Wine Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Wine | Price Points | Epicurious

I'm Belinda Chang and I'm a wine expert Wow I'm so excited because clearly both of these are sparkling wines we have this very traditional covering which keeps the cork in the bottle because these bottles are filled with bubbles and they have quite a bit of pressure so there is a danger factor when you're opening these bottles so you have to be very careful always have a black napkin and you're gonna put that on top of the bottle so we're gonna go with bottle a first now is when it can get a little dangerous I think that the best way is to loosen this cage a little bit but leave it on now some people will tell you to take it off at this point but that is an invitation for disaster now we're gonna pick up the bottle and I'm pressing and pulling and I'm turning the bottle you're gonna hear a little whisper and that means you've done it correctly and so we see a beautiful flow of bubbles here and also a foam we are confirming that this is indeed a sparkling wine which in fact is a really difficult style of wine to make because not only do you have to make a delicious wine but then you need to take a delicious wine and add bubbles to it and there are many different ways to do that we always love to give the wines a little bit of swirl what that does is adds oxygen and it unfurls the molecules that are in the wine so you want to let the wine breathe so I'm gonna put my nose in well that's smells good so a little bit of lemon maybe a bit of lime zest and also a bit of pear all of these fruit flavors are considered primary flavors so a smells really great but let's move on to because I'm dying to see what's inside this bottle so this one is super exciting you could see that the foam is a little more consistent and a little more firm and we see a much more if you will serious bubble structures I'm guessing this one's a little more of a luxury cuvee so we've see a very fine and consistent bubble if they call that a fine bead they like to say in champagne that if you have small imperfect bubbles it's the eyes of the frog which I don't think they mean as a compliment also gonna look at the color and I like to do that by tilting the glass away from me and we have a really beautiful golden color here wow that smells pretty amazing we definitely had those primary aromas a little bit of cinnamon and brioche and it's also just a really complex and intricate nose where as a was a little bit more primary with the fruits here we have quite a lot more complexity which comes from age and also the techniques used to make a fine sparkling wine I think it's time to taste them both I can't wait so you still like to add a little air because 99% of what you taste is what you smell so you want to have the aroma first before you go in and taste the wine this one is really crisp lean sort of minerally which might tell us something about the soils in which the grapes were grown and it feels just very young and very fresh and very vibrant super excited to taste wine B here we go these patisserie smells and baked goods smells like a great croissant or a great loaf of brioche are definitely on the palate of this wine this is definitely a style of sparkling wine that has spent a good bit of time in the cellar so you have to have miles and miles of deep cellars in order to have this process happen and I definitely taste all of that work and all of those years in wine B I think that a is the one for daily drinking less expensive let's find out if I was right [Music] yay I get to keep my job clearly a is the simpler daily drinking you're gonna find it on a lower shelf in the grocery store and be is clearly something a little more serious and something that you want to drink for a celebration from looking at them these appear to be white wines but you never quite know because winemakers love to use colored glass which actually protects the wine that's inside so we won't know that for sure a heavier bottle is going to be a little more protective of the wine because you have thicker glass and also thicker colored glass which will keep the wine safe from light degradation I'm going to get wine a open and take a peek at what's inside when you're opening a bottle of still wine it's a little different from sparkling wine so you want to take the knife on your corkscrew and you're gonna make a cut around the second lip every bottle of wine has a top lip and also a second lip you're gonna make a cut upwards a little bit and then scooch off this lead capsule so we're already set here and the next step is I'm going to use my favorite corkscrew it's not fancy but it always does the job and then the next part is to put this second ledge on the corkscrew and then I'm going to gently remove because you never want to make an opah style pop it is indeed a white wine we know that for sure now so we've got a little circle here and I'm looking at the color from the center of the glass out to the outside and I can actually see if you remember from chemistry class what we call the meniscus and it's a little bit watery here which tells me that this is a white wine that has grown in a cool climate so now we're going to add a little oxygen we definitely have a lot of the primary aromas that come from the fruit so a lot of citrus and florals white stones as well what we like to call a little bit of minerality in the wine which means that the grapes are kind of grown in some soils that maybe have limestone or chalky content I can also tell just from the appearance and also the aromas that this is a younger wine white wines like this after they've had a bit of age and time in a wine cellar will start to have not only the primary aromas but also these secondary aromas and spices so we're gonna move on to B with whites and reds that are still wins it's great to have a big ol blast that can get your nose in there and get all of the aromas so another interesting thing that you find when you swirl your wine is you can watch the teardrops go down the side of the glass these are also known as the legs and what those tell us is how much alcohol is in the wine and then it also tells us a texture that the wine is going to have on your palate higher alcohol have thicker legs and have teardrops that are very slow to go down the side of the glass I can tell that this wine has a bit of alcohol so that's gonna be fun oh that smells really great on the nose here the first thing that I find are these secondary aromas so a lot of spices clove and allspice I'm ready let's taste wine eh I think that wine a has been aged in some kind of neutral vessel stainless steel or concrete or they're also glass vessels for aging the wine because we don't have those spices on the palate we also want to talk about the length after you swallow the wine and how long the flavors persist and this is quite good quality you'd have a nice length now for B hmm it's a rich full-bodied viscous we like to say glycerin loaded although that's not fun to say at the table and the finish on this is so long I'm still tasting this I have a suspicion the grape that we're dealing with and it's one of the grapes that's very easy to grow it's one of those grapes that can grow all over the world when you have a grape that's easy to grow anywhere the question of whether the wine is inexpensive or expensive has to do with the real estate where you plant your grapes and grow your grapes and then how much the resulting wine is going to cost I think real estate has a lot to do with what's going on in the glass I think B is the slightly more luxurious style of white wine shall we see if I'm right yeh I'm correct so I think that this is two chardonnays from different parts of the world so in wine B they definitely used the really beautiful Couture barrels in order to get those complex aromas and complex flavors and that leads to a more expensive wine and something that tasted darn good canned wine is a super-fun thing because you're gonna be on a boat or somewhere where you don't want to have glass they're great canned wines these days I'm going to dig in and grab the corkscrew because I still do need it for wine a look at that color now we really get to talk about colors of the rainbow because we've graduated to red wine so here we've got something that's quite light light red in the center and then it sort of fades out to a pink color on the outside I don't think we have crazy thick legs here so we're not dealing with a super powerful wine that's gonna really coat the palate oh my gosh this one is just like zingy red fruits I'm smelling cherries and raspberries maybe a little bit of tobacco too which is confirming what we thought from looking at the wine that there's a little bit of bottle age here let's move on to wine B and see what's going on there no corkscrew required this is already telling us that this is a more youthful wine because we have a little darker in the center and a little thin on the