So, how great is Kromm anyway?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

Glad to hear it. Now will someone in the Kromm Cult please turn off the tornado generator? It's getting a little monotonous out here.

Ahem. I'll thank you not to interfere with the Experiment.

It's for the interests of Science.

Surely you can endure a little temporary discomfort for the Eternal Benefit of all Mankind.

All hail KROMM.

[Jame]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

Glad to hear it. Now will someone in the Kromm Cult please turn off the tornado generator? It's getting a little monotonous out here.

Hey, you're not alone. This has sent us Masshol*ahem*Boston-MA-state-ers some wierd weather to break up this fine weather we've had otherwise.

Or, by KROMM and The Goddess, as I like to put it, Ergo, Ogre Gore.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

Glad to hear it. Now will someone in the Kromm Cult please turn off the tornado generator? It's getting a little monotonous out here.

But I was warm, and needed the fan on. Bah, there. I switched it off.

[jimminy]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm keeping ... four Tokaji Aszú (three six puttonyos and one Essencia ... And since most people fear sweet wine because they've never had good stuff, I'll mostly not have to share much.

I had Tokaj wine for the first time the other day at the Tokaj wine festival. I usually don't like sweet wine myself but a good glass of this is like manna from heaven. Even the cheap stuff isn't terrible. I have a three puttonyos bottle from 2001 sitting on my desk right now, a present from a local Hungarian uni student because I helped with their English essay, and I'm looking forward to cracking it open when the school term ends in a week or so.

Egri Bikaver, or Eger Bull's Blood, that famous Hungarian red wine, is also very good, I've found, with a real kick to the taste. I can see why everyone goes on about Hungarian wines. It's not just that they're good, they're distinctive. I'm recommending that all my friends back home give it a try. I found out after I got here that my Australian based Czech grandpa used to order Bikaver and have it sent to Adelaide because he loved that red so much in his youth.

Not that I know anything about wine at all. I come from South Australia, which makes some pretty good wine, but I am low class enough that I usually just bought the cheap stuff.

Anyway, off topic. To get back on: ALL HAIL KROMM!! I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY WITH HIS LOVE OF TOKAJ SWEET WINE!! LET US DRINK A GLASS IN HIS HONOUR!

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by jimminy

ALL HAIL KROMM!! ..... LET US DRINK A GLASS IN HIS HONOUR!

Or several. Praise Him for setting such a great example in good taste. Truly we are blessed for following Him, who is not only beneficial, merciful, willing to work miracles on our behalf, and full of other divine attributes, but who also has good taste.

And let us praise Him for having listened to Rocket Man´s prayers. Once again He has shown His beneficience and mercy, even at the risk of getting incomplete data for The Experiment. Or of getting uncomfortably warm until another fan switches on.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by jimminy

Anyway, off topic. To get back on: ALL HAIL KROMM!! I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY WITH HIS LOVE OF TOKAJ SWEET WINE!! LET US DRINK A GLASS IN HIS HONOUR!

Heh. You guys would drink to anything. Even me, at least if I was buying...

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by jimminy

I can see why everyone goes on about Hungarian wines.

While you're in the area, be sure to try other wines made from the Furmint grape, not just Tokaji Aszú. These usually go by names like "Tokaji Dry Furmint," "Tokaji Furmint Dry," and just "Dry Furmint." They can be quite nice, and explain where the crisp acidity comes from in such a sweet wine as Tokaji Aszú.

Originally Posted by jimminy

I am low class enough that I usually just bought the cheap stuff.

Don't confuse class, price, and quality where wine is concerned. I'm no upper-class dude, and I'm not rich. The secret with wine is to get good bang for your buck, which in my experience isn't a skill many upper-class people have for goods under $1 million. ;)

And to link the two comments above: try the Furmint Disznókő Tokaji Dry.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Don't confuse class, price, and quality where wine is concerned. I'm no upper-class dude, and I'm not rich. The secret with wine is to get good bang for your buck, which in my experience isn't a skill many upper-class people have for goods under $1 million. ;)

Absolutely. I'm no "wine snob" (I don't even drink) but with a little guidance I was able to find a very good wine for around $15-20 as a Christmas gift for my brother-in-law. As long as you're not looking for some obscure year of Tattinger a la James Bond, it's possible to be a bargain shopper while still getting quality.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

Absolutely. I'm no "wine snob" (I don't even drink) but with a little guidance I was able to find a very good wine for around $15-20 as a Christmas gift for my brother-in-law. As long as you're not looking for some obscure year of Tattinger a la James Bond, it's possible to be a bargain shopper while still getting quality.

A good rule of thumb is to avoid buying French wine unless you know what you're doing and don't mind paying a lot.

Cheap French wines are usually inferior to cheap wines from up-and-coming New World vinyards. Expensive French wines are often good, but rarely as good bang-for-the-buck as you'd get with Australian, Spanish or Italian wines. Of course, genuinely good French wine is still divine, but finding it requires at least minimal knowledge and often a large outlay of cash. If you happen to be in France, of course, the outlay is considerably less.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Icelander

A good rule of thumb is to avoid buying French wine unless you know what you're doing and don't mind paying a lot.

This is good advice. French wine as a hobby mostly isn't worth the cost for most people. Some of my favorite wine is French, but I certainly had to read a lot of expensive books and try a lot of overpriced bottles to find it . . . whereas to find my favorite wines from other places, I simply had to buy a few affordable bottles, taste, and zoom in on makers, regions, and varieties that I like. It gets costly to do this with French wines.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Cheap French wines are usually inferior to cheap wines from up-and-coming New World vinyards.

In particular, for the price of a mediocre-but-pedigreed French wine, you can have some great wines from Argentina (esp. Mendoza; e.g., Achaval Ferrer or Bodega Norton) or Chile (esp. Maipo Valley; e.g., Santa Rita). I'm not saying that these latter are "fine wines" by magazine-review standards . . . but, you know, they're wonderful to drink regardless of their scores, which tend to be assigned by less-than-impartial reviewers who buy into the mythology of "old and experienced châteaux are the best châteaux."

As well as the New World, people should try looking at wines from neglected parts of the Old World. With the fall of Communism, Eastern Europe has been coming out with some wonderful wine; Hungary, in particular, is a player. And the world doesn't get much older than the Levant, where we have some quite amazing Lebanese wine, and the Maghreb, where Moroccan wine might surprise you. Plus the Mediterranean is dotted with little islands you've never heard of -- Greek, Italian, and otherwise -- that make amazing dessert wines that aren't much like the wines of of the continent.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Expensive French wines are often good, but rarely as good bang-for-the-buck as you'd get with Australian, Spanish or Italian wines.

To be fair, even inexpensive French wines are often good, but the total outlay in crap wine and costly books needed to find these gems is grossly out of proportion to what you end up with. When the world's top wine producer -- which translates fairly well into acreage and employment in that industry -- ranks 19th in the world by population and 48th in the world by area, it tells you something about the amount of desperate squeezing and scraping involved. At those volumes, the good, the bad, and the ugly are vastly bigger areas to explore, usually at an expense that most people can't afford.

Originally Posted by Icelander

If you happen to be in France, of course, the outlay is considerably less.

My brother-in-law near Bâle would disagree with you. He's a serious wine aficionado, and claims that France exports the good stuff and then rips off the locals with the bad stuff. He gets his French wine when he travels . . . and he travels a lot. Apparently, you good deals on lots of good French wine everywhere but in France. Just walking to where the signs start to read "Basel" instead of "Bâle" means the prices drop, though.

--

All of this comes with the caveat that I'm no expert. I only got into wine as a hobby in a committed way in 1996.