Wine Tasting

[dianahsieh]

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Paul and I went to yet another delicious wine dinner at Il Fornaio about two weeks ago. While I didn't particularly like any of the five wines served with each course, I particularly enjoyed the pairing of the wines with the food. Perhaps I've developing something of a palate. (I only really like Riesling and Guwerztraminer, I must admit.)

Apparently, however, the palates of wine experts aren't all that they're cracked up to be:

In 2001, Frederic Brochet, of the University of Bordeaux, conducted two separate and very mischievous experiments. In the first test, Brochet invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white wine.

The second test Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was a fancy grand-cru. The other bottle was an ordinary vin du table. Despite the fact that they were actually being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the differently labeled bottles nearly opposite ratings. The grand cru was "agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded," while the vin du table was "weak, short, light, flat and faulty". Forty experts said the wine with the fancy label was worth drinking, while only 12 said the cheap wine was.

That's ... um ... not impressive.

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/archives/003033.html

[K-Mac]

So maybe there really is nothing better, to me, than my $11 bottle of Barefoot Pinot Grigio?

[KendallJ]

So maybe there really is nothing better, to me, than my $11 bottle of Barefoot Pinot Grigio?

hmm. I would say so. I think there probably are better wines, and I know I've had a few bottles at times that just were heavenly and far better than the average $7 bottle. But just cuz you pay $50 or more doesn't mean the wine will taste good, and I've had some cheap bottles that were just great.

I trust people a) who've tasted the wine before (wine shop guys usually have pretty good recommendations), or b. wines I've tasted before. Beyond that, I consider it a crapshoot. That's part of what make discovering a good wine by accident such a treasure, because you know it might be a while.

[Thales]

Somehow I'm not surprised. Anyway, I've always doubted the idea of "experts" in taste, as if they should be able to tell me what I should like. I like what I like. Things taste like what they taste like. Who needs a middle man? Another interesting point is that the density of taste buds on the tongue vary from person to person, which tells me that what a food tastes like to one person won't necessarily be the same as what it tastes like to another.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

This struck me as the sort of area where you rapidly get diminishing returns for your dollar. Is the $100 bottle of wine truly five times better tasting than the $20 bottle? Possibly. But how about the REALLY expensive stuff? The $500 bottle? 25 times better tasting? Five times better than the $100 bottle? Hard to imagine.

[D'kian]

The best wine is the one you enjoy and can afford. I often buy cheap wines (about $2 to $15 per bottle), and many are surprisingly good, and surprisingly difficult to find on my next shopping trip. But I make no claim to any knowledge of wine.

[fletch]

This struck me as the sort of area where you rapidly get diminishing returns for your dollar. Is the $100 bottle of wine truly five times better tasting than the $20 bottle? Possibly. But how about the REALLY expensive stuff? The $500 bottle? 25 times better tasting? Five times better than the $100 bottle? Hard to imagine.

Kind of reminds me of this

Can that really taste all that much better than a 75 cent Three Musketeers bar?

[~Sophia~]

Wine drunk by itself tastes different than when you have it with food (which is how I usually have it). A good match will bring out the nuances and enhance the flavors of both the food and the wine; a bad match will ruin even the best in both.

I agree with the comments above that when it comes to wine the price does not seem to be a good indicator of a good purchase. Many of the wines I enjoy happen to be not the expensive ones.