I'll just throw this whisky tasting link in for contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boj33DVSILQ
That's a brilliant video. Scottish people and pretentiousness don't tend to go together very well :)
Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
11–20 of 49 posts
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#12Blah blah blah, drink your wine and enjoy it. If you like it great. This doesn't mean all aspects are purely taste, like: acidity, tanninity, type of grape, etc
having come to that realization myself, that's more or less what i tell people who are new to wine. but i added something: learn how to describe what you like (or don't like) so that you can find new wines to try and are likely to enjoy. figure out how to communicate, say, a certain flavor with the term "tannin" or "oak" and when you talk with a wine expert you can learn new varietals to try.
since i've done this (in the past ten years) my enjoyment of wine has gone up.
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#13>What these examples remind us of is that perceiving isn't opposed to or independent of understanding and thought; it is, rather, an exercise of understanding and thought.
I think this is what people should take away from this article.
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#14I have wanted to perform a rigorous double-blind wine-tasting experiment for a long time, but have always lacked the resources.
The true test of the validity of wine-tasting isn't whether experts can tell "good" wine from "bad" wine, but whether experts can reliably describe the same wine with the same language with an acceptably small margin of error.
My ideal experiment would give blindfolded wine experts a number of wines to taste. They would rate each wine using some appropriate standardized scale that would measure a number of relevant qualities of the wine. The experts would be given multiple samples of each wine, randomized appropriately. The experiment would measure how closely each expert mirrored their own rating of each wine on subsequent tastings.
This is basically a slightly more complex version of the famous (and hypothetical) "Lady tasting tea" experiment [1].
I like this setup because the ratings of each expert are compared only to their own previous ratings. I think this minimizes ambiguity and external sources of error.
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#15I have wanted to perform a rigorous double-blind wine-tasting experiment for a long time, but have always lacked the resources. The true test of the validity of wine-tasting isn't whether experts can tell "good" wine from "bad" wine, but whether experts can reliably describe the same wine with the same language with an acceptably small margin of error. My ideal experiment would give blindfolded wine experts a number…
Doesn't have to cost much. Just choose some supposed wildly different wines, and tear up a sheet to make blindfolds.
My father-in-law Thomas is from India. He likes whiskey including Indian brands; his colleague was a Scotch whisky snob. At a party he challenged the snob to name all the whiskeys on the bar.
Thomas went into another room with the bottles in a bag; came out carrying a tray with half a dozen shot glasses. The snob tasted each one, make erudite remarks about their qualities and selected a brand for each one. Thomas opened the bag and showed that only the Indian bottle had the seal cracked.
Needless to say Thomas doesn't get invited over there any more.
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#16I have wanted to perform a rigorous double-blind wine-tasting experiment for a long time, but have always lacked the resources. The true test of the validity of wine-tasting isn't whether experts can tell "good" wine from "bad" wine, but whether experts can reliably describe the same wine with the same language with an acceptably small margin of error. My ideal experiment would give blindfolded wine experts a number…
Doesn't have to cost much. Just choose some supposed wildly different wines, and tear up a sheet to make blindfolds. My father-in-law Thomas is from India. He likes whiskey including Indian brands; his colleague was a Scotch whisky snob. At a party he challenged the snob to name all the whiskeys on the bar. Thomas went into another room with the bottles in a bag; came out carrying a tray with half a dozen shot glasse…
> Doesn't have to cost much. Just choose some supposed wildly different wines, and tear up a sheet to make blindfolds.
The hard part is finding qualified experts who are willing to participate. The experiment would be most interesting and uncontroversial if it was done with experts whose credentials were unassailable.
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't have to cost much. Just choose some supposed wildly different wines, and tear up a sheet to make blindfolds. My father-in-law Thomas is from India. He likes whiskey including Indian brands; his colleague was a Scotch whisky snob. At a party he challenged the snob to name all the whiskeys on the bar. Thomas went into another room with the bottles in a bag; came out carrying a tray with half a dozen shot glasse…
> Doesn't have to cost much. Just choose some supposed wildly different wines, and tear up a sheet to make blindfolds. The hard part is finding qualified experts who are willing to participate. The experiment would be most interesting and uncontroversial if it was done with experts whose credentials were unassailable.
You could find experts in your social circle. The results would be just about as satisfying personally.
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#18Was anyone calling Wine-Tasting a science to begin with?
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#19It's actually quite impressive what a master Sommelier can do. S/he can taste a wine, tell you the varietal, tell you the region it was made and the year it was produced. The flowery language behind describing the wines is for the person the Sommelier is explaining the wine to. I highly recommend the documentary Somm [0]. It's not an easy thing to become a master wine taster. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ze…
Have there been rigorous studies to test these claims?
Re: Is Wine-Tasting Junk Science?
#20I'll just throw this whisky tasting link in for contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boj33DVSILQ
That's a brilliant video. Scottish people and pretentiousness don't tend to go together very well :)
That's not strictly true - it's practically mandatory here in Edinburgh at this time of year ;-)