outside but not quite as much variation and it just looks like a more youthful style again this is really bright red fruits so I think we're dealing with the same grape in both glasses a lot of fresh strawberry and almost unripe cherry since this is so fruit for it as we like to say I don't think it's been aged in oak it's probably been aged in stainless steel or some kind of neutral vessel let's taste a wow I really want to take my time with that a lot of people like to sort of suck in and make all kinds of gurgling noises when they taste a wine to add oxygen not only as you're swirling in the glass but also in your mouth and that's what I was doing there and I'm getting all these beautiful stewed red fruits like a strawberry pie with a beautiful crust in a glass it's also a wine that shows its age sometimes with a younger wine it'll be really fiery because it's not quite integrated yet and the tannins are also very soft when we're talking about tannin we're talking about when you have a glass of red wine and you just feel your mouth really dry tannins diminish over time in all wines and in red wines especially so this one is definitely an example of where the tannins have receded a little bit and everything is in really beautiful balance but let's move on to be unlike a this is from grapes that are grown in a much cooler climate when you're in a cooler climate your grapes don't get quite as ripe so they don't produce quite as much sugar and then you end up with wines that are a little higher in a city when you're producing red wines there are so many choices for both the grape grower and also the winemaker and you can definitely tell that here they're doing a lot of the choices that lead to complexity in the wine a is the more serious wine at the van der Garde and the one that's gonna cost a little more [Music] three for three I think that we're dealing with Pinot Noir here which is really fun and I'm super excited to see a great Pinot Noir and it can at a really great price feel like I want to keep one in my purse all the time another set of wines and they are pink so it's time for a rose day all day so most rose 8 producers love to showcase their wines in clear bottles because we love to see these gorgeous colors are two ways to produce a rose a wine you can either make a white wine and add a bit of red wine until you get the desired color the other way is to make a wine where you leave the skins on the grapes all the colors come from a compound called anthocyanin and if you leave the skins in contact with the juice you can draw out the desired color and in French they call this the CIN yay method I'm going to open bottle a and see what we have going on here so I'm giving a little bit of swirl here and I'm going to take a peek at the legs as they go down the side of the glass medium so I don't think we're dealing with anything with a ton of alcohol so this will be really good beech wine Oh again all this really pretty fresh fruit and we're also getting a little bit of spice a little bit of herb maybe some rosemary this has probably been aged in stainless steel or something neutral because they're trying to produce a wine that's just easy to drink with a little bit of chill when you're outside wine B I want to get into it when you drink wines out of a bigger glass the wine gets warm a little more quickly and with a smaller glass with a nice long stem you get to keep the heat of your hand away from the wine and keep it chilled oh this one's really pretty it's definitely lighter in color but it is not lighter in aromas you have a lot of really powerful herbs and florals and I definitely have the red fruits like we did in wine a but not quite as strong it has a little more what we like to call that sort of secondary aroma that talks about development and maybe some time aging on the yeast cells which tends to give a creamy texture which we'll see when we taste the wine I'm going to take taste of a so just as the color is darker and a than it is envy we also have a little more structure and a little more tannin that I would expect I'm thinking that this particular Rose a is made from a grape that has slightly thicker skins as you mentioned before the skins are where the compounds reside that give a wine tannin this is a wine that would definitely be great with me be meaty dishes or things that are grilled it's a little bit of chard and a little bit of smoke in the food okay on to wine B I'm gonna give it a taste so this is what we expect when we get a glass of Rose a at a restaurant I think you have these kind of herbal notes as I mentioned in the aromas I find those on the palate as well will also have sort of a nice creamy structure and texture and mouthfeel that I think comes from aging the wine which speaks to perhaps a little more complexity in the winemaking and probably a little more in the price as well I do think that wine B is the more expensive style so let's see if I'm correct voila but you know what I think this is a bang for your buck this is a really great Rose a wine a if you need something for your table tonight or right now these are unusual bottle shapes that don't look like any of the bottles we've done before so I'm thinking we might be moving into sweet wines or something fun like that and it's about time because it's time for dessert I'm excited to get wine a open let's do this we have some darker colored wines it looks like here so if this is another category of sweet wine wine a has an amazing dark concentrated color that can mean that it's made from grapes that have very thick skins all grapes inside are white-fleshed and you don't get any color unless you have some skin contact in the production this also looks like a very young wine because we have very dark in the center and that sort of really pretty pink on the outside look at that you swirl the wine you actually have a little coating of color that's how intense the coloration is oh wow these are almost kind of like burnt caramel smells I also think this is a wine that probably sees a bit of time in the bottle because we've got these aging smells dark rich plum fruits black berry fruits dude definitely let's see what's going on in wine B and what makes a sweet wine as we all know that sugar it has a lot of times during fermentation the yeast eats all of the sugar and you end up with a totally dry style of wine if we want to leave a bit of sugar in the wine we add a neutral spirit something that's quite high alcohol like a brandy so you have a fermenting red wine that still has a little bit of sugar in it and then you add in this very high alcohol spirit and that kills off all the yeast and that leaves behind a bit of sugar that we call RS that means there's a bit of residual sugar this one is also quite pretty but a little lighter in color than wine a quite youthful very dark in the center there's so much pigmentation from the grapes that its coating the side of the glass mmm not quite as strong and as powerful as wine eh but definitely these really dark stewed fruit sorts of smells not as much spice this one's a little more primary for me I don't know about you I'm ready to taste these let's see what's happening hmm there's some sugar there this is delicious this is like having a candy bar that's stuffed with cherries or blackberries or currents or plums but also these sort of chocolaty and cocoa and brown spice notes it's kind of like a dessert in a glass the finish is very persistent and even though I swallowed a bit ago and I've been talking to you it just keeps going and going so let's see what's going on in be very dark and juicy we also have a bit of residual sugar here but the sweetness is not quite as concentrated in a so that leads me to believe this is sort of a younger sort of more simply made style of sweet wine I think that both of these wines are ports they're using that method in which they're making a red wine and they're stopping the fermentation before all the sugar is gone and then they're making a choice whether they want to age it in barrels or they want to put it straight into bottles the more expensive style support our vintage ports in which all of the grapes are harvested in one year and I think I know that the vintage port is here in a and the non vintage port is here in bottle B and glass bead let's see how I did got it right so the vintage port in bottle a is a wine that's designed to age for many different years for 10 20 sometimes a century plus younger styles of port and they're really lovely for drinking but they're not necessarily designed to age that you can drink every day any time so one of the great things about being a wine drinker in this day and age and today is that there are great wines being made in all regions of the world wines that are delicious and wines at every price range so expensive is not necessarily better so if you find some that you really love to drink you can spend nine dollars like we did today on one of the wines so Cheers

