Why is wine considered fancier than beer/spirits?

I was wondering about how it came to be that wine got this image/mystique about it whereas beer and all but the fanciest spirits got quite the opposite?

I would think that it is because wine seems to truly and noticably get better with time. Whereas beer (in most cases) does not. So, when both were founded many centuries ago, wine began to come into a league of its own as it aged. Downhill from there I guess.

Just one drunk guys opinion...let the real experts tell you the true story.

I would think that maybe grapes were always harder to grow or owned as a luxury? That would mean that commonly grown grains used to make beer would be for more common folk. I don't have any specific information pertaining to wine and beer, but in the books I've read about mead vs beer, and ales vs lager it always ends up that way. Mead required honey which was more rare than grain so the rich and important drank it. Lagers required cellars which the poor didn't have so they made ale. Just tidbits from different books but sorry, nothing specific about wine.

As for wine over beer we can blame the Roman Empire.

grapes are probably alot harder to grow as well as having limited growing areas comapred to grains

I blame the French.

I think its because it's not carbonated. Rich people in fancy restaurants don't burp.

seriously.. it takes a LONG time for a grape vine to mature to the point where it will produce good grapes for fine wine... only now is the Sanoma Valley growing grapes that are on vines old enough to produce world class taste... barley and the stuff we make beer from can get mature very fast in comparison... its all a supply vs demand... wine is good and people like it.. and want it... good wine takes a lot of time just to be able to have good ingredients so supply is relatively small.. so it costs more... so it is a luxury for the wealthy.. and in general the common folk covet what the wealthy have... so it gets the rep and mystique that beer lacks... silly in a way but that's how it works.

sudsmcgee said:

I think its because it's not carbonated. Rich people in fancy restaurants don't burp.

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Would make sense if it wasn't for the numerous sparkling wines, most notably Champagne.

True, but most people have only a small amount of champagne. Regardless, good point.

Champagne makes your burps sound better though.

I like the way champagne burps go partly through you nose.

1) wine is higher alcohol (than beer) and thus a stronger affect, and 2) has a deeper, more impressive color which appeals to the visceral senses. And it comes from the old world, of course.

While wine does generally have more alcohol than beer, it is consumed in slightly smaller quantities, and almost always with food.
The color of beer is just as interesting and complex as wine, although wine is more striking with the heavier ruby and garnet colors while beer does tend to stay brownish.
Beer also comes from the Old World.

Stout-n-Braggot said:

While wine does generally have more alcohol than beer, it is consumed in slightly smaller quantities, and almost always with food.
The color of beer is just as interesting and complex as wine, although wine is more striking with the heavier ruby and garnet colors while beer does tend to stay brownish.
Beer also comes from the Old World.

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I'm with you, but we are members of a beer fourm, so a bit more knowledgeable and biased.

So, ask 100 random people 1) which has the stronger affect on the palate, 2) which one looks "fancier" in its typical glassware, and 3) which one has a "richer" past from the old world, I think wine will win hands down.

The following two images is how I believe the general public views beer and wine. I thing 9 out of ten people always drink beer from a bottle, even in a bar or restaurant. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that with wine (at least in a bar or restaurant).

ok.. just had a discussion with swmbo about this and according to her cultivating grains happened and beer was made much earlier than wine. the grain and beer was sacred then. The wine started being made later and the grapes were cultivated. The wine became the new sacred. Any time a new sacred replaces an older sacred the older sacred thing turns into something that is culturally viewed as backward and lower class. makes sense to me.

When I was young and unmarried (2 years ago) me and the guys use to drink wine though a beer bong. Classy aye? Mogan david tube wine. Nuff said.

I look down my nose with pity filled disdain at the filthy slobs who glug down that rotten grape juice. I mean, have you never heard of ale or lager?

Sure there is what the philistines call "beer", I think its on the shelf over there by the Thunderbird and Boones Farm.

Probably because guys (and gals) like us in the forum respect beer, make beer and generally relate every conversation back to beer or homebrewing. And we also post threads about burps, farts, poop and puking in your fermenter.

Then there's this banana guy How's he going to get some wino snob to take him seriously.

passedpawn said:

I'm with you, but we are members of a beer fourm, so a bit more knowledgeable and biased.

So, ask 100 random people 1) which has the stronger affect on the palate, 2) which one looks "fancier" in its typical glassware, and 3) which one has a "richer" past from the old world, I think wine will win hands down.

The following two images is how I believe the general public views beer and wine. I thing 9 out of ten people always drink beer from a bottle, even in a bar or restaurant. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that with wine (at least in a bar or restaurant).

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Not in a bar or restaurant but I think every time I have seen Pearl Jam play Eddie is drinking from a wine bottle. I can only assume there is wine in it.

Drinking wine from a bottle = winning?

