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The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

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Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#71

Post by jfengel »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #49
ta988 wrote: post #45

You cannot say a whole field is fake because of a single experiments on students of that field. Neither can you by looking at people using their diploma but lacking the real expertise. I know chemistry PhDs I would never let run even the simplest experiment... They still boast on social media that they are experts, same with people selling wine and lying to clients to make them believe the wine is good or taste like…

But its such a profound failure, it warrants skepticism of the field. Or at least of schools that purport to teach a skill, then fail at that entirely.

And a seven year old article without a follow-up also warrants skepticism. People have pointed out problems with the headline conclusion.

To the degree that "skepticism" means thinking hard and applying work to discern differences, it would be warranted. To the degree that it's interpreted as general doubtfulness without further effort or thought, that's actually the opposite of true skepticism.

Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#72

Post by NoSorryCannot »

thinkingkong wrote: post #3

Another somewhat famous study involved taking a cheap wine and an expensive wine and swapping the bottles. When people tasted the wines and the bottles were hidden, people accurately scored the wines. When the bottles were visible, people preferred the wine in the expensive bottle. All but the experts were susceptible to this effect.

It seems on the face of things that a good expert would know about these psychological heuristics and would deliberately blind themselves, according to some method suitable for the field.

I doubt it's reliably the case that experts will be immune to the tricks of the human brain, unless they don't own one.

Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#73

Post by tester756 »

thinkingkong wrote: post #3

Another somewhat famous study involved taking a cheap wine and an expensive wine and swapping the bottles. When people tasted the wines and the bottles were hidden, people accurately scored the wines. When the bottles were visible, people preferred the wine in the expensive bottle. All but the experts were susceptible to this effect.

>When people tasted the wines and the bottles were hidden, people accurately scored the wines.

>All but the experts were susceptible to this effect.

I dont understand

If people managed to "accurately scored the wines", then what does "all but experts were suspectible" actually means?

Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#74

Post by alexose »

ericbarrett wrote: post #64
ta988 wrote: post #45

You cannot say a whole field is fake because of a single experiments on students of that field. Neither can you by looking at people using their diploma but lacking the real expertise. I know chemistry PhDs I would never let run even the simplest experiment... They still boast on social media that they are experts, same with people selling wine and lying to clients to make them believe the wine is good or taste like…

I have witnessed with my own two eyes an experienced wine aficionado call the grape type, terroir (micro-region) and year of a brown-bagged wine, based on a single tasting. They were off by one year, but otherwise correct. There’s a ton of BS in the wine world, but it’s not all fake.

I have a few somm friends that can do this reliably. The process of elimination is really fascinating to watch.

The reason it's possible, though, is because the majority of commercial wine conforms to distinct, repeatable styles. A grassy note in an amber-colored wine might narrow it down to a single grape variety, a hint of smoke might indicate the region. Then take the relative level of oxidation, and you've got a decent guess at the year. Index that against your mental database of all the possible wines that it could be (price point, availability, etc.), and you've got a good shot the exact bottle.

The level of knowledge required to do this without a book in front of you is impressive, but it's not magic. More like 20 questions with a relatively narrow target area. The usual tricks will fail when you try it with small producers, non-traditional production techniques, or AVAs that don't distribute widely.

Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#75

Post by jfengel »

vagrantJin wrote: post #19
chiefalchemist wrote: post #14

> The research, later published in the journal Brain and Language, is now widely used to show why wine tasting is total BS. BS? Or simply subjective? Sure people are influenced by "experts", as humans when isn't that true? Fashion? Music? The list is endless. We want to believe we are autonomous and independent but more often we naturally conform to the norm around us. Third-party insights and guidance are why we sur…

I think the gripe with things like wine tasting is the "elitist" nature of it all. Tasting a lot of wines and beers either makes you an expert or a drunk or an expert drunk or drunk expert? Either way, theres no certainty that a drunk isn't an expert or vice versa.

Wine shouldn't be elitist. There are rich people playing stupid games for stupid prizes, which is tiny but highly visible because it lets people tell a story they want to tell.

The vast majority of wine drinkers simply drink wine. Those who really enjoy it may search out something interesting and distinctive for special occasions. Those will be rarer and more expensive, and the experience is difficult to convey, as any purely sensual experience is difficult to convey.

You can enjoy wine without participating in any of that. But don't be misled by the people putting on airs about it. That's just people being voyeuristic about the wealthy and seeking out snobbery to feel superior to. It's not about wine at all.

Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#76

Post by rectang »

whiddershins wrote: post #59
rectang wrote: post #44

I used to make a living as a mastering engineer, where the job description is to make many tiny changes near or even beyond the threshold of perception, which when summed may add up to a perceptible whole. How to do this? It's simple: isolate and magnify. Zoom in to where your senses become reliable, make a change informed by your knowledge and experience which you predict will be beneficial, then zoom out. You don't…

On this topic, what resource do you think is a really good one for learning mastering?

Try messing around with buss processing and track sequencing while referencing other recordings in the same genre. Just make sure to keep the unprocessed tracks around, and err on the side of "less is more". There's a lot of overlap between the aesthetic skills needed for mixing and those needed for mastering.

The profession of mastering is much more than that, but generally when people ask this question they want to know about the aesthetics, not about stuff like thoroughly grokking many source and delivery formats, etc.

Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#77

Post by mkl95 »

PopGreene wrote: post #55

> In a sneaky study, Brochet dyed a white wine red and gave it to 54 oenology (wine science) students. The supposedly expert panel overwhelmingly described the beverage like they would a red wine. They were completely fooled. I don't understand. Why would anyone think of a student as an expert? I'm not saying that oenologists aren't full of it. I'm saying that this study doesn't prove what this article claims it does…

I think that raises questions about the quality of the wine more than about anything else. I'm more of a beer guy but I can easily tell white from red wine. Both taste and aftertaste are very different.

Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#79

Post by nimih »

mkl95 wrote: post #77
PopGreene wrote: post #55

> In a sneaky study, Brochet dyed a white wine red and gave it to 54 oenology (wine science) students. The supposedly expert panel overwhelmingly described the beverage like they would a red wine. They were completely fooled. I don't understand. Why would anyone think of a student as an expert? I'm not saying that oenologists aren't full of it. I'm saying that this study doesn't prove what this article claims it does…

I think that raises questions about the quality of the wine more than about anything else. I'm more of a beer guy but I can easily tell white from red wine. Both taste and aftertaste are very different.

Scientists: We took a bunch of people who claim they can tell red wine from white wine based on taste, and successfully fooled most of them with food coloring.

Internet commenter reading the study: I can definitely tell red wine from white wine based on taste.

Re: The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

#80

Post by u678u »

Its kind of a social pressure though, it would be interesting to know if the students were new or experienced. If you are a new student and go into a clinical settings and someone gives you "red wine", you'd be pretty brave to say it tastes like white wine.

A good test would be to have a double blind study where they had to judge if this wine was red wine or colored white. I'd imagine most could easily tell.

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