
French wine experts can't tell a grand cru from an ordinary table wine - jcwentz
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/11/the_subjectivity_of_wine.php?
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Alex3917
In other news, experts can't tell the difference between a long line and a
short line:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments>

This study doesn't show that there is no difference between a great wine and a
mediocre wine. All it shows is that people can be tricked into disbelieving
their senses.

EDIT: As for the study about experts disagreeing, you could just as easily
claim that because some ice cream experts prefer vanilla and others prefer
chocolate, the ice cream industry is teh fraud.

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DanielBMarkham
Yet wine ratings in places like Wine Spectator are always done in a blind
manner.

<http://www.winespectatorschool.com/wineschool/Tasting_Guide>

Wonder how both things can be true at the same time? Perhaps the tasting
methodologies are just a fancy random-number generator? Something smells
fishy.

~~~
mattmaroon
It's a matter of trust. Each of these people has had thousands of red wines
served to them, with none of them being an impostor white with food coloring.
Therefore if a white is served to them in disguise, they simply assume it's a
red, because why would anyone ever do that?

Also, whites are typically served chilled, reds aren't. If someone gave me a
warm white wine with red food coloring in it I might not care for it but I'd
definitely be fooled. That doesn't mean there isn't a difference.

A much better test would be to blindfold them and ask which are whites and
which are red. I bet they'd do considerably better.

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indie01
It's indeed an industry loaded with pretentiousness.

Here's a clip from a related and interesting article about the wine industry:

Source:
[http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/05/news/companies/Two_Buck_Chuc...](http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/05/news/companies/Two_Buck_Chuck.biz2/index.htm)

>>>In 2002, Franzia persuaded Trader Joe's to sell a low-end label called
Charles Shaw (after the winemaker who sold the tony label to Franzia, and
dubbed Two Buck Chuck by consumers) that waged war on domestic wines in the $4
to $10 range - and was named best chardonnay in a blind taste test at July's
California State Fair over far pricier competition. The label is one of
America's fastest-growing, selling 5 million cases per year, all through one
chain of stores.

~~~
joeguilmette
the reason that charles shaw wins those taste testing contests is pretty
simple, and shady to say the least.

the way they make their wine is by purchasing overstock of grapes from other
producers. the grapes are very spotty and inconsistent in quality, which is
why you can buy a case of the wine and every bottle will be completely
different.

when they submit charles shaw to tastings, do you think they pick a random
bottle out of inventory? of course not, they pick the best of what they have
so that they can compete.

~~~
Alex3917
The price per ton of Chardonnay is relatively inexpensive, especially if
you're getting your grapes from outside of Napa. Also, by California law only
75% of the grapes have to come from the named varietal on the bottle, so they
could easily be blending in some Chenin Blanc or Sauvignon Blanc for
consistency. Lastly, there is a lot of post-production stuff you can do to
Chardonnay, most famously involving oak, but there is other stuff as well. So
it seems possible that they can source from a wide variety of vinyards and
still have a relatively consistent product, given the wide variety of options
available under California law.

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greendestiny
If you go to the store without much prior knowledge and grab an expensive
bottle of the shelf your chances of getting something great aren't that high.
Some things to consider: wines sell for the same price whether or not it was a
good or a bad year. A premium wine in a bad year is likely to be less
enjoyable than a cheap wine in good year. Premium wines are generally made to
be aged, so if you don't cellar your wines you are wasting your money buying
an expensive wine. Even the snobbiest wine collector doesn't suggest there is
a linear relationship between price and enjoyment, but premium wines generally
take more effort to make.

A lot of the quality of a wine comes down to the fruit. Do you doubt your
ability to identify a beautiful strawberry?

~~~
r7000
Well, the fact that so many strawberries nowadays are large and water-filled
(from being over-watered) to make them look super-sized rather than more
flavour-packed smaller runtier berries may imply there are quite a few
consumers who can't identify a good strawberry.

~~~
greendestiny
People buy on the look, not the taste. And they generally don't want to pay
anymore for a great tasting strawberry even if they knew how to find one. Most
people wouldn't deny there is a difference in a crap strawberry and a great
one though.

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edw519
<expert>

I don't know why anyone even bothers serving Coke. Pepsi is so much better.
Obviously.

And Rails is so much better than PHP.

And Apple is so much better than Microsoft.

And Chevy is so much better than Ford.

See how easy that was?

</expert>

~~~
german
expert { background: #000; color: #FFF; font-size: 40px; text-align: center; }

All expert tags need some CSS ;)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Why stop there? This guy's an expert, right?

.expert { font-style:oblique; text-decoration:blink; font-weight: 900; }

~~~
german
You are right, but we missed something:

position: absolute; top: 0; left:0;

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mattmaroon
You should see what master sommeliers have to go through to earn that title.
There are more people out there than you could imagine who can look at a glass
of wine and tell you what varietal (or roughly what blend) it is, what vintage
it is from, what location the grapes were grown in, rough ABV, etc. It's
seriously mind boggling how good some of those guys are.

