"Experiment" #4 - Lies, Damned Lies, and Wine Judgings

I recently had the distinct pleasure of reading about someone doing the same thing I'm doing here, except much better, in the Wall Street Journal, of all places. An illuminating essay about how wine ratings are largely bullshit, A Hint of Hype, A Taste of Illusion, focuses on a series of studies about the fallibility of so-called wine experts.

Below are some of the more salient and startling points from this essay, for your reading pleasure:

• Researchers secretly added red food coloring to a dry white wine to simulate a sauterne, sherry, rosé, Bordeaux and burgundy and asked experts to rate the sweetness of the various wines. The ratings corresponded to the type of wine the tasters thought they were drinking.
  
• Two identical Bordeaux wines were served to a panel of experts, one in an expensive Grand Cru bottle, the other in what looked like a cheap table wine bottle. The tasters showed a significant preference for the Grand Cru bottle, describing it as "excellent", while calling the contents of the table wine bottle "unbalanced" and "flat".
• An experiment where the same wines were poured 3 separate times for a panel of wine judges showed that the judges' ratings of the same wine varied wildly between tastings. Only about one in 10 regularly rated the same wine within a range of 2 points.
• After some data manipulation of the results of wine competitions over several years, it was determined that the odds of one wine winning a gold medal in a competition were at about 9% for any given wine. In other words, a wine that won the gold one year was just as likely to win a gold the next year as any other wine in the competition.

I didn't find these results too surprising. If you're an established wine critic, you have a reputation to uphold, and thus your rating heuristic is going to be a little bit different from that of an average wine drinker. You cannot be too extreme or drastic in your reviews because you will probably lose credibility when your peers rate the same wine highly. Chances are, most of the wines you will be trying will be at a high enough level where saying that they have colorful overtones of dog shit or a mild hint of battery acid on the nose will only paint you as an ignorant newb. And, given that most of the tastings you do will not turn out to be experiments in disguise, your heuristic probably works well more often that not.

But what about the average wine drinker who does not have a reputation to protect? Can we tell a cheap table wine from a more expensive label? And so, inspired by and riding on the coattails of the WSJ essay, I bring you "experiment" #4, the wine battle.

In this experiment, I procured a bottle of Charles Shaw, aka Two Buck Chuck, Cabernet (2008, $2) and pitted it against a Cabernet from the Napa Valley winery of St. Supéry (2003, $20). The vintner describes the St. Supéry Cab as:
"Luxurious, rich and concentrated with aromas of cherry, currant and blueberry these are just the start of this 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon. The harmonious flavors of black cherry, anise and plush cassis explode upon tasting. This is a classic Napa Valley Cabernet which is wonderful young but has everything it needs to age beautifully. Enjoy now through 2011."

Not surprisingly, I couldn't find a vintner's description of Chuck online, and I regrettably threw away the bottle, which I think had some writing on the back, during a drunken stupor brought on by chugging everything that was left after the conclusion of the experiment.

PROCEDURE:
The experimental design was very simple. I marked the base of a bunch of paper cups with the letters P or Q. P was the St. Supéry. Q was the Chuck... because Q stands for Quality. Then I gave each subject a P cup (ha ha) and a Q cup and asked which letter of wine they preferred.

I also tasted both wines, having someone else pour them, of course.

RESULTS:
Out of a total of 14 subjects, the results came up dead even. Seven people preferred Supéry, and seven preferred Chuck. I asked the subjects if they were frequent wine drinkers, and though I didn't do any formal statistical analysis, it seemed like both groups consisted of both connoisseurs and casual drinkers.

WHAT I THOUGHT THE WINES TASTED LIKE:
I drink wine a lot. I don't know too much about it, but I think I know enough to wow people who don't know jack shit. (The same goes for how well I speak any number of foreign languages.) I found the Supéry to be almost undrinkable, ie I would drink it but only to get wasted. It was very tannic and had a definite battery acid/vodka nose. The Chuck, on the contrary, was quite pleasant. It didn't have too much going on, smell or taste-wise, but it was delightfully inoffensive.

