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This study used oenology undergraduates at the University of Bordeaux. I guess I would consider them wine experts (relative to me) but the industry would not.

This study used oenology undergraduates at the University of Bordeaux. I guess I would consider them wine experts (relative to me) but the industry would not. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.227.7161&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.227... "A white wine artificially colored red with an odorless dye was olfactory described as a red wine by a panel of 54 tasters."

tinco 10y ago
"CHEMICAL OBJECT REPRESENTATION IN THE FIELD OF CONSCIOUSNESS" I'd say, without reading the paper, that seems more like an experiment in psychology than in man's ability to perceive tastes. Can you trick your brain into believing something is something else by making it look like that? Seems like you can. "A white wine .. colored red.. was described as a red wine.." Were they wrong? There's a reason the Stradivarius testers are blindfolded.
- vilhelm_s 10y ago
  Also reminds me of the McGurk effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect). If you present a stimuli outside the usual sample space, it's not clear that the responses are "wrong".
Spooky23 10y ago
That may be pointing out the lack of expertise of the tasters. Aren't red vs white wines different things? I'm not at all a regular wine drinker with a sophisticated appreciation of the nuances, but I can pick up lots of different tastes between different wines.
- Tloewald 10y ago
  There's a huge difference in taste between heavily wooded wines (e.g. Many reds and most Chardonnays) and wines made in stainless steel containers (e.g. most Sauvignon blancs) and it would be easy for anyone to tell them apart. But the taste difference between two wooded wines is far subtler. Red and white wines are both made from red grapes, the difference is that for red wines the juice is steeped in the grape skins which causes it to absorb tannins. If you learn to taste tannins you should be reasonably good at picking red from white, but the flavor from wood in young barrels is similar.

tinco 10y ago

"CHEMICAL OBJECT REPRESENTATION IN THE FIELD OF CONSCIOUSNESS" I'd say, without reading the paper, that seems more like an experiment in psychology than in man's ability to perceive tastes. Can you trick your brain into believing something is something else by making it look like that? Seems like you can. "A white wine .. colored red.. was described as a red wine.." Were they wrong? There's a reason the Stradivarius testers are blindfolded.

vilhelm_s 10y ago
Also reminds me of the McGurk effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect). If you present a stimuli outside the usual sample space, it's not clear that the responses are "wrong".

Spooky23 10y ago

That may be pointing out the lack of expertise of the tasters. Aren't red vs white wines different things? I'm not at all a regular wine drinker with a sophisticated appreciation of the nuances, but I can pick up lots of different tastes between different wines.

Tloewald 10y ago
There's a huge difference in taste between heavily wooded wines (e.g. Many reds and most Chardonnays) and wines made in stainless steel containers (e.g. most Sauvignon blancs) and it would be easy for anyone to tell them apart. But the taste difference between two wooded wines is far subtler. Red and white wines are both made from red grapes, the difference is that for red wines the juice is steeped in the grape skins which causes it to absorb tannins. If you learn to taste tannins you should be reasonably good at picking red from white, but the flavor from wood in young barrels is similar.