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 1,938,896

Rating: 4.8406849 out of 5

Keywords: cheap vs expensive, price points, expensive wine, cheap wine, cheap vs expensive wine, wine, wine expert, wines, cheap wines, expensive wines, cheap vs expensive food, wine test, wine tasting, wine taste, wine making process, wine taste test, how to make wine, taste test, wine reviews, wine comparison, wine review, wine testing, wine price, epicurious, cooking, recipes, sommelier, wine sommelier, red wine, white wine, most expensive wine, best wines, new wine

Id: EiP2W9-H8mI

Length: 18min 44sec (1124 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/JoshuaSonOfNun]

They finally do one of these but given they ever exactly tell you what the wine is you really can't tell from the appearance like other products but more from the smell and taste.

[u/CBR85]

Why a can? Really? That gives it away right then.

[u/redsunstar]

Like it, I just wish they had another red wine face-off with big and tannic varietals like two Cabs or two Syrahs.

[u/zorastersab]

They did one of these with beer before that was great too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDR82qG5uzs

I do think it's a little bit of a sham as they serve the wine in bottles that you can easily tell more about, but that doesn't mean it's not kind of interesting.

[u/zacattac]

Love this series. Been waiting on this.

[u/dickcake]

I'm generally not down for these because the contest is a farce--there's no way anyone with expert-level knowledge is going to fail an A-B test when you put velveeta up against a great cheddar or what not.

And this video is a bit patronizing, when you can tell what almost all of these wines are just by looking at the bottle shape. "I'm going to guess that this is Port" she says after tasting it. Riiiight, that totally surprised you.

The videos are informative, but the premise is insulting.