For the Love of Plonk...

[James Roscoe]

Oy Covert, I love you and you know I love you, so that clears at least part of the board.

It certainly clears up some lingering questions I've had.

James, Hi...

You are, I am quite certain, aware of amor platonicus .

Very Best and Smiling
Rogov

I would have put you in with OVid not Seneca. It's been an interesting day.

578 Brits were given $5.70 versus $24.50 red Bordeaux to sample blind by a psychologist. 39% correctly identified the more expensive one as the “better” one.

Without a reference to the tasting it is not certain , but this seems to be the recent University of Hertfordshire report that has drawn flak on several levels.

At the tasting people did not compare two wines, they had just one taste of one wine and, given two prices, were asked to guess the correct one.

It was done at a public science fair.

The study I am relating happened at the Edinburgh Science Fair, yes. It is reported that the participants tasted a $5.70 bottle against a $24.50 bottle - two bottles.

Oy Covert, I love you and you know I love you, so that clears at least part of the board.

It certainly clears up some lingering questions I've had.

There are lots and lots of definitions of love besides romantic, if I am catching your drift. With my personality, I don't think Rogov would love me romantically even if I were a lady. There are a number of definitions of love that would permit me to use that verb for how I feel about Rogov, as well.

[Jenise]

Covert said:

I am trying to make sense out of perception. I am becoming aware that the role an actual glass of chemicals plays in that perception is relatively small compared to the importance of genetics and context. The business of my getting it and others not only applies here to how a lot of people think that quality resides primarily in the glass. Obviously the actual chemicals are related to what a consensus will be about the wine quality, but not as important as most people think. In the words of Ronald Jackson in his Tome, Wine Tasting, and A Professional Handbook: "it is becoming clear that perception is relative, with few absolutes. What an individual perceives depends not only on genetics, but also on their upbringing, current emotional and physical health, and the context in which the tasting occurs. Within limits, the latter can be more important to perception than the quality of the wine."

Select any ten people at random off the street, and I think most of us would agree with this. Perception is clearly relative--but some of the factors not mentioned by Mr. Jackson are wine-tasting experience, age (though that could be a subtext under physical health) and general gastronomic proclivities. You who so rarely drinks wine with others are sitting there in your chair beyond the border of wine-related social interaction looking for answers to various questions and applying answers to situations that I tend to doubt were those meant by the statements you quote. If you were me, and if you tasted regularly with several groups of fairly well-trained palates, as well as more casually with groups of people who merely like to drink wine, you would understand that the well-trained palates aren't easily seduced situationally to find favor with a wine they otherwise would not like or deem to be of high quality even in blind tastings, and the people "who merely like to drink wine" are going to fall for the bigger, fruitier of any two wines you pour them. If those two wines are equally big and equally fruity they're going to then choose one or the other based on their personal preference for oak or acidity, complexity or simplicity, and believe me that last has legions of fans as Yellow Tail sales prove every day.

In examining yourself and your own situation with loving the 01 St. Emilions IN St. Emilion but not being so wowed once back home, perception and context has obviously played a big role. However, just a hunch, but I'd bet if we put you in an otherwise sterile room with a great glass of 01 St. Emilion and hooked you up to some machine that plotted brain waves, blood pressure, oxygen rates and whatever else might track physiological reactions to the wine itself, and then put you in a series of virtual realities involving aristrocratic architecture, great views, and most especially a changing bevy of attractive girls, I'll bet we'd see proof of just how unobjective you are about the wine in that glass. And I'd further estimate that others, hooked up similarly, would prove a lot less susceptible. Which is not to say that there's anything wrong with susceptibility, it's just you. But what you don't know--because you primarily drink one style of wine (evidence of lack of objectivity in itself, I think) in relative seclusion--is how much more easily influenced your tastes are by perception and external stimulii than most, and when I say 'most' I'm referring to those of us for whom fine wine is an important and fascinating part of life.