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE HAD TO SAY:
One of my favorite comments came from a guy who was a member of the St. Supéry wine club. After the tasting, but before being told which wines he had tasted, he said that he preferred P (the Supéry). I asked if it was by a huge margin. He said that it wasn't and that, frankly, he didn't really care for either one. When, later on, I told him which wines he had tasted, he started laughing and, after telling me he was in the wine club, he admitted that, had he known he was tasting Supéry, he would have been much more enthusiastic about it.

Another guy, after tasting the wine, correctly placed the P wine (Supéry) in Napa. I was suitably impressed... until he informed me that the Q wine (Chuck) must have come from Sonoma.

CONCLUSION:
The fact that a $2 wine and a $20 wine tied is compelling enough. It is interesting to note, as well, that of the people who preferred the more expensive wine, only ONE person preferred it by any kind of margin. Most people, regardless of which wine they preferred, said that neither was that great.

So, where do we go from here? By no stretch of the imagination does this study mean that you should always buy Two Buck Chuck while self-righteously snickering at the morons buying a $12 bottle of wine one aisle down. However, I do think that you shouldn't buy a bottle of wine just because it's highly rated or expensive... unless you're trying to impress someone because then all logic and reason goes out the window anyway. I guess, if there's any overarching take-home message to be had, it's this. Don't trust anyone but yourself when it comes to wine. And don't trust yourself either, unless you're blindfolded. And it's probably a great idea to buy one expensive-looking bottle of wine, pour out what is probably shit-swill, and then buy a case of Chuck and funnel it into the bottle whenever you have company.

"Experiment" #3 - Niman Ranch vs. Safeway

I love steak. I really love steak. There are many reasons for loving steak. It's delicious. It's primal in a way that only a slab of bloody meat can be. Unless you're one of those douchetards who likes to your steak well-done (and at that point, you might as well be one of those toothless old hags who chews animal hides to soften them before dyeing), it's quick as hell. And, yeah, knowing how to properly cook steak is great for getting laid. Unless, of course, you're a douchetard who likes your steak well-done because NO ONE wants to fuck a toothless, old, animal hide chewing hag. NO ONE.

I also love steak because it's cheap. Gone are the good old days where a steak dinner was the main event in an expensive evening out. Today, you want a steak, you go to the supermarket, and you get one for something like $5. Or do you? In San Francisco, things are not always that simple.

In the land of the organic, sustainable, local, and keyword-ridden, you might be tempted away from the supermarket steak, especially if you've seen that, like, every seemingly self-respecting restaurant gets its meat from Niman Ranch. You wouldn't be able to avoid seeing that, of course, because, like, every restaurant puts at least a few purveyors on their menu. And, apparently, this has been going on for a while:

"Growth of Niman Ranch is credited to restaurants that list it by name on their menus. From nearly the beginning, Niman was unique among small farms in that it sought to create a consumer product brand. The invention of California Cuisine, and by extension most modern American cuisine, is often attributed to celebrity chef Alice Waters. When Waters opened her iconic Chez Panisse restaurant in 1971, Bill Niman sent her pork for evaluation. Waters agreed to buy pork from Niman, and included both the name and company logo on her menus." ("Niman Ranch", Wikipedia)

So, how much of this is about marketing bullshit, and how much of it is about delicious steak? I decided to find out. Enter "experiment" #3, where I pit Niman Ranch against generic supermarket steak. As always, note the price difference. Also note that I'm getting pretty good at photoshopz. DO NOT note that I do not deserve to even hold the expensive DSLR I got for Christmas. In other words, the Niman Ranch steak is glistening unnaturally because I haven't yet learned how to properly use the flash.

Niman Ranch New York Steak	Supermarket New York Steak
$17.99/lb	$5.49/lb

This "experiment" is even more scientifically dubious than the previous two because there were only 2 subjects, but I couldn't invite the starving barbarian hordes into my home; it just wouldn't do. Our first impressions were a distinct gaminess emanating from the Niman Ranch specimen and no scent whatsoever from the supermarket variety. Had my eyes been closed, it could have been crown molding.

