10 ms·

I worked at WineSpectator.com in 2012-2013. I'll say this in their favor: the wine tastings were blind. A bunch of interns would set up the wine tasting, pourin

I worked at WineSpectator.com in 2012-2013. I'll say this in their favor: the wine tastings were blind. A bunch of interns would set up the wine tasting, pouring the wine into glasses and then hiding the bottles. Only after everything was setup were the editors allowed into the room. So when the editors drank the wine, they had no idea if they were drinking a $9 bottle or a $900 bottle. They had to focus on the taste and balance, and write their report. Only afterwards were they told which wine they had tasted. Having said that, I'll also mention, the way the editors struggled for new adjectives did sometimes make me laugh: "a vast, hearty body, notes of blue and a hint of graphite steel" "a radiance similar to the sun at dawn, a strong body, notes of orange"

gspencley 4y ago
There have been a lot of blind wine tastings done and the results are always interesting. Sometimes cheap bottles score as high, or higher than vintages. Other times people can spot the cheap "carton" wine easily. My wife and I love to cook, have discussed opening our own restaurant, have eaten at lots of very expensive "haute cuisine" restaurants and have tasted lots of wines. Part of the "problem" is that taste is subjective and can be influenced through suggestion. So the atmosphere, the price, the meal pairing can all affect a person's appreciation of the glass. I remember an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit where they had a "water sommelier" at a restaurant who would upsell customers on speciality bottles of water and they were all filled with the same tap water from the same garden hose at the back of the restaurant. The results were fascinating. Subjects swore they tasted different from one another. The real question, in my opinion, is whether a high-priced bottle is "worth it" by as near-objective standards as possible. In other words, given two bottles of different prices, all else being equal, would the average person prefer the taste of one over the other? That varies widely from one wine to another. My wife and I have enjoyed a good vintage but we are also perfectly content with a $15 bottle from a local vineyard here in Ontario, which is our "go to." I'm equally partial to a $15 Rothschild Merlot or Pinot Noir and I wonder if the truly exceptional wines that I've tasted at restaurants were more about the environment, the food pairing, the company and the occasion than they were about the flavour in isolation.
- p1necone 4y ago
  The secret is that a lot of cheap wine is pretty darn good. I imagine there's somewhat of a correlation between price and quality, especially at the absolute bottom end of the pricing scale. But it's a very loose correlation.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    This is a huge secret across so many different markets; it's insane. The one we may be most familiar with is computers, of course - even a bargain-basement computer today is an absolute beast compared to 10+ years ago. Entire classes of "cheap foods" have disappeared because we are so rich we can make everything "good" - meaning the bargain-basement stuff is now often higher-quality than midrange stuff of 20/50/100 years ago. Hot dogs are a decent example, they're all now "meat" and many are "pure beef" when they used to be the disastrous remains of who knows what. And even they are being destroyed by just how cheap hamburger is - the original fast food was hot dogs and that's almost entirely gone now.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      > the original fast food was hot dogs and that's almost entirely gone now. Curious about this history. According to Wikipedia, fast food was common during antiquity, while the hotdog wasn't invented until the 1400s. White Castle seems to be recognized as the origin of modern day fast food and it opened as a hamburger joint.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Fair enough, maybe not the originallest, but some of the now hamburger chains started out as hot dog chains, of which there's one? left IIRC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl%27s_Jr.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl%27s_Jr.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dog
        randomdata 4y ago
alvarezbjm-hn 4y ago
In that event, do you know if the 900$ bottles were qualified as more enjoyable than the 9$ bottles? For instance, in Costa Rica, one year, many wine drinkers prised this wine as exceptionally good, specially consideringn it was very very inexpensive and not even packaged in a glass bottle. https://vino.cr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CLOS-DE-PIRQUE-CABERNET-SAUVIGNON-1-LT-560x560.jpg https://vino.cr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CLOS-DE-PIRQUE-CA... I can't remember the exact number, but it cost between $5 and $10. That was over 10 years ago
Havoc 4y ago
>notes of blue I'm so stealing that
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ineptech 4y ago
  It's a running joke in my circle to describe the taste of any expensive wine, beer or coffee as, "strident, yet insouciant."
  - metadat 4y ago
    Word of the day: Insouciant French adjective Translated definitions: Carefree, careless, reckless
  - devindotcom 4y ago
    The classic cartoon for this: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/05/80/42/058042c06780bbc0fa3acfb1829d3c16.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/05/80/42/058042c06780bbc0fa3a...
hbrn 4y ago
Maybe some of them were synesthetes?
Stratoscope 4y ago
I roast my own coffee and buy most of my green beans from Sweet Maria's. Maria's husband Tom writes the tasting notes for each variety, such as... Rwanda Dry Process Macuba "Berry notes, floral impression, ripe blackberry, blueberry, fruited acidity, darker roasts tie in delicious bittersweet undertones, like strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce." Yemen Al Qafr Hawari "Sweet, somewhat rustic, notes of pistachio cookie, malted chocolate, ginger powder, sesame candies, corn syrup, tobacco leaf. Super chocolatey dark roasts." I swear (even though I know I'm wrong) that he just makes this stuff up.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  I don’t think I could ever tell two different coffee varieties apart, but I can definitely tell good coffee from bad coffee. Though that’s probably mostly about the roast and freshness more than anything. So there’s probably something to it but I imagine most of it is unintentional bullshit.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    I got gifted a coffee subscription recently, and I was actually surprised how different each coffee was. I think almost anyone could tell the difference between different coffees side by side. I just don't think people are super focused on the coffee flavor when they drink their regular brew.
    - heckelson 4y ago
      I've also heard that if the coffee is too hot, the flavours don't come out completely (heard it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo), so maybe that plays into it too?
      - dahfizz 4y ago
