I was just done reading Create your own economist (Tyler Cowen) which mentions in Chapter 4 an experiment a few years back by researcher Frederic Brochet in Bordeaux playing with the visual expectations of 'professional tasters' in Bordeaux.
Jonah Lehrer in The Subjectivity of Wine (Science Blogs, Nov 07) tells us that "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."
Then I happened to get another taste of the same medicine thanks to A Hint of Hype, A Taste of Illusion (WSJ, November 14)...
The piece was penned by Leonard Mlodinow who teaches at Caltech. His most recent book is The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Random House).
How can the same wine get a gold medal in a competition while it's not even mentioned at the next one. Why would the same wine be described as "chewy, tobaccoey" by one star critic and "berry plus" by another asks Leonard Mlodinow?
My take on the adjectives used is that if you read review upon review the same descriptions pop up. It gets very repetitive and boring. The writer being a writer might want to mix it up a bit on the language front.
Trying to glean as many opinions on the topic as I could, one thing that kept coming back was that we are human. Tasting 25 wines or more will shoot your palate and possibly get you intoxicated if not fully drunk.
Many tastings can offer 100, 200, 300 wines so even if you spit it might be hard to keep your sense of taste intact. The alcohol level and the intensity of what is served can make it worse.
I wonder to what extent some wine pieces especially in the high end might be more PR than critique.
It is easier to criticize a cheap wine than an expensive one, isn't it?
Who wants to tell the world that high end wine X or Y is not worth more than 1/ 10th of its price?
Some wines are manipulated to a point where you could not tell what they are and where they come from...
Besides all the reasons above add the possibility of being served an off bottle, using cold medicine and I could go on and on.
As for advice, taste different things, see what you like on don't let the Critics decide for you.
On a closing note, I was a bit surprised to see that Frederic Brochet had gone from Academia to Wine Making with Ampelidae in Marigny-Brizay near Poitiers.
Ampelidae the winemaker says has its roots in Ampelos, the Greek word for wine.
Frederic Brochet is now at the mercy of the same system that he once criticized.
His wine ratings overall: good to great...
Jamie Goode (Wine Anorak) Takes a shot at Le S , a Sauvignon Blanc, 2006 (label above, from the piece).
I have not tasted them and I have been struggling with a cold so my taste buds should not be trusted.
Tutti Frutti....
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