Oh come on. Yeah there is a lot of wine wank, but if you give me two glasses of wine from a region I’m familiar with (which does narrow you down to a few fairly specific areas in South Australia), I’ll be able to pick a good quality wine from a poor quality wine easily, probably with just a sniff. I’m no connoisseur but I make up for that with enthusiasm and experience…
You get diminishing returns, so if you ask someone to compare a $50 bottle with a $300 bottle from the same region, they’ll struggle to pick the better one. And currently I’m drinking reds purchased online for under $10 that would cost twice as much from a bottle shop, so if cost is your only guide you can easily find examples where cheaper wines are better quality than more expensive ones.
But lets not pretend for a second that all wine is pretty much the same and all differences between them are pure marketing to people with a high disposable income and an inferiority complex, that’s just silly.
I want you to keep yelling at me about what’s ceremonially appropriate for a wedding cause that’s interesting. And I’m getting the feeling from your response important in this case. Is the most important thing in this context that it’s grown in Japan? Cause otherwise its one of those “all but” situations where all that’s lacking is a particular handling packaging or marketing. Which is what I’m thinking of. when I bitch so much There’s a lot of produce, and fish, that are sold in Japan (and increasingly China) under not so apparently controlled circumstance . Auction or otherwise. At frankly ridiculous prices. I know the gift giving context, and the weirdness with seafood pricing in Japan. But its interesting to hear about wedding customs. Also for the record I’m not talking about produce available in super-markets. But local seasonal stuff grown on non-industrial scale.
In terms of the seafood/ tuna thing. This is probably why I’m sounding so mad about this whole thing, I’m not so concerned about the rare Tuna from our fishery that goes for better than $50k (as much as you hear larger numbers, breaking $50k is vanishingly rare. Somewhere around 50 million Yen from Google ). More the general situation where I would be hard pressed to buy any sort of Tuna from our rapidly drying fishery at any price. While Japanese buyers pay absurd prices for blue fin here and Atlantic Tuna has been (based on what I’ve heard) relatively available in Japan for the last 20 - 35 years. A similar situation is propagating with other species in our fisheries. I live maybe a 15 minute walk from an active fishing dock. And work in restaurant in a marina that hosts professional fishing boats. And yet its oddly difficult to find local fish I didn’t catch myself. Japan has its own fishing fleets out here, and increasingly the locals sell to affluent China or the New Fulton Fish Market ( which sells globally), rather than to local working docks.
I’m aware of the regular fruit thing. I should have mentioned it though, I still think the “premium” fruit wouldn’t be nearly as expensive if marketing, cultural forces, and a uniquely Japanese willingness to pay weren’t involved. And I’m gonna stand by the claim that this same urge drives the Japanese conflict with particular world fisheries. It doesn’t have the same cultural or traditional drive though.
I’ve had a few so maybe I should clarify that I don’t wish to condemn the Japanese for any particular obsession with underaged grapes. I really just think this is interesting. Its interesting that a grape that would otherwise be worth slightly more than a crap corporate grape can rate this much cash. Its interesting that the hows and whys involve international commerce, and ancient pan-Asian traditions. Its also pretty interesting that Japanese cultural weird and political policy can have an effect on some shit town on Eastern Long Island.
It’s probably more accurate to say that these are really gift fruits, but when I was in Japan the main context In which i saw them used was for weddings. In either case, the main use is more ceremonial than practical, as people don’t just go buy these things and eat them themselves, as is frequently implied.
In Japan, even the produce you see in everyday supermarkets is of very high quality. You don’t see lopsided apples or fruit with any blemishes. Fruit is often individually wrapped. I used to shop at a small farmers market, where you could buy wonderful fruit with minor irregularities (but never any bruises) that could not be sold in supermarkets, for much cheaper than comparable fruit in North America. I virtually never see fruit in North America that would be sold at a supermarket in Japan. Is it possible for North Americans to raise produce to Japanese standards? Sure. But you would have to be rather obsessive to do so, to the extent that people would think you very weird. You would also have to do it on a pretty small scale, given the labour inputs required and small market. These things are pretty antithetical to the way things work in the US, but perfectly consistent with Japanese society.
Well, we are talking about a bottle wine that sells for over $10,000, so I think my comment largely stands.
Well no it doesn’t, because you repeated the view that people can’t tell cheap wine from expensive wine, but yeah, if you want to clarify that view with the idea that once you get over a certain quality threshold the differences become very difficult to discern, then I couldn’t argue.
My comment was in response to, and quoted, a reference to a 1945 wine, which was itself in reference to a 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. If that doesn’t give you context for what the words “cheap” and “expensive” are meant to mean, then you have a point.
Well honestly I’ve never been to Japan (some one asked that above). From what I understand Japan has historically had an issue providing enough farmed produce and grain to feed its populace. So I did some Googling and apparently Japan is slightly larger in land mass than Germany and around double the UK, But from what I understand they have less farming capacity than is needed to support their population and have for several centuries. I’ve always heard it claimed Japan had a very, very limited amount of farmable land on account of being a small island nation. Anyone got more noise on this? I know Japan is in a very particular geographic and geologic context, but just based on land mass I get the feeling they have more food capacity than usually claimed.