        Yes, you definitely have to brew your coffee correctly. Honestly, I've found regular cheap coffee makers are acceptably good and consistent. They are designed to drip water that is the right temp. Where you have to be careful is when boiling the water yourself for a chemex or aeropress brew. Done right, those are better. But I can't be bothered most days.
twelvechairs 4y ago
Good wine experts give descriptions that arent just made up but based on a range of real scents - its standard in a sommelier school to have an aroma kit of tens to a hundred or so scents used as comparisons. Its a few hundred dollars investment for a good one.
m463 4y ago
During covid a friend tried a "smell training" kit from amazon and I bought one too. (pretty fun, with rose, lemon, eucalyptus and clove) basically, some essential oils of one smell at a time. Looking at more extensive smell kits, there is a huge jump in price if you get a "master wine aroma kit". They can have many many scents. It might just be putting names to smells, but I also wonder if you can actually develop or enhance your sense of smell (and therefore the aromatic parts of taste)?
- VBprogrammer 4y ago
  I've little doubt that when smell was an important part of finding and identifying food people would have better trained senses. Whether a kit from Amazon can enhance your sense of smell, not sure. Certainly not without spending a lot of time with it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zasdffaa 4y ago
I don't have synesthesia to any notable degree but what you're describing kind of makes sense as being it. Not tastes for me, but sounds can elicit such responses eg. a sound having graphite steel I can well imagine. Or other things that would baffle another person. Frankly, "notes of blue and a hint of graphite steel" sounds too remote from normal experiences to be consciously made up - I mean, who's going to relate to that anyway?
NoboruWataya 4y ago
I have gotten fairly into coffee but I struggle to independently pick up these subtle notes. I'll take a sip, struggle to put any concrete words on the taste, and then read the tasting notes and (honestly) think "ah of course, yes I definitely get that". But I'm sure it's all just the power of suggestion. (An exception is some Ethiopian beans which have an unmistakable blueberry aroma and taste that they are famous for.) I've stopped worrying too much about "advancing" past that level. Now I just buy the coffee, read the notes, enjoy experiencing the sensations that have been placed in my head. Is it "connoisseurship"? Is it a placebo? Who cares, it's fun!
- WaxProlix 4y ago
  It might be useful to you - it definitely was for me - to get a few french presses of strikingly different coffees that are 'emblematic' of certain flavor profiles. This was a long time ago, so I just used Starbucks blends (sorry current me) but you could certainly do something even more telling nowadays. So you'd get a yergachiffe that was definitely blueberry, but then a slightly different Ethiopian bean that's very lemony, and some Arabian style Indonesian beans for Spice characters, a Guatemalan or something for nuttiness, etc.
- poloniculmov 4y ago
  It's much easier to get subtle notes in cuppings than drinking brewed coffee, because the brewing method will skew the taste. You also need to train your palate, you obviously can recognise what tastes good to you, but most of us never actually worked on pinpointing those flavours. Unfortunately, some roaster embelish those notes to drive up sales, since it's the only to differentiate between coffees, especially if you're not familiar with that particular farm/region. Or, you can just ignore them and have fun :)) Coffee can be a rabbit whole where you can spend lots of money to get certain microlots or improving your water profile.
bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
Those quotes made me laugh and reminded me heavily of weed reviews. Fun tidbit - The difference in aroma, appearance, flavor, and experience of a $9 eighth of cannabis versus a $900 eighth of cannabis would likely be noticeable even to an amateur. You don’t necessarily need to be a Ganjier[0] to tell. Efforts to homogenize it and remove labeling do serve to remove brand bias which is why it is standard now at cannabis cups - but still the quality shines through - literally sometimes. But when it gets down to reviews and describing experiences we are all limited by the English language. Some quotes from my own reviews: “The insides almost looked like the outside of a banana slug. That kind of yellow.”[1] “Beyond the citrus notes, the smell is definitely honeydew to me, not cantaloupe.”[2] [0] https://ganjier.com https://ganjier.com [1] https://thehighestcritic.com/reviews/cultivar-review-pleazure-by-wood-wide-farms/ https://thehighestcritic.com/reviews/cultivar-review-pleazur... [2] https://thehighestcritic.com/reviews/strain-review-melonade-by-north-country-pharms/ https://thehighestcritic.com/reviews/strain-review-melonade-...
rufus_foreman 4y ago
"a hint of rotting grapes, notes of a bar fight"
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  “a light scent of a vomit in the dumpster”
garrickvanburen 4y ago
I’ve blind tasted beer numerous times in multiple different contexts. Even participated in a session called “tasting on the right side of your brain” all about identifying and interrogating those more abstract impression. As poetic as they are - they carry insight and information both about the taster and the liquid that - without interrogation even the taster maybe unaware of.
jacobr1 4y ago
There probably are objectively 4 categories of wine that pretty much everybody will agree with when given a blind test: bad - wine that actually has gone bad (skunked, turned to vinegar or some other faul) low-quality - jug wine (high sugar and/or extremely high acidity and/or strong ethanol flavor) average/meh - the wine is drinkable and nothing stands out good wine - the wine hits all the key traits of its varietal Those super-sensitive can get more fine grained, and anyone who doesn't hate wine will have a 5th "great" category based on their personal preferences. But those are replicable consistently across the population. The average/good distinction is trainable for the average person with some practice.
- nephanth 4y ago
  I agree with your classification (you can add "high quantity of sulfites" to low-quality. Those taste like the headache you’re going to get on the next day.) Also while price doesn’t predict which category you are, it’s hard to find a very cheap good wine. You have to either know your stuff, or buy something more expensive
emmelaich 4y ago
While I don't doubt your story, to really eliminate any chance of cheating you need Amazing Randi levels of procedure and knowledge.
erfgh 4y ago
> Only afterwards were they told which wine they had tasted. Well that spoils the next tastings. You can remember what the expensive wines taste like and score them higher in the future.
almog 4y ago
Were the interns present at the time the editors entered? In other words — was blind tasting or double-blind testing?
scelerat 4y ago
> Having said that, I'll also mention, the way the editors struggled for new adjectives did sometimes make me laugh Dancing about architecture

