So we're not gonna throw you any curve balls with some crazy diverse meter.

- And then we'll do a Cabernet Sauvignon hovering the top two or three varieties every year.

- So it's gonna be...

- The most popular.

- Yeah, mostest, popularist.

- Yeah. So we'll get into this. We've got wine one and wine two here.

- It's already marked on your glass wine one, wine two.

- Hmm.

- I see the color difference.

- What do you think?

- Hmm.

- What do you think and why?

- I would say, which one do you like better?

- Well, I, for my palette specifically, I like the easier lighter bodied Chardonnays. That to me, number one seemed just like a little bit better in terms of, I don't know, kind of being...

- Up your alley.

- Yeah, up my alley, fairly approachable, but number two definitely a little bit more like that medium straw color so I feel like this definitely saw a little bit more Oak. It's definitely a little bit more rich and full but I think that truthfully, this is probably the nicer Chardonnay. I feel like this is kind of...

- When you say nicer, do you mean more expensive?

- I do think more expensive. This seems to be a little bit more like cheaply made.

- Because it has less wood on it?

- It has less wood. It doesn't seem as complex. It seems just like lighter in general. And then, whereas this one definitely has more of like a full flavor profile and a really nice nose to it.

- So just to, to summarize that we've got wine number one, Shelyn thinks is her favorite from a flavor in her mouth standpoint. And number two is the more expensive though. So if you add that all up, she's a cheap date.

- My favorite.

- Absolutely.

- All right, so what do you think, Jesse?

- I agree with her. This one has a couple holes in it but it's nice, light and refreshing. The other one has a couple holes in it too but it just tastes more expensive.

- Mm.

- Yeah, it's funny to me because...

- Oaky, buttery.

- I just wonder if this one's a little more Frankensteined, number two. It seems like a wine that maybe was made in the lab a little bit.

- Chardonnay is probably, I would say universally the most manipulated of all varieties, be through malolactic fermentation.

- Sure.

- Adding the buttery flavor.

- Yeah.

- Taking the lactic acid out and then, or malic acid out and then on top of it, the wood and a lot of wood to boot.

- Sure. I actually prefer wine one as well. I actually think it's maybe the more expensive because it's a little more integrated and a little more subtle, whereas this one is a little bit more in your face and some of...

- They're trying too hard.

- It seems like it's trying a little too hard and that sometimes comes off cheaply.

- Yeah, I just think that that's kind of hard to do in a 17-ish dollar bottle of wine.

- I don't disagree.

- So that's me. Oh, the only thing just knowing that psychologically is what the price point is.

- Yeah.

- That's making me think that that's the more expensive because it is hard to do at that price point.

- Yeah, and I would say these are not... Either of them are like bad wines.

- No.

- No.

- If the number one is indeed the $17 bottle of wine, I think it's...

- It's pretty tasty, yeah. And I would gladly buy that and drink it.

- Yeah.

- So after the big reveal the Heitz Cellar's 33 bucks and the Foxglove 17. So wine number one, wine number two.

- At the end of the day there's... This is in Napa valley, expensive land, It's made with a little more finesse, it tastes like maybe it didn't go through ML. So it's a little bit brighter there too. Whereas this is a little more classic, a little more Burgundian in style and then the Foxglove is going, "Hey, I like California Chardonnays, I like Oak, I like a lot of perfumy like notes."

- It proves the point that things can be made more mainstream, popular style.

- Sure.

- And versus sometimes a little bit less intervention and letting quality shine through with the grapes and whatnot.

- All right, so that was kind of fun. What do you feel like? You feel like you learned anything there or?

- Oh, absolutely. But I definitely like to learn a little bit more about how, like the misconception of Chardonnay, especially California Chardonnay being big and Oaky and whatnot and inexpensive and everything. But in fact, some of, again the lighter, brighter, more like, again like new world Chardonnays are definitely taking over and can also replicate an expensive tasting Chardonnay.

- Well, it's funny because some of the new world producers are doing it, but they're really hearkening back to the old world producers with this less Indian face style.

- Well, as I'm thinking about it, more this the the Heitz. If you were to make that style of wine with lower quality grapes, it's gonna taste a lot...