Then I cooked them, trying my best to stay consistent.

Salt and pepper both sides. Sear on one side until it's a lovely brown. Hold with tongs and render some of the side fat until it's golden. Flip and stick into a 450 degree oven. Poke with finger in a few minutes. Decide it's time. Let rest. Cut and admire the perfect medium rare red to pink within.

Here's the kicker, folks. After cooking, the steaks were pretty much indistinguishable, according to both subjects. They had tender parts. They had juicy parts. They had chewy parts. They had fatty parts. Neither was out of this world, but they were both meaty and primal and well-seasoned and tasty. Except that one had a brand that Alice Waters decided to stick on her menu years and years ago. And a price tag to match.

And, oh yeah, the steak got me laid.

"Experiment" #2 - Salami Battle

This post marks the last of the Boccalone/Russian store series, ie, I will lay off the cured meats for a while and most likely move on to cheesier pastures.

And now, without further ado, I bring you "experiment" #2, salami.

Hyped, Branded, Expensive Entity A: Salame Peppato from Boccalone, in the Ferry Building. Here's the Boccalone Ferry Building page, for context.

vs.

Obscure, Possibly Generic, Possibly Coming from Some Poorly-Lit Ethnic Market, Cheap Entity B: "Bear" Salami from New World Market, a Russian store in the Outer Richmond neighborhood

Picking the salamis at both venues was difficult because I wanted to reduce the number of variables as much possible. Boccalone has three different flavors of salami, two of which are stuffed with fennel. I chose the Orange & Wild Fennel and Pepato (peppery) varieties.

At the Russian store, I was faced with a glass counter brimming with as much of a variety in salami shape, size, and color as one might expect at a Castro bath house. Paralyzed by too many choices, I asked the swarthy redhead behind the counter what their two tastiest salamis were, and she offered me the "Bear" and the "German."

The German and the Bear (not made from bear, of course, but named "Bear" like pretty much every other Russian foodstuff) pretty much looked and tasted identical, except that the German was a little more piquant.

Here are pictures of the salamis. I only show 2 and not all 4 because the Boccalone ones looked almost identical to one another and had the same price. Same goes for the Russian ones. Note the price difference. Do not note that my photoshop skills have not improved one bit.

Fancy Salami	Cheap Salami
$26/lb	$10.99/lb

As you can see, the fancy salami costs about 2.5 times more than the cheap kind. As before, the fancy salami is most certainly prettier. Actually, because of the huge disparity in the attractiveness of the meats, I decided to do the taste tests blind. I also decided to break up this taste tests into two sub-tests. First, people would taste the Fennel and the Bear. Then they would taste the Pepato and the German. These matches were made to keep the taste profiles as similar as possible to one another.

PROCEDURE
Ask subjects to close their eyes and trust you a whole lot. Place little pieces of meat in their mouths. Do this for first set of salamis. Ask for feedback. Repeat for second set. Mix up the order to keep precious pseudo-scientific integrity intact.

RESULTS
For the first trial (Fennel vs. Bear), 5 people preferred Fennel. and 6 preferred Bear.
For the second trial (Pepato vs. German), 7 people preferred Pepato. 4 preferred German.

Laughable statistical analysis reveals NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE between Fennel and Bear. More laughable statistical analysis revealed a POSSIBLE DIFFERENCE (ie, at P<0.5, for the mathematically inclined) between Pepato and German.

CONCLUSION:
It seems like the Orange & Fennel salami isn't worth the price. I think the Pepato is a tough call, given the results, and this matter might warrant more research. Consensus among the tasters seemed to be that the Pepato would be better on a cracker, or "with fancy mustard," as one of my more epicurean tasters suggested, whereas the cheaper salami would be better on a sandwich.

