Wine Tasting is Bullshit: Film at 11

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
161

I’ve become confused as to what wine experts are being bashed for at this point. I was all on board with making fun of the flowery wine reviews you see in the magazines, where they describe a large number of extremely precise scents/flavors that I personally could never distinguish in a single wine.

However, I don’t buy that a normal person (let alone a wine expert) would be unable to distinguish between say, sauvignon blanc and pinot noir. If there are staged tricks that make it so someone fails at that task (not being able to distinguish between red/white) I think that just shows that you can trick the senses–something we all know. But I believe in normal circumstances any human could tell the difference between a sauvignon blanc and a pinot noir.

At least the ones I’ve had, sauvignon blanc isn’t sweet, while pinot noir usually is sweet (part of what drives me to only buy familiar brands of wines is even within varietals some are really sweet and some aren’t, so I stay away from pinot noir entirely since I’ve had bottles that were so sickly sweet I did not enjoy it.)

Further, I taste the “tart” flavor more associated with green grapes with the sauvignon blanc and I don’t taste that at all with a pinot noir. I am not saying if you give me an unlabeled white that is sauvignon blanc and an unlabeled red that is pinot noir I could identify what varietal they are but I think unless you were trying to trick me I could distinguish the white from the red.

I know a lot more about beer, and I know I precisely in what ways I can distinguish beer. Could I distinguish between Miller Lite, Miller High Life, and Miller Genuine Draft? Probably not, but I could objectively explain why all three taste bad to me versus Heineken. I doubt I could distinguish between Heineken, Heineken Light, Amstel, and Amstel Light in blind taste tests for the same reason I would fail at trying to distinguish the Miller beers–all of them are pale lagers made at the same brewery IIRC and lagers aren’t particularly heavy on taste. They’d be hard to distinguish. I could explain though that the reason I liked the Heineken brewery beers more than the Miller beers is the Heineken beers have a crisper taste while the Miller beers all taste slightly stale.

Ales are generally more flavored than Lagers, so I could take say, Blue Moon and Hoegaarden and compare them to Newcastle and Young’s Double Chocolate Stout and I have no doubt I could correctly identify the stout, the Belgian white, and the brown ale. Now, could I distinguish between two Belgian whites like Blue Moon and Hoegaarden in a blind taste test? Unlikely, but I think I could write a real review explaining why I think Hoegaarden is better. And the idea anyone couldn’t distinguish a stout, a brown ale, and a Belgian white with minimal exposure to those three types of ale is ludicrous to me and I think the same can be said for distinguish broad categories of wine. I see no realistic reason any experienced drinker couldn’t broadly distinguish different types of wine.

162

Well, now I’m even more confused than before. I have it on good authority (from **sachertorte **) up-thread) that two subsequent glasses of wine from the same bottle can have very different flavour profiles. If that is so, how can they account for the variation introduced by pouring it in tiny little sips? My mind boggles at the level of complexity involved.

163

Indeed.

Really, people who dedicate their lives to tasting and understanding wine aren’t trying to scam anyone. Well, the overwhelming majority are not, but this is also why traditions and establishing credibility are so important. The inconsistencies noted are not scams, but are revealed by the nature of the extraordinary complexity of wine, and the inherent inconsistency in human senses.

The complexity, and the futility of the human palate really nailing down what’s going on, is part of what makes wine tasting so fun, at least to me, but I think that’s a well-shared sentiment.

It’s always been obvious to me that the wine ratings and recommendations are absolutely as subjective as movie critiques or anything else. I really am befuddled that anyone thought otherwise, or are shocked to find this out. It’s not a secret!

164

This thread is all over the place, but I don’t think anyone is saying that. I think the red/white thing is that there is some continuum of flavor in which some white wines can be mistaken for lighter reds, but nobody would seriously claim (I hope) that white wines and red wines in general are indistinguishable.

165

Try to keep all of the samples at the same temperature and try to taste all of the samples in a given flight as close together as practical. If you keep all of the wines at a given temp, open and pour all of them near the same time, and use the same stemware for each wine, you can make better estimates as to the qualities of Wine #1 vs Wine #6.
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For 99.9999% of wine, varying the amount of time a glass is exposed to air by 20 minutes—provided the temperature is kept the same—won’t change the wine’s taste that much. Try one when you first open it, and compare it to a glass three hours later, and you may not be able to say the same thing.

Martin, Pinot Noir shouldn’t be sweet, as in having appreciable residual unfermented sugar. It often tastes ‘fruity’, like rich black cherries or rasp- or blackberries, which can be confused with ‘sweet.’ The physiology of taste, and how it interacts with our sense of smell, is really interesting.