Jenise, I will have to take your word for it now that there would be considerable consensus among wine connoisseurs regarding wine quality, and it might not be so subjective and relative with them. Most of the studies I have read to date involve novices, which don’t answer the more seductive questions that I am thinking about with regard to this business of perception. I will continue to search out studies and hope to find a few involving connoisseurs. As I mentioned, the one supposed attempt to do that in the article that I am reporting, re the two Rhones, was quite flawed and smarmy.

Another thing that I won't get into at length, now, is my question as to how Lynn and I came to have identical palates with regard to wine appreciation. We attended a tasting of 100 Bordeaux wines and rated them all the same. Other couples I have seen do not like exactly the same wines to the same degree, and Lynn does not follow my lead with regard to preferences in general, nor I hers. We disagree about movies and the like and she would never go to a French restaurant on her own - my second most favorite indulgence in life, of the things I am permitted. We agree on fundamental world view issues but have nearly opposite personalities. You and Bob do not have identical wine palates, do you? Do any of the many couples you know?

[David M. Bueker]

Covert,

Might the tightly closed nature of your vinous world have been a significant factor in the convergence of your and your wife's palates?

578 Brits were given $5.70 versus $24.50 red Bordeaux to sample blind by a psychologist. 39% correctly identified the more expensive one as the “better” one.

Without a reference to the tasting it is not certain , but this seems to be the recent University of Hertfordshire report that has drawn flak on several levels.

At the tasting people did not compare two wines, they had just one taste of one wine and, given two prices, were asked to guess the correct one.

It was done at a public science fair.

The study I am relating happened at the Edinburgh Science Fair, yes. It is reported that the participants tasted a $5.70 bottle against a $24.50 bottle - two bottles.

The study was reported wrongly in that case. Each participant was given ONE sample and asked whether they thought it was cheap or expensive. There little information released about the study, but that seems to be the conclusion of lots of online discussion - presumably originating from someone who participated. Oh, and BTW the American Association of Wine Economists did not test 6,000 Americans. The study was PUBLISHED by the AAWE - it can be found on their website.

But those are details. The broad thrust of all the evidence is clearly that we find it very difficult to recognise tastes, flavours and "quality" in blind tasting, and if additional cues (true or false) are given we tend to follow those rather than what is in the glass. These are not sentiments to be argued against - they are facts established by experiment - if you doubt the results, criticise the experiments and design better ones. I don't think the results justify calls of "emperor's new clothes", but I do think we wine lovers need to recognise the facts and seriously work out what we are going to do with the information. As covert suggested, maybe this process has already started.

I can not now see the context of covert's comments that seemed to give the offense here, and presume the comments have been removed, but I think I would agree with them. By all means post tasting notes and read them, but that is not what I come here for. I enjoy your company, but it is rather for discussing wine in general - much like this thread really.

Personally I do take notes when tasting, but I regard them as personal records of what I got out of the wine on that occasion. As I really enjoy wine, I need some sort of memory jogger when I need to make purchasing decisions, and my notes do that job. Only rarely do I publish them - usually when specifically asked, or if it is a wine not readily available outside the are of production.

The study was reported wrongly in that case. Each participant was given ONE sample and asked whether they thought it was cheap or expensive. There little information released about the study, but that seems to be the conclusion of lots of online discussion - presumably originating from someone who participated. Oh, and BTW the American Association of Wine Economists did not test 6,000 Americans. The study was PUBLISHED by the AAWE - it can be found on their website.

But those are details. The broad thrust of all the evidence is clearly that we find it very difficult to recognise tastes, flavours and "quality" in blind tasting, and if additional cues (true or false) are given we tend to follow those rather than what is in the glass.

Thanks a lot for your note, Steve. Nothing was expunged from my original comments, so I can only guess the irritation arose from my suggestion that one was "wasting one's time" with regard to all the tasting notes. I had a cousin who occasionally evoked ire when he would proclaim something you just said was not important. As with you, my participation here is for the company and general wine discussion, as in this thread, rather than for how I or someone else rates or analyzes some particular bottle. And I very much agree that it is an interesting question as to what we do with this new, potentially game changing information that is coming out.

