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Whenever this comes up I bring up the documentary Somm. It follows a couple guys training for the master sommelier test. To me it hilariously shines a light on

Whenever this comes up I bring up the documentary Somm. It follows a couple guys training for the master sommelier test. To me it hilariously shines a light on the farce of the whole thing. But people are often taken aback when I suggest that there might be a lot of bullshit in wine. Even generally rational/skeptical people that don't have that strong of an attachment to it. They all say, "yeah, but you can definitely tell, like when it's good wine or bad wine." And yet virtually any time a blind test is done the results say differently (precipitating some serious schadenfreude in the movie). It's the same thing with music. So many people think they need lossless quality when effectively zero people can successfully pick it out in an ABX test with an MP3 @ 320.

cycrutchfield 8y ago
What did you find farcical about sommelier training?
- resu_nimda 8y ago
  Well they spent a ton of their time cramming flashcards of myriad regions and sub-regions and testing the wines, were then largely unable to identify which regions the wine came from, and a bunch of them still passed (I realize the test depicted was a practice but nowhere is this skill convincingly demonstrated by anyone). And the things they say about "notes of dead red rose petals" are taken to be mostly creative liberty and highly subjective so doing that well is more of being a showman than a technical expert. In general the type of people involved and their attitudes gave the impression that they just think it's cool to be "wine guys." In my opinion it didn't paint a picture of substance or rigor. Not saying that the entire wine industry is devoid of that, but this particular view into it validated some of the criticisms in my mind. Edit: one other thing I recall is that the results of the taste test portion of the actual exam are never released to anybody, which doesn't inspire much confidence.
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    If you're open to trying new experiences, go to a group blind wine tasting event with actual trained sommeliers (you can find such events on meetup or elsewhere). It's a very interesting learning experience and it teaches you a little bit about how trained professionals methodically determine by taste, smell, and sight how to identify what a wine is. Now, they are very unlikely to be perfect, given that our palates are very unreliable and noisy sensors, and a given bottle of wine is itself a very noisy expression of the grapes it was made from. But there is a process to it, and it's not just a made-up pseudoscience.
    - fenomas 8y ago
      > and it's not just a made-up pseudoscience. Meaning no offense, do you know of any evidence for that? Every time I've ever read about wine-tasting getting examined (i.e. by an academic study), the results invariably turn out to be that people can't distinguish what they think they can. If there's something to wine tasting, shouldn't one expect there to be studies of the "sommeliers were able to consistently distinguish X from Y" variety, for some X and Y?
      - cycrutchfield 8y ago
        If you have a link to such an academic study then we can discuss it in more detail. But sommeliers can absolutely taste a wine and produce fairly reliable estimates of country, region, appellation, variety, etc. That's essentially what they are trained to do, their exam is literally that.
        fenomas 8y ago
        > But sommeliers can absolutely taste a wine and produce fairly reliable estimates of country, region, appellation, variety, etc. This is what I'm asking if there's any firm evidence of. Do you know of any? > That's essentially what they are trained to do, their exam is literally that. One can equivalently say that healing the body is what acupuncturists do, and what their exams cover. That's all well and good, but if they can actually do it one should expect there to be research to that effect, right?