Beer has been a working feller's drink for a long time. It is also easy to produce and can be produced in mass quantity.

Wine on the other hand is produced less because the grapes are difficult to grow at that quality, each year's harvest produces a different flavor, and there is a lot of aging involved. As a result, it is a scarce product so it is more expensive. If it is more expensive, it is fancier.

I think more of the people not on the boards here need to become better educated about the vast array of beer styles available. There are enough of them that compete, on even ground, with wines.

Some brews really do get better with age... In line with good wines. Cheap wines are nasty things, sort of like BMC. I'd put a strong barley wine, old ale, wee heavy against wines of similar vintages any day of the week.

Personally, I have a few bottles of wine in my artificial wine cellar (I don't have an actual cellar/basement to keep them in ) that I'm saving for special occasions. But, I'll probably need to drink them soon, since they're over a decade old now (vintage 2000)...

I also think that producing a really great brew, in the higher ABV range takes more skill than making wine. With wine, it's mostly about getting decent grapes, that were harvested at the right time... Where as with brewing, you get your grains and you need to decide which ones to use, how much of them to use. Which hops to use, how much and when to put them in. Plus there's the yeast selection and making sure you use enough. Temperature plays an important role too. Most [other] people just don't realize how many variables there are in making a really great brew... How simply having one element off/different in a batch can produce something very different.

I did speak with someone that makes his own wine in February, at a party. He brought some of what he made... To me, it tasted nasty. What he called a merlot was super tart to me. He described how he makes the wine too... Talk about a sloppy process, when compared with brewing. Hell, even making mead is more precise than what he said... X boxes of this grape, maybe some of that grape, crush it up, pour it into the demijohn, toss some yeast and let it go... Of course, I think what he brought would have benefited from aging, to help mellow the harsh flavors. I couldn't even drink it (really nasty to me)... HE described making beer more like baking bread, where you have an actual recipe, where he doesn't with wine... He made it sound like he didn't want to have that level of control over what he makes... WTF?? Worst part of it all? My cousin raves about this guy's wine...
/semi-rant

I also think the masses have forgotten how important beer was in ancient times... It was how they made safe drinking water in much of the world. Pretty sure the only fermentation older is mead. Even there, they could be close enough to each other (in age) to really not matter.

Hey Boons is sum good stuff....

maxam said:

Probably because guys (and gals) like us in the forum respect beer, make beer and generally relate every conversation back to beer or homebrewing. And we also post threads about burps, farts, poop and puking in your fermenter.

Then there's this banana guy How's he going to get some wino snob to take him seriously.

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+1

However, the classy beer drinkers (albeit few and far between) are 10x classier than the typical wine snob. I live in the Heart of Sonoma County, adjacent to Napa County (two of the most famous wine regions in the world) so I see A LOT of wino's walking about tasting wine with red lips and eyes...
Not to mention that they're usually quite rambunctious, rude, and belligerent when they drink a bit too much grape juice.
Quite the contrary from the beer aficionados I've met in my short time on Earth.

PaulTheGhost said:

+1

However, the classy beer drinkers (albeit few and far between) are 10x classier than the typical wine snob. I live in the Heart of Sonoma County, adjacent to Napa County (two of the most famous wine regions in the world) so I see A LOT of wino's walking about tasting wine with red lips and eyes...
Not to mention that they're usually quite rambunctious, rude, and belligerent when they drink a bit too much grape juice.
Quite the contrary from the beer aficionados I've met in my short time on Earth.

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Well, you do live in Russian River town, too. Great town, santa rosa.

PaulTheGhost said:

However, the classy beer drinkers (albeit few and far between) are 10x classier than the typical wine snob. I live in the Heart of Sonoma County, adjacent to Napa County (two of the most famous wine regions in the world) so I see A LOT of wino's walking about tasting wine with red lips and eyes...
Not to mention that they're usually quite rambunctious, rude, and belligerent when they drink a bit too much grape juice.
Quite the contrary from the beer aficionados I've met in my short time on Earth.

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Glad I don't live out there. :rockin:

I will second on beer lovers being a more friendly/better sort of person... Of course, anyone can be a total ****** when drunk, doesn't matter what they get blitzed on either. If the person in question is a yakass anyway, usually, that gets amplified when they're sheit-faced.

passedpawn said:

Well, you do live in Russian River town, too. Great town, santa rosa.

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Meh, except for Russian River Brewing and Lagunitas (Petaluma's 15 min away), not really. Nothing to do but drink, shop, and eat.
A lot of drop-outs, rednecks, tweakers, and winos. Not a whole lot else.
At least the scenery is nice.

And Golddiggie, you're right. Any person who's a "yankass" when they're drunk is also probably a "yankass" when they're sober.