Either way I find it pretty hard to believe that any given produce at the supermarket is some how priced on unique local grounds. As with the US, Europe, certain parts of Latin America the general price of farmed goods is going to be more a factor of local production capacity (traditionally low in Japan) and the global “free trade” price. Even surrounded by farms most of what I see at supermarkets, regardless of price or marketing, is from a country other than America. That’s the situation in most NAFTA nations, big chunks of Europe, and certain parts of Asia. Is Japan different? I’d be happy to hear “Yup”. But I wouldn’t expect it. I don’t necessarily see how any “special” variety of produce would be exempt from that same global competition where “regular” produce wasn’t. Unless being grown in Japan was a specific requirement.
That wine is 70 years old, its value has become completely independent from its current quality as a table wine. I don’t see how you can connect it to the statement about perceived quality of wine by taste versus value.
I am starting to wonder if I purchased an argument.
There are lots of mountains and lots of people and buildings on what would otherwise be arable land. Their agricultural sector is also very protectionist, which makes it feasible to farm on a small scale that would otherwise be inefficient. Different products have different tariffs, but probably most of the produce sold in Japan is grown in Japan. When I was there the big imports were Chinese broccoli (as in broccoli grown in China, and not Gai Lan) and garlic, and the country of origin would be prominently noted (in case you couldn’t tell from the lower price).
Because gift fruit is a very small market limited to basically one country, because the growing standards are different than what other nations have expertise in, and because of the stigma on foreign-grown foods would make it difficult to sell an import as a premium product (and even more difficult to sell it at a comparable price given agricultural tariffs)?
So vintage wine isn’t valuable because of how it tastes? I wonder why the 1944 vintage is about 10% of the price of the 1945. The schism between value and price may be magnified when we’re talking about old wine, but I don’t think it disappears.
Each to their own. I would say that it’s got a lot to do with the Japanese obsession with visual aesthetic, cultural formalities and a highly developed version western-style consumerism. Things like ikebana take a comparable price tag when you wanna get fancy… and you can’t even eat that.
Also it’s worth noting that the first ___ of a the season is often sold at auction in other countries for similarly ridiculous prices. This tasty tray of mangoes fetched $30,000 AUD in Sydney last year beacuse: FIRST! I can get the same tray of mangoes now for $10-$20.
I believe Japan imports far more fruit and vegetable than you imagine. I cannot find what percentage of total consumption are imported and it’s time to go home, but here are a couple of pages with information regarding Japanese food imports:
Cheapskate Sydneysiders. The good ones from QLD went for $42,000 last year and $76,000 the year before.
Also, because charity. I doubt they’d fetch that much if there was no publicity and for-profit.
In terms of your response to me. I think you’ve got me. You understand what I’m blathering on about and I understand what you’re saying, and man I’m so hot for that context (sweet sweet context).
As for what Robulus is on about, No the value of vintage or rare wine has little to do with what it tastes like. Depending what you mean by vintage. In common parlance vintage wine refers to any wine bottled under a particular age/year/what-ever statement. So 2012 wines where particularly good world wide. 2008-9 wines were pretty good for Italy, but 2004 wines were better (for Italy).That’s got an effect on price. If its certified to be bottled in a certain year it’s price will be directly connected to the quality that year is associated with for that region.
But that’s wine you intend to drink.
The major driver in the wine market is, on the other hand, “collectible” wine. Sometimes called “vintage” or “rare” wine. Noone ever intends to drink this wine. So called Oenophiles and wealthy collectors seek it out to build brag worthy cellars. There have been a number of exposes over the last decade (a lot of them pushed by BoingBoing) about the disconnection between the values of these wines and reality. A lot of them are fake frankly. But it doesn’t matter. Even probable forgeries sell for millions. Its weird frankly. I just heard something the other day about certain rare french bottles that were supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson and KNOWN to be fakes. Absolutely proved. No question. Selling for millions. So differences in price can’t be trusted. 1945 might cost more than 1944 purely because a bunch of 1985 wine that was deliberately mislabeled as 1945 was reviewed 6 months ago. That fact might have been published in the New York Times. But the wine is now worth even more because it was written about in the NYT.
Both of those vintages would be completely undrinkable now, so yes, the value lies elsewhere. It is no doubt a function of how the wine tasted once, but these rare very old wines aren’t purchased to drink. Don’t blame me, I wouldn’t buy any.
Interesting. I would have figured that even more of the vegetable imports would be in the form of processed/preserved foods, but even so only 1/3 of vegetable imports are fresh.
With respect to fruits, obviously tropical fruits are imported, but I expected most fruits that could be grown locally to have been grown locally… in part because foreign fruits would not meet Japanese standards and would stick out.
And yet wines of this vintage appear on restaurant winelists, where they are presumably ordered and drunk (which is the context in which the wine was first mentioned).
More likely one of Manhattan’s legion of investment bankers, which are likely more numerous than Japanese wedding hall owners such as the one who bought these grapes.
The good ones from QLD went for $42,000 last year and $76,000 the year before.