  - slyrus 8y ago
    The showmanship is actually a critical component. In addition to the knowledge, and the ability to taste, service is (talking to the customer, understanding what they might like, opening the bottle, pouring (and washing) the glasses, are all key skills upon which sommeliers are measured. Clearly there's an element of showmanship (I don't mean this to be derogatory) involved in service.
    - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
      Given the markups, sommeliers are used car salespeople of the wine world. I go for what I like. Ive had some $40 bottles that tasted like musty vinegar, and $7 wines that I bought a crate of. I dont need someone flashy doing what amounts to tricks to try to sell me 55% markup instead of the 30% markup.
      - cycrutchfield 8y ago
        More power to you, but a sommelier is not meant to upsell you on a more expensive bottle. Their service is meant to assist you in finding a wine that you would like (by itself or paired with a meal).
        crankylinuxuser 8y ago
        Who pays the sommelier? I'm not paying them directly. The establishment is. Its the same analogy whom HR works for. Cause they sure don't represent my interests.
        cycrutchfield 8y ago
        Who pays your waiter? Do you think your waiter is secretly conspiring to push you to order the most expensive entree? If you're going to call a sommelier a used car salesman, why stop there with the hyperbole?
        crankylinuxuser 8y ago
taneq 8y ago
> They all say, "yeah, but you can definitely tell, like when it's good wine or bad wine." And yet virtually any time a blind test is done the results say differently BS. You can't tell the difference between expensive wine and cheap wine, but I bet some wine tastes significantly nicer to you than other wine. Wine that tastes good is good. It's just very subjective.
- dx034 8y ago
  And often it's just about the magnitude of the difference. I tasted some $30+ wines that I liked but only found marginally better than a bottle for 1/4 the price (there are some very cheap but very good wines out there, you just have to find them). For me that's not worth spending the extra money.
- lmm 8y ago
  > You can't tell the difference between expensive wine and cheap wine, but I bet some wine tastes significantly nicer to you than other wine. Wine that tastes good is good. To what extent have people shown the ability to consistently distinguish even that much in a blind test? I've certainly had good glasses of wine and bad glasses of wine, but I wouldn't want to swear that I've always been consistent about which vintages or even which bottles were in which set.
  - CocaKoala 8y ago
    > I've certainly had good glasses of wine and bad glasses of wine, but I wouldn't want to swear that I've always been consistent about which vintages or even which bottles were in which set. Even from bottle to bottle there can be variation in terms of how good the wine is. I've had occasions where I've opened up a bottle of wine, and it was off, clearly wasn't tasting right. I opened up a second bottle of the same wine, literally a bottle from the same case that had been stored next to the one that had gone off, and it tasted fine. Why did the one bottle go bad when the one next to it was just fine? Who knows. Maybe the one bottle was contaminated with something, maybe the cork wasn't good, maybe that bottle was stored in a hot spot in the winery before making it into the case. But if all I had tasted was the bad bottle, I would have said that the wine was pretty unpleasant, and if all I had tasted was the good bottle, I would have said "yeah I'll buy a case of this".