Covert,

Might the tightly closed nature of your vinous world have been a significant factor in the convergence of your and your wife's palates?

David, I think in the unique manner with what I call a spiritual union somehow got us on the same page prior to either of discovering Bordeaux, and how Bordeaux might somehow aptly symbolize a spiritual union better than some other kind of wine or non vinous talisman. This idea of mine is very subtle and philosophical and not easily dissected. The poet Ausone and Pope Clement V potentially grokked what I am talking about, as they very much related Bordeaux (and Rhone wine, in the case of the Pope) with God and the church.

I told this story before on this forum. The feeling was a lot like the Close Encounters of the Third Kind archetype, to me. I sensed this calling for Bordeaux after I had, circa 1995, by happenstance been invited to the home of a local aristocrat for a First and Second Growth Tasting of the 1985 vintage. Before that I had experienced only generic Bordeaux, which I liked very much, at parties and the like. I came home and told my wife I had experienced something magical and important.

Five years went by without another taste of Bordeaux, but when Robert Parker announced that the 1997 vintage could be drunk upon release, I got this kind of Third Kind pull and ordered ten cases of the wine en primeur in mixed lots representing every appellation I was aware of from reading, so that we could experience a giant horizontal tasting. Ordinarily, spending that kind of money on a lark would have found some backlash from Lynn, but she had a mysterious premonition about it, too. When the wine arrived, making our hallway look like a warehouse, we picked a bottle at random, a Grand Puy Lacoste, and opened it. Tears of delight (and probably relief) came to Lynn’s eyes and she proclaimed it the best wine she ever tasted. I was blown away myself and we never looked back. Meaning had entered our lives beyond our simple abstract devotion to each other. It would seem so silly to anybody who didn’t have a spiritual connection with wine, especially with such a maligned year, e.g., "off year" or "picnic wine" year. But it established our church.

[David M. Bueker]

Well Covert - I get where you are coming from.

Not the kind of life changing event you relate, but my wife and I have had a couple of these vinous epiphanies that have at least kept her from doing me in when I buy more wine. I can still vividly recall sitting cross legged on the family room floor in front of 20 cases of 2001 German Riesling while we polished off a bottle of the 2001 Christoffel Erdener Treppchen Riesling Spatlese. After months of trepidation we were assured it (and much more on additional boxes to be delivered later) was money well spent. She has since backed off a bit from wine (though she loves her Champagne), but those 2001s remain special for us.

Well Covert - I get where you are coming from.

Not the kind of life changing event you relate, but my wife and I have had a couple of these vinous epiphanies that have at least kept her from doing me in when I buy more wine. I can still vividly recall sitting cross legged on the family room floor in front of 20 cases of 2001 German Riesling while we polished off a bottle of the 2001 Christoffel Erdener Treppchen Riesling Spatlese. After months of trepidation we were assured it (and much more on additional boxes to be delivered later) was money well spent. She has since backed off a bit from wine (though she loves her Champagne), but those 2001s remain special for us.

I won’t say it is a first, but I appreciate the point of consanguinity. BTW, I added a picture above of Pope Clement V, from the hallway of his château’s chai, today, to go with my picture of the original Château Ausone.

[Jenise]

Another thing that I won't get into at length, now, is my question as to how Lynn and I came to have identical palates with regard to wine appreciation. We attended a tasting of 100 Bordeaux wines and rated them all the same. Other couples I have seen do not like exactly the same wines to the same degree, and Lynn does not follow my lead with regard to preferences in general, nor I hers. We disagree about movies and the like and she would never go to a French restaurant on her own - my second most favorite indulgence in life, of the things I am permitted. We agree on fundamental world view issues but have nearly opposite personalities. You and Bob do not have identical wine palates, do you? Do any of the many couples you know?

