66 replies to this topic

[Wilfrid]

From the New Yorker.

I don't really know what to make of all these stories. Taken together, they ought to seem persuasive, but I still don't believe them.

[Adrian]

From the New Yorker.

I don't really know what to make of all these stories. Taken together, they ought to seem persuasive, but I still don't believe them.

I've oft wondered this as well. Though I'm not sure that "blind tasting" is really reflective of how we really taste. Two examples:

1. Think about how hard it is to distinguish beef, pork, and lamb if you're trying each blind compared to how easy it is once you know.
2. During the only "blind" tasting I've done* it was incredibly easy to distinguish between the wines once I knew what the wines could potentially be. Distinguishing between new world and old world was straightforward (it's not just me, the girlfriend thought the same).

In short, I'm not convinced the methodology is really giving an accurate result.

*wines were paired with similar wines (ie. Momo beside Cloudy Bay, bordeaux beside a California Cab)

[Wilfrid]

I've participated in plenty of blind tastings, but yes, there was always a context. It was never: "Here are wines, what are they?"

[Adrian]

I've participated in plenty of blind tastings, but yes, there was always a context. It was never: "Here are wines, what are they?"

Right. The totally blind tasting must be near impossible. It's hard to find things when you don't know what you're looking for and, I would bet, that one or two sips amongst many just isn't enough information without context.

[balex]

Sometimes at big tastings in London there are mystery wines, with a competition for who gets closest.
That is really hard -- I don't even bother putting in my guess.

I often have wine evenings which are blind -- and one can sometimes get quite close, but for me at least it takes quite a long time. You need to think about it, and really concentrate, and even then you tend to know who brought the wine, and what styles they favour, which does give you some side information. We aim just to get grape, region and rough age.
But you can be way way wrong.

But on the articles you mention I think there are a few obvious truths that we can agree on:

1) the vast majority of 'wine professionals' are quite clueless

2) tasting a lot of wines very young in rapid succession without any food is not a very good way of judging the quality of wines, unless you are exceptional (I am not)

3) most wine consumers prefer a fruity low acid style and don't really like expensive wine especially when it is way too young.

4) Price and quality are not very highly correlated across wine regions. With Bordeaux being the outstanding example at the moment.

[GordonCooks]

I think palates are like muscles - the more you work them, the sharper they are.

I do my share of tastings and I'm razor sharp on Chards in the summer and reds in the winter. Personally, it's really depends on how often you're drinking (and what quality/variety) I think.

I've seen my fare share of Consultant "Sommeliers" with rather dull palates and country club tipplers who could double blind identify a case of Cru Beaujolais.

If it was a contest? You can have the Wine Director and I'll take the Wine Rep every time.

[Orik]

Bordeaux sucks.

I've done a lot of somewhat blind tastings - that is, there's some frame of reference such as "Old Rioja", "Granache", "2005 Burg" etc. but the individual bottles are hidden. Without that context (and without looking at the glass), people often can't even tell white from red (embarrassing, I knoe).

I think the skill that you develop the most is being able to still smell and taste after the first few sips. Then there are the obivous skills of identifying common issues - TCA, dirty barrels, ethyl acetate, unintentional oxidization, etc. Once you're done with those, you can make some pretty good guesses and you can certainly rank wines within a small group. For example I collected the scores from Helio's tastings over about 10 classes and there are certainly skilled individuals there who can both rank the wines consistently with each other, and in general with the wine lover community, blind.

I think it's important not to confuse "Ridiculously expensive wine is often not better than somewhat expensive wine" and "people can't tell good wine from bad wine". The third point "people think expensive stuff, or expensive looking stuff, is better" is obvious and has nothing to do with wine in particular.

What balex said, basically.

[Sneakeater]

The thing I don't like about wine tastings of any kind is that most of my favorite wines I don't like without food, anyway. They need the fat or protein or whatever else is in the food to interact with the tannins and acid in the wine. I mean, that's sort of the point of wine, right? It's this beverage that (at least when paired well) (a) magically (OK, chemically) gets better with food, and (b) magically (OK, chemically) makes food better.

So while I don't agree with Orik that Bordeaux sucks, I certainly agree with him that Bordeaux sucks without food -- preferably good red meat.

But my main point is, I don't know how to evaluate most good wines without food. It would almost be, the more unpleasant they are, the better they're likely to be.

[Orik]

It sucks as a reference point when trying to prove that wine is all bullshit. Of course you can replicate 95% of what Bordeaux grows for substantially less $$$s. Is that more fair?

[Wilfrid]

It's possible that all these studies, and the consistent pattern they show, could be explained away by saying that the experts weren't really experts, or that they were out of practice, but I'd like to see a more plausible explanation.

Surprised by what Sneak says. Yes, wine goes with food, but it would get in the way at a wine tasting (other than some biscuits or something).

[Adrian]

It's possible that all these studies, and the consistent pattern they show, could be explained away by saying that the experts weren't really experts, or that they were out of practice, but I'd like to see a more plausible explanation.

Surprised by what Sneak says. Yes, wine goes with food, but it would get in the way at a wine tasting (other than some biscuits or something).

Yeah, I sympathize with your position. It is so different from what we feel when we taste wine though (this coming from someone who largely believes hot-hand research so take that FWIW). It does seem like we need to know more about the experiment design. For example: do the tasters swallow the wine? How much did they taste? etc, etc. Also, with the second study, there's a lot of weird translation stuff going on - does what the experts say really describe their sensory experience? Interesting, though.

[Wilfrid]

That's probably all there in the publications. But life is too short. And although I am sure some of these studies were badly designed, I'm not prepared to assume they all were.

I think there's an explanation other than bad study design, or One Buck Chuck tasting as good as Haut Brion once you peel the labels off. Not sure what it is.

[balex]

It's possible that all these studies, and the consistent pattern they show, could be explained away by saying that the experts weren't really experts, or that they were out of practice, but I'd like to see a more plausible explanation.

Surprised by what Sneak says. Yes, wine goes with food, but it would get in the way at a wine tasting (other than some biscuits or something).

I am not sure what sort of explanation you are looking for, but one of the reasons is that there is no good way of reproducing smells and tastes, whereas we have good methods of photographic reproduction and sound recording.

The other is perhaps that the process of sensory perception is much more sensitive to 'interference' than sight and sound -- we are used to weird floating green afterimages after bright lights, but don't really understand how taste is affected by what has been in the mouth immediately beforehand.

[balex]

The other point is that Bordeaux (at the high end) has made the transition to luxury good and so saying that it doesn't taste as nice as other wines is really missing the point ; a bit like saying that your Patek Phillipe doesn't keep time as well as a cheap Casio.

[Orik]

That's probably all there in the publications. But life is too short. And although I am sure some of these studies were badly designed, I'm not prepared to assume they all were.

I think there's an explanation other than bad study design, or One Buck Chuck tasting as good as Haut Brion once you peel the labels off. Not sure what it is.

I think the non-expert bit is easy to explain away. Many of the properties we're asked to appreciate in good wine aren't obviously appealing. Non-experts are likely to prefer wine that is fruity, not too acidic, not too tannic (well, unless they grew up here), and probably not wine that enjoys tertiary aromas.

The expert bit is more difficult and you'd probably need better designed experiments to deal with it. (like, first proving that your experts are experts in some sense - I know one wine importer who can go through 50 wines and tell you with reasonable accuracy "this is a $80 bottle, this is a $20 bottle.", so those people do exist)

p.s. I don't think it's news to anyone that a fancy bottle with a fancy label is worth about $20 if not more.