My personal take on the Pepato salami is that, despite the slightly superior taste, it's definitely not worth the price. I might be biased by what I consider to be a gross mismanagement of expectations from Boccalone. They describe the Pepato as follows:

"This medium-grind salame is seasoned with three specialty varieties of black pepper. Each type of pepper adds its own flavor characteristic, the combination of which sets this peppered salame apart from all the rest."

I don't know. To me, it tasted peppery. No delicately interwoven tantalizing piquant flavor ribbons swirling suggestively on my tongue or whatever. But maybe that's just me.

Before I leave Boccalone and move on to other over-hyped San Francisco institutions, a word or two in its favor. Boccalone makes available to the public several cured meats that I would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. These include the Nduja (a spreadable salami) and, my personal favorite, Porchetta di Testa, the moist, savory, extremely flavorful result of applying the porchetta recipe to a pig's head. See the video below for more info and some particularly tender moments, such as the shaving of the piggy and the blowtorching of its little ears.

"Experiment" #1 - Coppa Battle

My first experience with overpriced cured meats comes from my time as kitchen manager of a wine bar in New York. The place was legit, and you wouldn't believe the kinds of things we could do with a hot plate in a 6'x6' basement cave. One thing we knew well was that people love salty, fatty things while they're getting tanked, er, enjoying wine flights and making erudite tasting notes. As such, we had a lovely charcuterie plate on the menu.

When I first started at this place, the owner would make a biweekly (is that the one that means twice a week?) trip to some hip specialty store in the Village and buy a bunch of meats. Having grown up in Brooklyn, the home of poorly lit ethnic delis with questionable health codes and absolutely delicious foods, I challenged her to a taste test and brought in some mortadella from an Italian place by my house. The mortadella from the place by my house was more flavorful, with bigger chunks of pistachio, for something like half the price. I've been skeptical of hip specialty stores ever since.

I've actually been down for poorly-lit delis and skeptical of pretty much anything else for a lot longer than that. When I was a kid, you could get 2 oz. of osetra caviar in Brighton Beach for $30. For the uninitiated, Brighton Beach is a freaknasty, gritty Russian-saturated part of Brooklyn, where except for the El train and some street signs in English, you'd believe you suddenly got transported to Odessa. The stores where you got the stuff were always a little bit suspect, but it was all worth it, because they were probably the last places on earth where my grandma could have bought caviar with foodstamps. And buy caviar with foodstamps she did, every week, so I could eat it on a bagel with a thick slab of butter in the morning. It does bear mentioning that, about 1 of 10 times, the "caviar" would be rotten and inedible, but for $15/oz, you can't really complain.

Anyway, enough about how great my childhood was. Onto something bigger and better: today's "experiment," Coppa.

Hyped, Branded, Expensive Entity A: Coppa from Boccalone, in the Ferry Building. Here's the Boccalone Ferry Building page, for context.

vs.

Obscure, Possibly Generic, Possibly Coming from Some Poorly-Lit Ethnic Market, Cheap Entity B: Coppa from New World Market, a Russian store in the Outer Richmond neighborhood

The shopping experiences were not really worth mentioning except for one small detail. At New World Market, a swarthy middle-aged redhead used her massive Eastern European upper body, which surely would have given her huge evolutionary advantage when the family ox was too sick to plow the rye fields, to slice the hell out of my coppa. I think she was done in under 2 minutes. At Boccalone, they took my name and asked me to come back in 5 minutes. I spent that time buying massively overpriced chanterelles and scowling at hipsters.

A picture's worth a thousand words, so here you go. Note the prices per pound under each meat product. Do NOT note the shoddy photoshop workmanship:

Fancy Coppa	Cheap Coppa
$32/lb	$10.99/lb

As you can see, the fancy coppa is almost exactly triple the price of the cheap coppa. At first glance, it certainly does look better. It looks handmade, rustic, less uniform. Does it taste any better, though?

PROCEDURE:
Put 2 kinds of coppa on two numbered plates. Harass people you know until they try the meat products. Convince coworkers that the past is in the past, and you're really not trying to poison them, really. Ask for feedback and write down some of the funnier shit that's said. Et voila.