Adaption. And the process of adaption is fascinating. Yes, Bob and I have identical wine palates. And, to be oversimplistic, we have the same favorite pizza and we prefer the same things on our hamburgers, to mention two common things you'll see alike in couple after couple, though like most we did not come into this relationship agreeing on these things. I see it all the time wine-wise when the partner is fairly equally interested. Often the partner is not but merely along for the ride, a casual participant who much of the time prefers, say, white wines or champagne to red wine if they drink at all. Pizza's a good reference point because we couples tend not to order our own but rather order a larger one to share, so in a new relationship someone has to compromise. But 20 years later the compromise is forgotten and a mutual favorite has usually been elected: ask almost any long-married couple and you'll find they have an "our favorite" version of pizza. Though you mention other differences in taste, I would be more surprised than not if you and Lynn, drinking as much wine together as you do, did not share your preference. I would also guess that you're the driver in this preference, and can imagine you both being in relationships with others where your preferences would have evolved otherwise.

And, Thirdly, Gigondas is located very close to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, and I have drunk several bottles of Gigondas in the $30 to $40 price range which were raged outstanding by Robert Parker.

I assume you meant "rated" not "raged"--a simple typo on a QWERTY keyboard. But the result is not necessarily inaccurate.

-Paul W.

@Steve and Jenise:

I found both your comments interesting (in that I largely agree with what you're saying as well as the two comments connecting quite nicely.

Steve says:

The broad thrust of all the evidence is clearly that we find it very difficult to recognise tastes, flavours and "quality" in blind tasting, and if additional cues (true or false) are given we tend to follow those rather than what is in the glass. These are not sentiments to be argued against - they are facts established by experiment - if you doubt the results, criticise the experiments and design better ones.

And I agree entirely. The broad thrust is just that, and will always be thus with a 'random', undifferentiated selection of participants. If you begin to apply this more carefully, under more controlled and segmented circumstances, and with a sounder premise, you'll begin to see different results. Essentially, this one experiment is useless, and would be considered so by researchers and marketing specialists. Work with subset groups, and your results will begin to show some pretty distinct variance.

Jenise, I think your initial comments support what Steve is saying quite clearly.

And your final lines

But what you don't know--because you primarily drink one style of wine (evidence of lack of objectivity in itself, I think) in relative seclusion--is how much more easily influenced your tastes are by perception and external stimulii than most, and when I say 'most' I'm referring to those of us for whom fine wine is an important and fascinating part of life.

are also interesting. And correct. But my takeaway would also be that Covert in particular, in the way he both approaches and responds to the wine he drinks, is also more deeply affected by the internal stimuli than most.

Finally, the comments on cosanguinuity are right on as well. Doesn't always happen of course, but couples do eventually show convergences...or at least coordinated compromises. Not always, of course. My wife and I have reached cosanguinuty on many things...and many wine types...but just as often our tastes don't coincide. Her expressions and reactions have a strong influence on me----how could they not---but I don't always agree with her and her tastes, and vice versa.

That 'agree to disagree' most often shows up in regards to wine and pizza. (And even more in pizza than wine. )

[Jenise]

But my takeaway would also be that Covert in particular, in the way he both approaches and responds to the wine he drinks, is also more deeply affected by the internal stimuli than most.

True, and not really different from what I was saying. My 'external' was external to, or outside of, the wine itself, regardless of whether it occurred in the brain or the groin.

Steve says:

The broad thrust of all the evidence is clearly that we find it very difficult to recognise tastes, flavours and "quality" in blind tasting, and if additional cues (true or false) are given we tend to follow those rather than what is in the glass. These are not sentiments to be argued against - they are facts established by experiment - if you doubt the results, criticise the experiments and design better ones.

And I agree entirely. The broad thrust is just that, and will always be thus with a 'random', undifferentiated selection of participants. If you begin to apply this more carefully, under more controlled and segmented circumstances, and with a sounder premise, you'll begin to see different results. Essentially, this one experiment is useless, and would be considered so by researchers and marketing specialists. Work with subset groups, and your results will begin to show some pretty distinct variance.