cycrutchfield 8y ago

What did you find farcical about sommelier training?

resu_nimda 8y ago
Well they spent a ton of their time cramming flashcards of myriad regions and sub-regions and testing the wines, were then largely unable to identify which regions the wine came from, and a bunch of them still passed (I realize the test depicted was a practice but nowhere is this skill convincingly demonstrated by anyone). And the things they say about "notes of dead red rose petals" are taken to be mostly creative liberty and highly subjective so doing that well is more of being a showman than a technical expert. In general the type of people involved and their attitudes gave the impression that they just think it's cool to be "wine guys." In my opinion it didn't paint a picture of substance or rigor. Not saying that the entire wine industry is devoid of that, but this particular view into it validated some of the criticisms in my mind. Edit: one other thing I recall is that the results of the taste test portion of the actual exam are never released to anybody, which doesn't inspire much confidence.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  If you're open to trying new experiences, go to a group blind wine tasting event with actual trained sommeliers (you can find such events on meetup or elsewhere). It's a very interesting learning experience and it teaches you a little bit about how trained professionals methodically determine by taste, smell, and sight how to identify what a wine is. Now, they are very unlikely to be perfect, given that our palates are very unreliable and noisy sensors, and a given bottle of wine is itself a very noisy expression of the grapes it was made from. But there is a process to it, and it's not just a made-up pseudoscience.
  - fenomas 8y ago
    > and it's not just a made-up pseudoscience. Meaning no offense, do you know of any evidence for that? Every time I've ever read about wine-tasting getting examined (i.e. by an academic study), the results invariably turn out to be that people can't distinguish what they think they can. If there's something to wine tasting, shouldn't one expect there to be studies of the "sommeliers were able to consistently distinguish X from Y" variety, for some X and Y?
    - cycrutchfield 8y ago
      If you have a link to such an academic study then we can discuss it in more detail. But sommeliers can absolutely taste a wine and produce fairly reliable estimates of country, region, appellation, variety, etc. That's essentially what they are trained to do, their exam is literally that.
      - fenomas 8y ago
        > But sommeliers can absolutely taste a wine and produce fairly reliable estimates of country, region, appellation, variety, etc. This is what I'm asking if there's any firm evidence of. Do you know of any? > That's essentially what they are trained to do, their exam is literally that. One can equivalently say that healing the body is what acupuncturists do, and what their exams cover. That's all well and good, but if they can actually do it one should expect there to be research to that effect, right?
- slyrus 8y ago
  The showmanship is actually a critical component. In addition to the knowledge, and the ability to taste, service is (talking to the customer, understanding what they might like, opening the bottle, pouring (and washing) the glasses, are all key skills upon which sommeliers are measured. Clearly there's an element of showmanship (I don't mean this to be derogatory) involved in service.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    Given the markups, sommeliers are used car salespeople of the wine world. I go for what I like. Ive had some $40 bottles that tasted like musty vinegar, and $7 wines that I bought a crate of. I dont need someone flashy doing what amounts to tricks to try to sell me 55% markup instead of the 30% markup.
    - cycrutchfield 8y ago
      More power to you, but a sommelier is not meant to upsell you on a more expensive bottle. Their service is meant to assist you in finding a wine that you would like (by itself or paired with a meal).
      - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
        Who pays the sommelier? I'm not paying them directly. The establishment is. Its the same analogy whom HR works for. Cause they sure don't represent my interests.
        cycrutchfield 8y ago
        Who pays your waiter? Do you think your waiter is secretly conspiring to push you to order the most expensive entree? If you're going to call a sommelier a used car salesman, why stop there with the hyperbole?
        crankylinuxuser 8y ago

taneq 8y ago

> They all say, "yeah, but you can definitely tell, like when it's good wine or bad wine." And yet virtually any time a blind test is done the results say differently BS. You can't tell the difference between expensive wine and cheap wine, but I bet some wine tastes significantly nicer to you than other wine. Wine that tastes good is good. It's just very subjective.

dx034 8y ago
And often it's just about the magnitude of the difference. I tasted some $30+ wines that I liked but only found marginally better than a bottle for 1/4 the price (there are some very cheap but very good wines out there, you just have to find them). For me that's not worth spending the extra money.
lmm 8y ago
> You can't tell the difference between expensive wine and cheap wine, but I bet some wine tastes significantly nicer to you than other wine. Wine that tastes good is good. To what extent have people shown the ability to consistently distinguish even that much in a blind test? I've certainly had good glasses of wine and bad glasses of wine, but I wouldn't want to swear that I've always been consistent about which vintages or even which bottles were in which set.
- CocaKoala 8y ago
  > I've certainly had good glasses of wine and bad glasses of wine, but I wouldn't want to swear that I've always been consistent about which vintages or even which bottles were in which set. Even from bottle to bottle there can be variation in terms of how good the wine is. I've had occasions where I've opened up a bottle of wine, and it was off, clearly wasn't tasting right. I opened up a second bottle of the same wine, literally a bottle from the same case that had been stored next to the one that had gone off, and it tasted fine. Why did the one bottle go bad when the one next to it was just fine? Who knows. Maybe the one bottle was contaminated with something, maybe the cork wasn't good, maybe that bottle was stored in a hot spot in the winery before making it into the case. But if all I had tasted was the bad bottle, I would have said that the wine was pretty unpleasant, and if all I had tasted was the good bottle, I would have said "yeah I'll buy a case of this".