RESULTS:
7 people preferred fancy coppa. 5 people preferred cheap coppa.
Of the 12 surveyed, 5 said that the two kinds were almost indistinguishable and cast their vote on the slimmest of margins.
Based on some laughable (given the sample size) statistical analysis (a chi-square test, if you must know), there is NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE between the two coppas.

MY FAVORITE COMMENTS:
With respect to fancy coppa:
"This is kinda nasty [insert disgusted face here]."
"Hmmm... you only get a hint of the Safeway salami taste at the end."

With respect to the cheap coppa:
"Man, this smells like my socks after a rainy day [insert disgusted face here]."

CONCLUSION:
The consensus among the tasters seemed to be that the fancy coppa was more rubbery but also had more spice. The cheap coppa was unanimously described as more tender and soft. Given how close the votes were and how huge the disparity in price is, I'm going to have to relegate Boccalone coppa to the land of the overhyped and unsubstantiated. All standard disclaimers apply.

"Experiment" #2 is forthcoming, once we all recover from the meat sweats.

Mental Mastication Manifesto

San Francisco (and the Bay Area by extension) is known, in many circles, as a culinary mecca. The city alone boasts something like 20,000 restaurants, which is mind-boggling given that the city has a total area of 46.7 square miles (ie, it's only 7 miles or so long and wide). An hour away, we have a cluster of internationally renowned wineries, dotting the Napa and Sonoma valleys like so many pins in a war monger's map. Up until this year, the Bay Area had one of the only two Michelin 3-star restaurants in the country (the French Laundry). And so on and so forth.

Given this rich culinary landscape, the food culture in SF is seemingly savvy as hell. We are, on the surface, an extremely well educated consumer base. You can't fall off your fixie without hitting a few self-titled foodies on the way down. Many people can compose an (unrhymed) poem about the differences between an espagnole and a demi-glace and then prattle off the names of 10 local superstar chefs while standing on one leg. This kind of informed consumerism is, of course, good and bad. On one hand, delicious delicious heirloom tomatoes, despite their resemblance to brightly rainbow colored tumors, are pretty much a household fixture and are available on the cheap to brighten your back-patio summer salads. On the other hand, because people are willing to pay, you can charge double for a mediocre piece of meat by calling it free-range, sustainable, organic, or any number of other keywords that float around specialty stores.

This duality also extends to the restaurant scene. Perusing an archetypal fine dining San Francisco menu quickly becomes an exercise in nagging deja vu. Oh, you are featuring beet and Cow Girl Creamery goat cheese salad? Liberty farms duck breast with some kind of root vegetable puree? Niman Ranch steak? Roasted Rocky Jr chicken? Acme bread to start off the meal? That's great, just great. No, no I'm just ever so delighted to eat almost exactly the same thing I had at the place down the street last week and drop $150 on a dinner for two. Nevertheless, sometimes this $150 meal is worth every penny.

Speculating about the many causes of the carbon-copy menus or the inflated costs of food shopping and dining out in San Francisco is outside the scope of this blog and the ken of the author. However, I'd like to chip away at some of the preconceptions that many of the seemingly food-savvy SF natives operate under. Is Acme bread really and truly the shit? Is it possible to get a good deal on cured meats somewhere in the city's borders? Do local, organic foods really taste better than the crap you get at Safeway? Is shopping at the infamous Ferry Building ever worth it?

I don't know. But I would really like to find out, so...

I will conduct a series of extremely pseudo-scientific blind "experiments", each comparing Hyped, Branded, Expensive Entity A to Obscure, Possibly Generic, Possibly Coming from Some Poorly-Lit Ethnic Market, Cheap Entity B. Along the way, I will waste a lot of money and eat a lot of crap before probably discovering that some foods are surely worth the price and deserve all the accolades, while others enjoy a propaganda campaign that would have made Josef Goebbels huddle in the fetal position.

The results of the first "experiment" are forthcoming. Stay tuned!