gspencley 4y ago

There have been a lot of blind wine tastings done and the results are always interesting. Sometimes cheap bottles score as high, or higher than vintages. Other times people can spot the cheap "carton" wine easily. My wife and I love to cook, have discussed opening our own restaurant, have eaten at lots of very expensive "haute cuisine" restaurants and have tasted lots of wines. Part of the "problem" is that taste is subjective and can be influenced through suggestion. So the atmosphere, the price, the meal pairing can all affect a person's appreciation of the glass. I remember an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit where they had a "water sommelier" at a restaurant who would upsell customers on speciality bottles of water and they were all filled with the same tap water from the same garden hose at the back of the restaurant. The results were fascinating. Subjects swore they tasted different from one another. The real question, in my opinion, is whether a high-priced bottle is "worth it" by as near-objective standards as possible. In other words, given two bottles of different prices, all else being equal, would the average person prefer the taste of one over the other? That varies widely from one wine to another. My wife and I have enjoyed a good vintage but we are also perfectly content with a $15 bottle from a local vineyard here in Ontario, which is our "go to." I'm equally partial to a $15 Rothschild Merlot or Pinot Noir and I wonder if the truly exceptional wines that I've tasted at restaurants were more about the environment, the food pairing, the company and the occasion than they were about the flavour in isolation.