PaulTheGhost said:

And Golddiggie, you're right. Any person who's a "yankass" when they're drunk is also probably a "yankass" when they're sober.

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It's all fun and games until someone start yanking on a yakass...

Actually, the answer to this question is probably historical. Beer was big in Mesopotamia. Wine became big with the Greeks who looked down on the barbarians who drank beer. The image hasn't changed much since then. This is a simplified version of the history - but a fascinating topic.

I recommend this book A History of the World in 6 Glasses for more information.

It's simple really... BMC.

The BMC world of beers has essentially dominated what the majority of the world sees as beer. To most people Bud Light is good beer when you want to spend money and cheap beer is Natural Light, but still acceptable to drink. BMC is light and easy to chug, and everyone drinks it.

Wine on the other hand is something that a large number of people can't drink. Most people think of wine as "bitter"... even though it's not, they just can't describe dryness and tannins.

So people put wine up on a pedestal. They see it as something you have to learn how to drink and appreciate.

As far as I know, the difference is historical, but not exactly what Redpiper mentioned. Through the middle ages, and part of the modern ages, beer, being cheap to produce, and, most importantly, being boiled, had become the beverage of choice for those (especially the lower classes) who couldn't drink the water, unless they wanted to die of cholera, or any other water transmitted disease, while wine, being more expensive to produce, and relying only on its limited alcohol content for its "antiseptic" properties, never made it to the masses. Add to that that beer, especially in the pre-hops era, was much easier and cheaper to make at home, and had naturally a less complex flavor than wine, and the outcome is not surprising.

Blame the Greeks.

It also doesnt help when we have Keith Stone representing the beer world, haha

A little historical, a little supply and demand. I personally think its gross.

Then again, maybe I'm just an uncultured working man. Better off that way, methinks.

Homebrewtastic said:

They see it as something you have to learn how to drink and appreciate.

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I think this is a huge part of it.
A lot of people see all those sophistocats drinking wine all "mmmm, yes, rather delightful" and they think that they're supposed to be like that.
Then they drink it and they're like "eww that **** is dry and hot, but if some elite sophisticated dude likes it, then I guess it must be something you have to learn to appreciate it. mmmm, yes, rather..."

Personally, I think it tastes like ****. Some whites and roses are ok, but only if really cold. Champagne and sangria though.... mmmm I could chug that ****.

There's a great excerpt from the book "Ambitious Brew" where Sam C. went up against some wine folks in a many course meal where the part of the meal was paired with either a wine or one of Dogfishhead's brews. IIRC, the beers won 6 out of the 8 placements...

Personally, I think the wine snobs are just crude. If they want sophistication: top notch bourbons and single malt scotches are my boat. Can't afford that very often, but I love a good ale. Like a good wine now and then; my FIL makes the best I've had.

Isn't it the wine snobs that make people think that they have to drink the really expensive bottles (of wine) or the latest trend in order to be 'accepted'?? Personally, there are only a few wines I like. Fortunately there's a good liquor store not far from where I live that has a decent selection. It's no mega store, but I can usually talk with a couple of the people that work there (one of them is the owner) telling them what I like (by vinyard, type and vintage) and they will help me pick out something that I'll enjoy. But, since I've been brewing my own beer, I really haven't been going there like I used to. Also being between jobs doesn't help.

I've paid more for a single bottle of wine than I'll spend on the ingredients to make a full 5 gallon batch of home brew. Of course, since going all grain, that's not difficult to do. :rockin:

I think it's the wine snobs that also make it sound like all the really, really high ABV brews offered up by the larger breweries (not counting BMC) are what you need to buy/drink in order to get any respect... I think those are the same people that turn their noses up at mead and other fermentations we can easily make at home, that can easily be as good, if not better, than what they drink...

I say F them all (the wine snobs) with a telephone pole... Drink what you like, brew what you like and don't worry about it...

Golddiggie said:

I say F them all (the wine snobs) with a telephone pole... Drink what you like, brew what you like and don't worry about it...

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Agreed.

My friend works at a tasting room in Healdsburg (yuppie tourist heaven) and she always tells me about the brand new 21 year olds going on tasting tours as a socially acceptable way to get hammered.

Either way... wine will ALWAYS seem pretentious to me (excluding boxed and bulk crap etc).

Maybe it's just because of the location I was raised in and how much bulls**t yuppiness I've had to deal with as a teenager in wine country.

Besides, no 1998 Syrah and fancy cheese with overpriced crackers can beat a few pints of a fresh hopped IPA with a 1/3 lb home cooked cheeseburger, amirite?

(Well I guess to each his own... but hey, whatever. )

I don't think you'll see anyone cooking brats at a tailgate party with wine anytime soon.

There's so many really hearty foods that just SCREAM out for a beer to accompany them. :rockin: