4 ms·

> After all the uproar over Brochet's "The Color of Odors", I did a tasting with a few friends where I chilled red and white wines down to the same temperature,

> After all the uproar over Brochet's "The Color of Odors", I did a tasting with a few friends where I chilled red and white wines down to the same temperature, and had them try the wines blindfolded. > Maybe it was my just my lame friends Your friends were fine; it was your test that was lame. Why would you ever serve red wine chilled? That's not how it's consumed by most wine drinkers, so I'm not sure what you were trying to prove, other than trying to "tear down the culture a peg or two"—and by implication your friends who consider themselves wine enthusiasts. Chilling a wine slows the volatilization of the aromatic compounds and dramatically changes the flavor. As a result it can taste thin or tasteless. No wonder they couldn't tell the difference. It's great when you want to mask a cheap product, though. The same is true of beer. Think about the quality of a Coors Light and why their ad campaign is all about drinking it ice cold.

astura 8y ago
It's not just wine - different temperatures effect the taste of everything, it's why melted ice cream tastes much sweeter than frozen ice cream and warm cola tastes much sweeter than cold. It's also why I don't like my food piping hot - I strongly perfer luke warm, the hotter the food the less taste is perceived.
SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
There was at least one similar, and slightly more scientific test done on this. In this version, white wine was dyed red with food coloring. And nobody could tell. https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infamous_study_on_wine_tasting.html https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infam...
- mratzloff 8y ago
  The differences are substantive. In the test you linked, expectation determines interpretation, similar to how people interpret cheap versus expensive bottles differently. In the latter, removing flavor means people can't judge flavor. In one, additional information yields a different, directed result; in the other, less information yields random results.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  That doesn't prove anything other than intentionally distorting the features that the taster receives causes incorrect classification results. If you hand a sommelier a glass of red wine and say that it's from South Africa but it's actually from Australia, they are going to be way off in their estimations. It's not because there is no discernible difference, it's because the priors are completely shifted when you give the wrong information.
  - gbrown 8y ago
    In those studies, however, raters profess great confidence, and positively identify the hallmarks of red wine in white wine. Sure, it shifts their priors, but unlike a Bayesian model there's no obvious deviation between the prior and the professed posterior.
    - cycrutchfield 8y ago
      That may be the case, but if you have ever trained a classifier you know that expecting a model to generalize when given data that it's never seen before is not something you should usually expect. It doesn't mean that there is no discernible difference between the two classes, just that the model has overfit to the narrow subset of data and things that were previously immutable (e.g. the color of the wine) were not actually immutable.
      - gbrown 8y ago
        Point taken, but I really do think that's another way of saying people really aren't all that good at tasting wine.
  - SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
    That's exactly it, though. What studies like this indicate, is that the discernible differences in wine are generally overwhelmed by such distorting features. And those features don't have much to do with our tastebuds or features of the wine itself. (And this also extends to food & drink as a whole, to some degree) Romantic vineyard lore... signaling ones status by drinking the expensive stuff... signaling ones refinement by having tastes that align with the experts... these are also all distorting features that overwhelm discernible differences in wine. How well a wine taste to most, tends to be fixed on those types of things, rather than the actual wine.
kpil 8y ago
I just had a glass of a too chilled red wine... It's warm outside... There are wines that are bordering to each other and some are all over the place, but I'd say I could most likely nail a chilled red wine just on the tannins, unless there where some really funny ones in the mix. I've done blind tests of varieties and districts, and even amateurs can sort out a typical pinot noir, shiraz, and cabarnet sauvignon just on the description. But there are always atypical wines that can trick you.

astura 8y ago

It's not just wine - different temperatures effect the taste of everything, it's why melted ice cream tastes much sweeter than frozen ice cream and warm cola tastes much sweeter than cold. It's also why I don't like my food piping hot - I strongly perfer luke warm, the hotter the food the less taste is perceived.

SmirkingRevenge 8y ago

There was at least one similar, and slightly more scientific test done on this. In this version, white wine was dyed red with food coloring. And nobody could tell. https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infamous_study_on_wine_tasting.html https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infam...

mratzloff 8y ago
The differences are substantive. In the test you linked, expectation determines interpretation, similar to how people interpret cheap versus expensive bottles differently. In the latter, removing flavor means people can't judge flavor. In one, additional information yields a different, directed result; in the other, less information yields random results.
cycrutchfield 8y ago
That doesn't prove anything other than intentionally distorting the features that the taster receives causes incorrect classification results. If you hand a sommelier a glass of red wine and say that it's from South Africa but it's actually from Australia, they are going to be way off in their estimations. It's not because there is no discernible difference, it's because the priors are completely shifted when you give the wrong information.
- gbrown 8y ago
  In those studies, however, raters profess great confidence, and positively identify the hallmarks of red wine in white wine. Sure, it shifts their priors, but unlike a Bayesian model there's no obvious deviation between the prior and the professed posterior.
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    That may be the case, but if you have ever trained a classifier you know that expecting a model to generalize when given data that it's never seen before is not something you should usually expect. It doesn't mean that there is no discernible difference between the two classes, just that the model has overfit to the narrow subset of data and things that were previously immutable (e.g. the color of the wine) were not actually immutable.
    - gbrown 8y ago
      Point taken, but I really do think that's another way of saying people really aren't all that good at tasting wine.
- SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
  That's exactly it, though. What studies like this indicate, is that the discernible differences in wine are generally overwhelmed by such distorting features. And those features don't have much to do with our tastebuds or features of the wine itself. (And this also extends to food & drink as a whole, to some degree) Romantic vineyard lore... signaling ones status by drinking the expensive stuff... signaling ones refinement by having tastes that align with the experts... these are also all distorting features that overwhelm discernible differences in wine. How well a wine taste to most, tends to be fixed on those types of things, rather than the actual wine.

kpil 8y ago

I just had a glass of a too chilled red wine... It's warm outside... There are wines that are bordering to each other and some are all over the place, but I'd say I could most likely nail a chilled red wine just on the tannins, unless there where some really funny ones in the mix. I've done blind tests of varieties and districts, and even amateurs can sort out a typical pinot noir, shiraz, and cabarnet sauvignon just on the description. But there are always atypical wines that can trick you.