p1necone 4y ago
The secret is that a lot of cheap wine is pretty darn good. I imagine there's somewhat of a correlation between price and quality, especially at the absolute bottom end of the pricing scale. But it's a very loose correlation.
- bombcar 4y ago
  This is a huge secret across so many different markets; it's insane. The one we may be most familiar with is computers, of course - even a bargain-basement computer today is an absolute beast compared to 10+ years ago. Entire classes of "cheap foods" have disappeared because we are so rich we can make everything "good" - meaning the bargain-basement stuff is now often higher-quality than midrange stuff of 20/50/100 years ago. Hot dogs are a decent example, they're all now "meat" and many are "pure beef" when they used to be the disastrous remains of who knows what. And even they are being destroyed by just how cheap hamburger is - the original fast food was hot dogs and that's almost entirely gone now.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    > the original fast food was hot dogs and that's almost entirely gone now. Curious about this history. According to Wikipedia, fast food was common during antiquity, while the hotdog wasn't invented until the 1400s. White Castle seems to be recognized as the origin of modern day fast food and it opened as a hamburger joint.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Fair enough, maybe not the originallest, but some of the now hamburger chains started out as hot dog chains, of which there's one? left IIRC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl%27s_Jr.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl%27s_Jr.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dog
      - randomdata 4y ago

alvarezbjm-hn 4y ago

In that event, do you know if the 900$ bottles were qualified as more enjoyable than the 9$ bottles? For instance, in Costa Rica, one year, many wine drinkers prised this wine as exceptionally good, specially consideringn it was very very inexpensive and not even packaged in a glass bottle. https://vino.cr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CLOS-DE-PIRQUE-CABERNET-SAUVIGNON-1-LT-560x560.jpg https://vino.cr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CLOS-DE-PIRQUE-CA... I can't remember the exact number, but it cost between $5 and $10. That was over 10 years ago

Havoc 4y ago

>notes of blue I'm so stealing that

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ineptech 4y ago
It's a running joke in my circle to describe the taste of any expensive wine, beer or coffee as, "strident, yet insouciant."
- metadat 4y ago
  Word of the day: Insouciant French adjective Translated definitions: Carefree, careless, reckless
- devindotcom 4y ago
  The classic cartoon for this: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/05/80/42/058042c06780bbc0fa3acfb1829d3c16.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/05/80/42/058042c06780bbc0fa3a...

hbrn 4y ago

Maybe some of them were synesthetes?

Stratoscope 4y ago

I roast my own coffee and buy most of my green beans from Sweet Maria's. Maria's husband Tom writes the tasting notes for each variety, such as... Rwanda Dry Process Macuba "Berry notes, floral impression, ripe blackberry, blueberry, fruited acidity, darker roasts tie in delicious bittersweet undertones, like strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce." Yemen Al Qafr Hawari "Sweet, somewhat rustic, notes of pistachio cookie, malted chocolate, ginger powder, sesame candies, corn syrup, tobacco leaf. Super chocolatey dark roasts." I swear (even though I know I'm wrong) that he just makes this stuff up.

nkrisc 4y ago
I don’t think I could ever tell two different coffee varieties apart, but I can definitely tell good coffee from bad coffee. Though that’s probably mostly about the roast and freshness more than anything. So there’s probably something to it but I imagine most of it is unintentional bullshit.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  I got gifted a coffee subscription recently, and I was actually surprised how different each coffee was. I think almost anyone could tell the difference between different coffees side by side. I just don't think people are super focused on the coffee flavor when they drink their regular brew.
  - heckelson 4y ago
    I've also heard that if the coffee is too hot, the flavours don't come out completely (heard it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo), so maybe that plays into it too?
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      Yes, you definitely have to brew your coffee correctly. Honestly, I've found regular cheap coffee makers are acceptably good and consistent. They are designed to drip water that is the right temp. Where you have to be careful is when boiling the water yourself for a chemex or aeropress brew. Done right, those are better. But I can't be bothered most days.

twelvechairs 4y ago

Good wine experts give descriptions that arent just made up but based on a range of real scents - its standard in a sommelier school to have an aroma kit of tens to a hundred or so scents used as comparisons. Its a few hundred dollars investment for a good one.

m463 4y ago

During covid a friend tried a "smell training" kit from amazon and I bought one too. (pretty fun, with rose, lemon, eucalyptus and clove) basically, some essential oils of one smell at a time. Looking at more extensive smell kits, there is a huge jump in price if you get a "master wine aroma kit". They can have many many scents. It might just be putting names to smells, but I also wonder if you can actually develop or enhance your sense of smell (and therefore the aromatic parts of taste)?

VBprogrammer 4y ago
I've little doubt that when smell was an important part of finding and identifying food people would have better trained senses. Whether a kit from Amazon can enhance your sense of smell, not sure. Certainly not without spending a lot of time with it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

zasdffaa 4y ago

I don't have synesthesia to any notable degree but what you're describing kind of makes sense as being it. Not tastes for me, but sounds can elicit such responses eg. a sound having graphite steel I can well imagine. Or other things that would baffle another person. Frankly, "notes of blue and a hint of graphite steel" sounds too remote from normal experiences to be consciously made up - I mean, who's going to relate to that anyway?