The Wiseman experiment used undifferentiated subjects, and is generally weak. In the Wine Trails tastings, the one published by the AAWE, the subjects with wine education did indeed generally prefer the more expensive wines - others preferred the cheaper wines. But there other studies where subjects with wine expertise clearly follow what they think they know about a wine, rather than reacting to the contents of the glass. To put it in the style of the newpapers that reported the Wiseman study with glee - experts are indeed easily fooled. OTOH you might argue that if the knowledge that a wine comes from a great estate and vintage gives you pleasure, that in itself is worth paying for. Wine is not alone in that regard - to many people, a pen once owned by a famous person is worth a lot more than an identical pen without the provenance. That is the way humans work.

That is the way humans work.

That's the kernel right there, isn't it.

Steve says:

The broad thrust of all the evidence is clearly that we find it very difficult to recognise tastes, flavours and "quality" in blind tasting, and if additional cues (true or false) are given we tend to follow those rather than what is in the glass. These are not sentiments to be argued against - they are facts established by experiment - if you doubt the results, criticise the experiments and design better ones.

And I agree entirely. The broad thrust is just that, and will always be thus with a 'random', undifferentiated selection of participants. If you begin to apply this more carefully, under more controlled and segmented circumstances, and with a sounder premise, you'll begin to see different results. Essentially, this one experiment is useless, and would be considered so by researchers and marketing specialists. Work with subset groups, and your results will begin to show some pretty distinct variance.

The Wiseman experiment used undifferentiated subjects, and is generally weak. In the Wine Trails tastings, the one published by the AAWE, the subjects with wine education did indeed generally prefer the more expensive wines - others preferred the cheaper wines. But there other studies where subjects with wine expertise clearly follow what they think they know about a wine, rather than reacting to the contents of the glass. To put it in the style of the newpapers that reported the Wiseman study with glee - experts are indeed easily fooled. OTOH you might argue that if the knowledge that a wine comes from a great estate and vintage gives you pleasure, that in itself is worth paying for. Wine is not alone in that regard - to many people, a pen once owned by a famous person is worth a lot more than an identical pen without the provenance. That is the way humans work.

Don't forget, and I am sure you are not forgetting, that functional MRIs show that this "halo" provenance value is not separate from the wine, but is infused in it as far as the brain is concerned, so that when you take a sip of the wine, the orbitofrontal cortex has completely integrated these multisensory perceptions (raw sensations, provenance, the beauty of your date, et al.) into a single neuro-chemical brain happening which gets perceived as the wine itself and is shoved off to the pleasure center which lights up brighter indicating greater pleasure. You are not being "fooled," you are creating pleasure. You have in actuality a better wine, and therefore worth more money, than you would have with the exact same chemicals in the glass without the association of provenance. I mentioned in another post that 2005 Lynch-Moussas tasted better blind to an expert Decanter panel than the rarified 2005 First Growths costing at least ten times more. Would then a 2005 Latour costing, say, 50% more, like $90, or so, be worth paying for if you knew you could buy the LM instead? Yes, yes and yes! It would probably taste twice as good.

So the secret is just charge a lot and then the wine will taste good.

So the secret is just charge a lot and then the wine will taste good.

The secret is getting your reputation in the 1700s as being among the best, and not having Robert Parker refute that claim today, and you can charge a lot for it today, and it will taste good. A couple of exceptions are the California cult wines, which are recent, and a couple of the garage wines of St-Emilion, which are also recent. If Mouton Cadet decided to charge $100 a bottle, nobody but a couple of crazy people would think it tasted good enough to buy. But you could pour Mouton Cadet into an empty bottle of Lafite, charge $3,000 for it, and quite a few people would think it was good and worth the money.

[Jenise]

You are not being "fooled," you are creating pleasure. You have in actuality a better wine...than you would have with the exact same chemicals in the glass without the association of provenance.

Yes, and that's understandable. Which is why blind tasting with other skilled palates is such valuable experience. It takes that vulnerability to label associations, which I agree we all have, out of the equation. However, I'm sure there are also degrees, hence my earlier use of the word susceptibility.

You are not being "fooled," you are creating pleasure. You have in actuality a better wine...than you would have with the exact same chemicals in the glass without the association of provenance.

Yes, and that's understandable. Which is why blind tasting with other skilled palates is such valuable experience. It takes that vulnerability to label associations, which I agree we all have, out of the equation. However, I'm sure there are also degrees, hence my earlier use of the word susceptibility.

