balex

Giant Haystacks all the way

How did the R..sling go with the Foie? That Cuvee is very dry isn't it?

Example one: everybody was told to bring wine. One of them brings a special bottle. He tells the host it's special. The host puts all the open bottles on the table together. Someone unknowingly takes the one that's much better and more expensive than all the others and fills his or her glass up to the rim with a huge pour from it.

(Worse if it's knowing -- but it never is.)

I was at a dinner party quite recently where exactly this happened. In England the glasses of wine you get in wine bars and pubs are huge -- typically 175 or 250 ml -- i.e. a 1/4 or a 1/3 of a bottle. So some people think that a 1/3 of a bottle is not an unreasonable amount to pour into your glass.

I don't think it's bullshit at all.  If you went to UC Davis and took Ann Noble's class, you would come out of it with a common vocabulary that you could use to communicate with your fellow graduates, pace all the usual caveats about sensation.  If you are in a Gallo lab in Modesto, I bet there is a rigorous common vocabulary.  But i think the utility there is commercial product design, not enjoyment.

 

and it has zip to do with whether that is "melted liquorice" or "roasted purple plums" in Parker's review.

I agree with all this -- but for the man in the street, there contact with blind tasting is through the sort of tasting notes that are in newspapers or in wine merchants, and not the ones that have some validity. So from their perspective it is bullshit.