NoboruWataya 4y ago

I have gotten fairly into coffee but I struggle to independently pick up these subtle notes. I'll take a sip, struggle to put any concrete words on the taste, and then read the tasting notes and (honestly) think "ah of course, yes I definitely get that". But I'm sure it's all just the power of suggestion. (An exception is some Ethiopian beans which have an unmistakable blueberry aroma and taste that they are famous for.) I've stopped worrying too much about "advancing" past that level. Now I just buy the coffee, read the notes, enjoy experiencing the sensations that have been placed in my head. Is it "connoisseurship"? Is it a placebo? Who cares, it's fun!

WaxProlix 4y ago
It might be useful to you - it definitely was for me - to get a few french presses of strikingly different coffees that are 'emblematic' of certain flavor profiles. This was a long time ago, so I just used Starbucks blends (sorry current me) but you could certainly do something even more telling nowadays. So you'd get a yergachiffe that was definitely blueberry, but then a slightly different Ethiopian bean that's very lemony, and some Arabian style Indonesian beans for Spice characters, a Guatemalan or something for nuttiness, etc.
poloniculmov 4y ago
It's much easier to get subtle notes in cuppings than drinking brewed coffee, because the brewing method will skew the taste. You also need to train your palate, you obviously can recognise what tastes good to you, but most of us never actually worked on pinpointing those flavours. Unfortunately, some roaster embelish those notes to drive up sales, since it's the only to differentiate between coffees, especially if you're not familiar with that particular farm/region. Or, you can just ignore them and have fun :)) Coffee can be a rabbit whole where you can spend lots of money to get certain microlots or improving your water profile.

bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago

Those quotes made me laugh and reminded me heavily of weed reviews. Fun tidbit - The difference in aroma, appearance, flavor, and experience of a $9 eighth of cannabis versus a $900 eighth of cannabis would likely be noticeable even to an amateur. You don’t necessarily need to be a Ganjier[0] to tell. Efforts to homogenize it and remove labeling do serve to remove brand bias which is why it is standard now at cannabis cups - but still the quality shines through - literally sometimes. But when it gets down to reviews and describing experiences we are all limited by the English language. Some quotes from my own reviews: “The insides almost looked like the outside of a banana slug. That kind of yellow.”[1] “Beyond the citrus notes, the smell is definitely honeydew to me, not cantaloupe.”[2] [0] https://ganjier.com https://ganjier.com [1] https://thehighestcritic.com/reviews/cultivar-review-pleazure-by-wood-wide-farms/ https://thehighestcritic.com/reviews/cultivar-review-pleazur... [2] https://thehighestcritic.com/reviews/strain-review-melonade-by-north-country-pharms/ https://thehighestcritic.com/reviews/strain-review-melonade-...

rufus_foreman 4y ago

"a hint of rotting grapes, notes of a bar fight"

rad_gruchalski 4y ago
“a light scent of a vomit in the dumpster”

garrickvanburen 4y ago

I’ve blind tasted beer numerous times in multiple different contexts. Even participated in a session called “tasting on the right side of your brain” all about identifying and interrogating those more abstract impression. As poetic as they are - they carry insight and information both about the taster and the liquid that - without interrogation even the taster maybe unaware of.

jacobr1 4y ago

There probably are objectively 4 categories of wine that pretty much everybody will agree with when given a blind test: bad - wine that actually has gone bad (skunked, turned to vinegar or some other faul) low-quality - jug wine (high sugar and/or extremely high acidity and/or strong ethanol flavor) average/meh - the wine is drinkable and nothing stands out good wine - the wine hits all the key traits of its varietal Those super-sensitive can get more fine grained, and anyone who doesn't hate wine will have a 5th "great" category based on their personal preferences. But those are replicable consistently across the population. The average/good distinction is trainable for the average person with some practice.

nephanth 4y ago
I agree with your classification (you can add "high quantity of sulfites" to low-quality. Those taste like the headache you’re going to get on the next day.) Also while price doesn’t predict which category you are, it’s hard to find a very cheap good wine. You have to either know your stuff, or buy something more expensive

emmelaich 4y ago

While I don't doubt your story, to really eliminate any chance of cheating you need Amazing Randi levels of procedure and knowledge.

erfgh 4y ago

> Only afterwards were they told which wine they had tasted. Well that spoils the next tastings. You can remember what the expensive wines taste like and score them higher in the future.

almog 4y ago

Were the interns present at the time the editors entered? In other words — was blind tasting or double-blind testing?

scelerat 4y ago

> Having said that, I'll also mention, the way the editors struggled for new adjectives did sometimes make me laugh Dancing about architecture