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It appears that the famous, often retold, story of the experiment were experts have been deceived by simple red colorants in white wine is a significant distort

It appears that the famous, often retold, story of the experiment were experts have been deceived by simple red colorants in white wine is a significant distortion of the actual experiment : https://sciencesnopes.blogspot.com/2013/05/about-that-wine-experiment.html https://sciencesnopes.blogspot.com/2013/05/about-that-wine-e...

raverbashing 6y ago
Just pasting here the actual points because this "lol they couldn't tell White from Red" is BS > The most important is that the subjects in this experiment were not, in fact ‘wine experts’. They were undergraduate enology students. They are probably more knowledgeable about wine than the average person, but they were not in any way ‘experts’, or even ‘professionals’. > It’s simply not true that “Every single one, all 54, could not tell it was white.” as is frequently stated. Even Brochet doesn’t claim that, saying “About 2 or 3 per cent of people detect the white wine flavour”, and the paper that is frequently cited shows that indeed some people gave ‘white wine’ descriptions to the dyed-red wine. > But even more important than those errors, the study never demonstrated that people can’t tell red wine from white. And more important to me, if you're really misleading people, your results will be all over the place. If you want to know if people can tell white from red wines (they can, but just in case), do a blind test, but don't mislead them.
- sgift 6y ago
  > The most important is that the subjects in this experiment were not, in fact ‘wine experts’. They were undergraduate enology students. They are probably more knowledgeable about wine than the average person, but they were not in any way ‘experts’, or even ‘professionals’. Last time I checked most people weren't wine experts either, so someone who is maybe a bit more knowledgeable than most people but not so far removed that their experience is completely different sounds like good candidates.
  - josefx 6y ago
    The problem then is still how you get from that study to the claim "even experts can't tell the difference". Given that the study didn't involve experts and the "experts" could still identify differences in taste. The study might be good, the results might be good, but the description of the study and its "conclusion" as spread through the media is hot garbage.

raverbashing 6y ago

Just pasting here the actual points because this "lol they couldn't tell White from Red" is BS > The most important is that the subjects in this experiment were not, in fact ‘wine experts’. They were undergraduate enology students. They are probably more knowledgeable about wine than the average person, but they were not in any way ‘experts’, or even ‘professionals’. > It’s simply not true that “Every single one, all 54, could not tell it was white.” as is frequently stated. Even Brochet doesn’t claim that, saying “About 2 or 3 per cent of people detect the white wine flavour”, and the paper that is frequently cited shows that indeed some people gave ‘white wine’ descriptions to the dyed-red wine. > But even more important than those errors, the study never demonstrated that people can’t tell red wine from white. And more important to me, if you're really misleading people, your results will be all over the place. If you want to know if people can tell white from red wines (they can, but just in case), do a blind test, but don't mislead them.

sgift 6y ago
> The most important is that the subjects in this experiment were not, in fact ‘wine experts’. They were undergraduate enology students. They are probably more knowledgeable about wine than the average person, but they were not in any way ‘experts’, or even ‘professionals’. Last time I checked most people weren't wine experts either, so someone who is maybe a bit more knowledgeable than most people but not so far removed that their experience is completely different sounds like good candidates.
- josefx 6y ago
  The problem then is still how you get from that study to the claim "even experts can't tell the difference". Given that the study didn't involve experts and the "experts" could still identify differences in taste. The study might be good, the results might be good, but the description of the study and its "conclusion" as spread through the media is hot garbage.