Do the Pros do it better?

Is Homemade Wine Good?

Recently, while preparing to write a post for an upcoming tasting, I searched the Internet looking for information on homemade wines and came across how one Wisconsin amateur winemaker compares homemade wine to commercial wine. He said,

“I hate saying things like this here, but in my honest experience, no. Homemade wine is not nearly as good as commercially produced good wine.”

I wasn’t surprised, but I should have been! As an amateur winemaker, I’m aware that almost everybody who drinks wine has a memory of at least one sloppy home winemaker who ruined the reputations of her or his brethren with terrible wine.

When given the choice between a commercial or a homemade bottle of wine, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that most regular wine drinkers would choose the professional wine over the amateur wine, especially if the commercial bottle is from California, Washington, Oregon, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, etc. etc. Those areas create an expectation of quality among wine drinkers. Homemade wine creates an expectation of “Old So-and-So’s” wine that everybody regularly poured down the sink.

Let me make it clear. I’m not claiming that homemade wine is bad wine, or even that the vast majority of homemade wine is inferior to almost all commercial wines. I’m simply stating that most people expect homemade wine to be inferior to commercial wine, and that expectation is often sufficient to seal the fate of the wine, regardless of its actual quality.

Why is this?

Scientific findings from multiple sources reinforce the idea that, prior to smelling and tasting a wine, our expectations about its quality will not only shape whether we like or dislike it, our expectations will also shape how we perceive many other things in that same setting.

Would you like some scientific evidence regarding how people’s perspective about wine quality influences their wine evaluations? I’d like you to first look at the label below with the young man wearing a scarf…

Oops! I posted the wrong picture. My apologies, because, this is, of course, a picture of an old bearded man wearing a crocheted hat! You can see the old man now, can’t you?

You know that the label didn’t miraculously change while you were reading. What changed was your perspective on what you’re seeing. When I mentioned a young man, you saw a young man. You organized the stimuli into a young man image. When I then mentioned the old man, your brain was then busy activating elderly images from memory, preparing you to see an old man. This is an example of how perspective influences what you see.

Another example is the drawing of the monkey below.

Or, is that a drawing of a Lion?  It’s all a matter of expectation.  What did you expect to see?

Implications For Home Winemakers

It seems to be pretty bleak for home vintners, doesn’t it? The truth is that, until perceptions on where wine is made and who made it change, home winemakers (especially those outside of California) are going to have a tough time removing that worried expression from people’s faces when they hand them a glass of their homemade wine. Due to this social reality, home winemakers need to bolster the expectations of their wine prior to people actually tasting it.

The first thing that I, as an amateur winemaker, need to do is become knowledgeable about winemaking so that their wine doesn’t end up tasting like “Old So-and-So’s” wine that everyone poured down the sink.

An additional step that I can take is to dress up the presentation of my wine. I can make a professional looking label for my wine bottle. I can make certain that my bottle looks good before the recipient gets it. If I do these things, it likely will result in the wine inside being perceived as better tasting. Maybe this isn’t fair, but it’s true.

For Wine Tasters

The message for wine lovers is that we should always be aware that our expectations about what’s in the bottle we’re about to open will very likely shape how we perceive the wine’s aroma and taste, and therefore how we assess its overall quality, regardless of its actual quality. Challenge yourself to be open to a new taste experience whenever you approach a wine, whether it’s homemade or from France. Your relationship with the wine should be focused on your sensual perceptions of it, not necessarily on your expectations before the bottle is even uncorked.

But, of course, you might also want to choose a certain style of music to play in the background, and choose a locale that suits your ideal situation, to set the proper mood for your wine.  Mine is a tiny seaside café somewhere in Cinque Terre, with the sounds of a small band in the background playing “O Sole Mio” . . .