300 sips is ridiculous. Even over two days. Assume a 12 hour day, each day. That’s over 12 tastes an hour. Yes, it can be done. No, I don’t believe the judge is paying as much attention to Wine #285 as s/he was to Wine #3. And yes, if you slipped the judge a sample of Wine #3 at the end of Day 2, I’d think the judge wouldn’t realize it was a dupe. I don’t think I would, anyway. I’ve met wine judges, though I haven’t judged any competitions myself, and the ones I’ve talked to did take it really seriously. They downplayed concerns I had over the amount of tastes that had to judge. I’m not convinced.

Anyway, the rule of thumb for wine competitions like state fairs and the like (the Australian system is an exception, from what I’ve read) is that the higher end stuff doesn’t bother entering. Why? I’ve read the reason is they don’t need to, in order to sell their wine at their desired price.

(There are exceptions. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s International Wine Competition was recently won by Antinori’s 2009 Guado al Tasso, which retails for about $80-90, if you can find it. It’s nice, but personally, not worth the money, and it doesn’t really taste of anything besides a rich, slightly acidic, New World Cab. Which is probably why the panel liked it. The list of medal winners is here, for those interested. Some of their groupings and results don’t give me a lot of faith about the reliability of their scores. A Loosen Spatlese in the same category as an Icewine? Huh?)

Also, there’s the potential downside of the competition not giving their wine any award. Awkward. Finally, if you make a wine in a balanced, restrained style designed for aging, it’s often not going to show in a 20 second taste as well as a wine that’s all, “Fruit. Fruit! FRUIT!,” and 15% alcohol.

pulykamell, pretty sure there was one or two posts that mentioned that. Thing is, they aren’t wrong, at least in the Frederic Brochet study that I’m sure they’re referencing. Basically, in one of his experiments, he punk’d 50 or so enology students by having them taste a white wine, make some comments, then taste the same wine that he’d surreptitiously added red food coloring too. Everyone came out with red fruit descriptors, for the exact same wine.

It’s also a neat parlor trick to blindfold people and see if they can distinguish red from white varieties. It’s tougher than you’d think, unless it’s something like Muscat or Gewurztraminer. Color adds a quite a bit to perceptions about what something will smell and taste like.

166

I’ve also noticed beginners to wine sometimes call wines with no residual sugar “sweet” because of strong, bright fruit on the nose and palate you sometimes find, as you noted. It’s really certain acidic qualities of the wine that are being called “sweet,” because people associate those acids with common, sweet fruits like citrus, apples, and cherries.

ETA: I agree with everything you wrote.

167

To continue the theme, I know more than one dry sauvignon blanc that scream grapefruit and often get called sweet, even with almost no residual sugar in them. But since something resembling grapefruit is so strong on the nose, the word “sweet” just pops in your head.

168

But that’s not the same as mistaking any white for any red. I seriously doubt you can add food coloring to a riesling and have somebody claim it tastes like an oaky, heavy, tannic cabernet sauvignon, for instance. Or, to use Martin’s example, sauvignon blanc and say it tastes like pinot noir. That the use of adjectives chosen by participants is influenced by the color of the wine does not surprise me in the least. But that’s miles away from saying they can’t be distinguished or taste the same. To prove that, blindfold the students and offer them up one red and one white (honestly). Ask them to identify which is which. I expect, depending on the red and white chosen, they will overwhelmingly pick correctly. I would even wager you bring an untrained person into the test and if you pick, say, your most standard white, a chardonnay, and your most standard red, a cabernet sauvignon or a merlot, they’d be able to easily tell them apart, as well.

169

Riesling’s got that floral note that reds aren’t going to have. But make it a Pinot Blanc, one of the multitude of Italian whites, or even Martin’s Sav. Blanc example if it doesn’t have the cat pee thing, and blindfold the taster, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to have people mistake red for white, and vice versa. I need to try this out, but I wonder if a giant oak-bomb California Chardonnay could be similarly mistaken for a thick, oaky New World red? You can’t really run the test though if the subject knows it’s coming. Though you can play it for laughs.

Really jammy Zins do it too, well, the ones that don’t actually have residual sugar anyway. My GF has that issue with many fruity reds. “It’s sweet.”
“No, there isn’t any RS. It’s dry.”
“I told you, it’s sweet. I don’t like it.”

Well then. More Ridge Pagani for me.

170

No, 300 sips is stupid overwhelming for the reasons Gray Ghost says. I’m not a wine expert, but even if I were I would find it difficult to compare wines, I’d imagine.

