31–40 of 49 posts
In fact there are several wine tasting training sets for sale, with tens of different wine aromas.
As humans OTOH, our smell is inferior to, say, dogs.
I 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…
But, I do think that Thomas' test was a bit unfair. He arranged as if it was a test of different whiskeys but then gave the same one every time. That isn't a double blind trial and it physiologically manipulates the participant. It makes a good story but I don't think it proves anything. Furthermore, you really need a larger sample size to say whether or not "snobs" can distinguish the real thing from the fake. If you are testing just one "snob" it would help to run multiple randomized trials.
However its also been proven that people think that an expensive wine tastes better than a cheap one. So psychology and expectations play a big role.
I would advocate that we get mass spectrometers out there in smart phones so that we can scan the wine and tell its contents. Not only do we want to test the wine contents, we also want to scan our meat to check that it is what is says it is and we also want to scan vegetables for pesticide residue.
The "junk science" part is when self-described "experts" assign arbitrary percentile scores based on the tasting.
I've been at wine tastings where the sommelier who is a sommelier teacher can pick from what exact bordeaux region a certain wine is from without looking at the label. Respects that expert skill different from computers but mastery. I think it is like in all fields there are self proclaimed experts and real experts and not all who claim to be an expert are one some fake it. However its also been proven that people th…
I'll just throw this whisky tasting link in for contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boj33DVSILQ
I had a couple of sleeves for wine bottles, so I decided to put them over the bottles and do a blind taste test. Of the 5 other people, 3 preferred the cheaper wine, 1 was neutral, and 1 preferred the more expensive one.
You don't need wine sleeves-- we've used paper bags, or you can decant in a double-blind safe way.
No one said science was easy, but someone's got to do it. ;-) You might even save yourself some money.
Earlier 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…
Sorry, but that story is pretty dumb. If an expert is tricked into drinking the same shitty Indian whisky six times, they're going to be thrown off.
I'll just throw this whisky tasting link in for contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boj33DVSILQ
Really awesome video, thanks.