And a susceptible person's pleasure when measured by fMRI brain scans will be shown to be greater than what a more "objective" person can ever achieve drinking blind. A gas/liquid phase chromatograph which could measure the chemicals in the glass even more objectively would get no pleasure at all. Now if the government made it illegal to have labels on bottles, similar to making anabolic steroids illegal for athletes, people could drink in a less influenced environment, but would that be better?

More is the operative word. Since no one, drinking blind or otherwise, can escape the influence of perception of what he or she thinks he or she is drinking, would it make sense to limit that perception, and therefore the person's pleasure, by forcing blind tastings, since everybody is "cheating" anyway. I am not sure you were even rendering a value judgment against susceptible people's integrity of pleasure, but I thought I would make this point, anyway, for all the blokes that keep squeaking about the undesirability of being fooled or unduly influenced.

So the secret is just charge a lot and then the wine will taste good.

The secret is getting your reputation in the 1700s as being among the best, and not having Robert Parker refute that claim today, and you can charge a lot for it today, and it will taste good. A couple of exceptions are the California cult wines, which are recent, and a couple of the garage wines of St-Emilion, which are also recent. If Mouton Cadet decided to charge $100 a bottle, nobody but a couple of crazy people would think it tasted good enough to buy. But you could pour Mouton Cadet into an empty bottle of Lafite, charge $3,000 for it, and quite a few people would think it was good and worth the money.

I believe though there are some producer who spin a good story, the contents of which vary depend on their target market, and sell the wine for 2 or 3 times what it could be sold for. Some of the extra cost will of course be spent on marketing. I firmly believe that Champagne comes firmly into this category - the well known names at least.

I would say the response is not to become part of a "target market". Be particularly suspicious of new trends that you read about. Create your own definition of what a desirable wine is, and seek out examples. It will work better is you get a small number of other people to agree with your definition. You may still be "fooled" by labels, which as covert has been pointing out is not necessarily a bad thing, but you will be less likely to become the victim of the creation of desirability by price inflation.

So the secret is just charge a lot and then the wine will taste good.

The secret is getting your reputation in the 1700s as being among the best, and not having Robert Parker refute that claim today, and you can charge a lot for it today, and it will taste good. A couple of exceptions are the California cult wines, which are recent, and a couple of the garage wines of St-Emilion, which are also recent. If Mouton Cadet decided to charge $100 a bottle, nobody but a couple of crazy people would think it tasted good enough to buy. But you could pour Mouton Cadet into an empty bottle of Lafite, charge $3,000 for it, and quite a few people would think it was good and worth the money.

I believe though there are some producer who spin a good story, the contents of which vary depend on their target market, and sell the wine for 2 or 3 times what it could be sold for. Some of the extra cost will of course be spent on marketing. I firmly believe that Champagne comes firmly into this category - the well known names at least.

I would say the response is not to become part of a "target market". Be particularly suspicious of new trends that you read about. Create your own definition of what a desirable wine is, and seek out examples. It will work better is you get a small number of other people to agree with your definition. You may still be "fooled" by labels, which as covert has been pointing out is not necessarily a bad thing, but you will be less likely to become the victim of the creation of desirability by price inflation.

I think that there are still a lot of people on this forum that I am not able to communicate my point to. I am having lunch today with a pharmacologist who is also an assistant professor of literature, and has a high IQ. I am going to ask her for some additional ways I can possibly express myself. The point is that the sensations one gets from a glass of wine without the perception overlay is almost pointless. It would contain no pleasure, just basic sensations. The chemicals become wine when a person applies his or her perception and the brain synthesizes the two camps of impulses. Even blind, the perception still plays 90% or so of creating the wine you are drinking. So my point is that whatever makes that perception work the best in creating pleasure, whether by being "fooled" by clever marketing or by the drinker himself spinning a good story, makes the best wine. The idea of being "fooled" is simply an incorrect concept, unless one wants to convert his wine to water or a bunch of worthless chemicals.