BeerAdvocate is the wankiest website ever. Just look up any IPA and see these guys talk about pineapple, apricot, resin, “boozy nail polish.” Chalky (apparently a good thing). A double IPA is not “hoppy enough.” I imagine the only color that matters is purple. Purple prose.

171

And, like I said originally, there is a continuum of taste where I can see red and white overlapping. Some whites might be mistaken for some reds and vice versa. That’s not surprising to me. But that’s a different statement than “red wines and white wines cannot be distinguished,” which is what Martin seemed to be asking about. I don’t think anyone in this thread is making that claim, though. If they are, then that’s like saying the taste of mint can’t be distinguished from the taste of rosemary, or cinnamon from pepper.

172

Almost everyone has something they are passionate about. Because they love it, they learn about it and start using the jargon. They probably have a natural appitude for whatever their passion is as well.

I know that people taste things differently.

I think that cilantro tastes like soap. Many people love it.

shrugs I guess my point is that wine tasting jargon sounds pretentious, but is it really worse than what you hear from any other group?

173

Sure you can. If the claim is the two can’t be distinguished, then it shouldn’t matter if the subject knows if it’s coming or not. You should get no better than chance results in labeling which is the red cab and which is the white oaky chardonnay. If the result shows that the subjects pick by a statistically significant amount one way or another, there is a quantifiable difference in taste between the two. I would expect the result to be pairing the cab with red and the chardonnay with white, but even if it’s reversed, that shows to me there is an objectively observable difference between the two.

174

I don’t know about “chalky,” but pineapple, apricot, grapefruit, resin, pine, banana, clove, etc., are all legitimate descriptors to me. I can’t quite drill down quite that finely, but some beers are more “piney”, some are more “spicy” (for lack of better descriptor), some more “citrussy” in their hops profile, in some I definitely taste grapefruit. Some even a “juicy fruit/bubblegum” type of flavor, etc. And, as I said above, “banana” or “cloves” are pretty strong yeast flavors to me.

But I admit, I could have the same beer on three different days, and I will pick out different flavors from it. I’m not sure how it works. And, no, I don’t contribute to any of those websites, nor do I talk about beer in this way to my friends. But, yeah, those descriptors do make sense to me, and I sometimes look up a review just to see if my perception of a new beer I’ve never tried matches other’s. Most of the time, it does.

175

I do that with wines as well, especially if I have the winemaker’s tasting notes. Jot down my own notes before reading the maker’s notes, and see how they match. It’s a bit hit and miss, and sometimes I think those I get the same are just because they’re so common for the varietal(s) in the wine and region. But over time I think I’ve found some consistency.

176

For me, when I check (with beers), it’s usually because I detect some flavor I wasn’t expecting or is a bit out-of-style or something, and I’m checking to see if it’s just me or if it’s not. Or sometimes I have something I picked out randomly and say to myself, damn, this really tastes great and am wondering if it’s popularly rated as good, or whether it’s just a personal favorite. Or sometimes there’s a flavor I detect, that I know, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Same thing happens with food. Sometimes, I taste a very obvious, very familiar spice or herb in a meal, and it drives me nuts trying to figure out what that spice is, because I know it, but it’s not in the context I expect and I can’t quite figure it out. (Last one was root beer in my brother’s braised short ribs. I was in the right ballpark naming ginger and allspice-like flavors, but I couldn’t pin point exactly what the mystery ingredient was.) Once I start experiencing this flavor in more and more contexts, though, it becomes easier to pinpoint. Like nutmeg in savories is such a dead giveaway flavor for me, but, when I was a kid, it was just “pumpkin pie” or “eggnog” spice," so when I’d come across it in a meat dish or lasagna or whatnot, I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. Now? I taste it almost to excess.

177

It’s not what some of these guys say, but how they say it. Add in words like “cascade” of foam or flavor or whatever.

178

But highly entertaining.

179

And this probably shows why people have problem with wine tasting in general. To me, a layman, you’re defining sweet as “having residual unfermented sugar.” That definition makes little sense, especially when you say I’m confusing “sweet” for “fruity.” To my mind many, many fruits are “sweet”, so those terms are not mutually exclusive. When I say something is sweet I am referring to the taste, and I frankly do not care if it is because there is residual unfermented sugar in the wine versus “acidity” from fruits, but fruity and sweet aren’t really mutually exclusive nor precise terms in the first place.

180

Martin, it’s just more wine tasting snobbery BS. “Oh you only THINK it tastes sweet even though there’s no sugar muahaaha [adjusts monocle]” Guess what? Sugar ain’t the only thing that tastes sweet, darlin’.