- Would be challenging.

- It is.

- Because you're not able to hide as many flaws with the Oak and the butter and things like that. So, now that I'm realizing this is the more expensive of the two, it's like if they try to do that with the Foxglove, I don't think it'd be nearly as good of a wine.

- All right, now, let's jump into some Cabernet sauvignon. We have two Cabernets, one of them around 17 bucks, one of them is around 40 bucks. Wine one, wine two they're blind, we don't know what they are.

- And let's get into it.

- Commence.

- All right.

- Commence the sniffing.

- You know it's funny, right off the bat, the color of them, I can see them on their own table and I think just on color alone, I can tell.

- Making so many mental notes right now?

- I think I know.

- All right.

- Okay, hold on.

- What's the verdict there little lady?

- I definitely prefer number one. Just seems like a little bit more of a...

- What don't you like about number two?

- Number two, it's got kind of a weird flavor profile to me. It's just kind of tastes like it's got an interesting amount of like acid to it and just like kind of flavors that I didn't really expect per se.

- Yeah.

- But I could be absolutely wrong.

- Wrong

- in terms of..

- It's really whatever you like. There's no wrong or right.

- Then the second question is, which one do you think is more expensive?

- I would say number one, I'm gonna go with my gut. Number one would be more expensive. It just like, seems like it's more velvety. It's got a nice finish to it. What do you guys think?

- I think the complete opposite, actually.

- Same.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. But that's only come with time.

- Mm, Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Can't be as old as you.

- What Aaron and I will notice is like number two, it's more rich and full and it's got... Whereas the number one has kind of prickly tannins, the tannins on number two are softer. And so that with Cabernet is really hard to do without barrel age.

- Okay.

- And not just barrel age, but lots of barrel age versus the other one probably was in a tank with some staves or something.

- Inappropriate amount of extraction.

- But that said, I think for the price point, they did a pretty good job. As long as you liked number one, then that's a great deal for you.

- Well, and my...

- Because it's half the price.

- Yeah, my wallet will be a lot happier with that. I'm happy to drink the, the cheaper carab.

- We'll send you home with that.

- Do you like how we're acting like we already picked it?

- Yeah.

- Oh yeah.

- I was just like, "They haven't even told us yet." I hope that you're wrong.

- It comes out and we just get poo all over our faces.

- Actually let me man-splain that for you.

- All right, so we've now revealed it. And Jesse walks through it.

- My numero uno is, that's 'number one' in Spanish, Sean Minor and this is North Coast. And then wine number two is also Napa Rutherford which is a sub Appalachian in Napa. This one's 17 bucks. This one's, we got it for like 42 but I think it's like 50. 50, some odd. It's funny because this one's got a pretty heavy bottle.

- Yeah.

- If you were to pick it up off the shelf, you wanna say, "Ooh."

- "Oh, hey, there's some girth."

- Yeah, it goes...

- Not used to hearing that, do you?

- Sick burn.

- All right.

- And the episode is over, goodbye. I think that was really interesting that you on both of those, you... The first one you liked the expensive one the most.

- But pick the second one is the more expensive

- But pick the second one is more expensive. And on this one, you liked the less expensive and thought it was the more expensive, which is interesting.

- Well, my higher end was always only like the $12 cap anyways. So a $17 is the less expensive Cab to me and I liked it.

- And you were saying off camera, you're like, "I almost wish it was Pinot." Because you know, Pinot better, right?

- Yes, I do know Pinot a bit better. To me, the first one was like a Pinot lover's Cab because again, it was nice and subtle. A little bit like on the lighter side.

- I would say Cab is an incredibly hard wine to make really well at a low price point because it's... King Cab, it's expensive because you can get some really Cabs in a lot of different places, but Napa valley because of the scarcity, it grows Cab really well, high price.

- So that was fun. We appreciate you being here today on the Lucky Rock wine lounge.

- Mm. It was, it was a pleasure, you guys. Just the best.

- Yeah, and you we're our first guest.

- Yeah. Oh, thank you.

- I'll always remember my first time

- Cheers.

- Cheers you guys. Thank you so much for having me.

- Thank you so much for coming.

- See you on the next episode.