Wine tasting = "sip tests" ?

Part the First:

In his book "Blink," Malcolm Gladwell spends some time talking about "sip tests" and how they work, and why in the infamous case of the Pepsi Challenge, it proved to have very little effect on market share of Coke or Pepsi, even though people overwhelmingly chose Pepsi in the sip tests.

He suggests, and I agree, that sometimes there is very little correlation between one's impressions of a sip of something versus drinking an entire can or bottle of it.

This got me thinking about the way people taste wine.

Most of us here, I would guess, enjoy our wine with food more often than as a stand-alone experience. From time to time someone will post a tasting note and say something along the lines of "Gee, I loved it when I tasted it at the winery last month, but it didn't impress me at dinner tonight!"

Is this perhaps the "sip test" in action and not necessarily a change in the wine (or bottle variation) or palate?

I'd be interested in what people think about this.


Part the Second:

Robin, Thomas, and other professional judges here, when you judge a wine in a "normal" judging situation, how closely do your impressions of a wine line up later on in a meal setting if you get the opportunity to try that some time down the line?

One of the main points of the book, is that the more someone is an expert in a field, the more that very first tiny impression is ultimately correct, whether or not the expert can put her/his finger on why they had that "instinctive" reaction.

He also made a great case that we can train our minds to use that unconscious information we all possess. I know that I've done this in professional fields I've been involved in, particularly EMS.



Discuss!

there is very little correlation between one's impressions of a sip of something versus drinking an entire can or bottle of it.

"Gee, I loved it when I tasted it at the winery last month, but it didn't impress me at dinner tonight!"

Is this perhaps the "sip test" in action and not necessarily a change in the wine (or bottle variation) or palate?

I haven't read the book so I'm wondering is the key issue the different quantities that are involved?

Robin, Thomas, and other professional judges here, when you judge a wine in a "normal" judging situation, how closely do your impressions of a wine line up later on in a meal setting if you get the opportunity to try that some time down the line?

Don't know if it's true or not, but someone said that Stuart Pigott recently declared that he would no longer publish notes on a wine unless he had had time to drink the entire bottle.

Personally, I no longer post notes on wines which are dead on "Day 2" - I consider that to be a pretty clear warning that the wine has some serious problems with its underlying structure.

One of the main points of the book, is that the more someone is an expert in a field, the more that very first tiny impression is ultimately correct, whether or not the expert can put her/his finger on why they had that "instinctive" reaction.

That may be true, but I am very, very dubious - there might be a few über-tasters out there who can learn a wine in 10 seconds, but, if so, then it belies my own experience.

Of course, the professionals will tell you that they just don't have time to spend a week with each bottle, and, truth be told, they don't.

Well, except for Robert Parker, who has been known to follow a bottle of great Bordeaux for up to 2 weeks - although I'm sure that even Parker would tell you that he just can't devote that amount of time to a $7.99 "grocery store" wine.

But I think the claim that you can learn a wine in 10 seconds, or even 5 minutes [which is about all the time you'll have, if you're tasting 100+ bottles a day], is just balderdash.

wines which are dead on "Day 2" - I consider that to be a pretty clear warning that the wine has some serious problems with its underlying structure..

Seems like an extreme conclusion to reach.

Isn't it more logical to simply decide that the wine in question is better consumed on the first day? Which is not such a radical idea is it.

Isn't it more logical to simply decide that the wine in question is better consumed on the first day?

Yeah, unless you're single, you're broke, you're a cheap Scot* [who hates to throw away anything], and you're trying not to be too much of an alcoholic.

*Or at least the descendant of cheap Scots.

Yeah, unless you're single, you're broke, you're a cheap Scot* [who hates to throw away anything], and you're trying not to be too much of an alcoholic..

None of that has anything to do with judging the "underlying structure" of the wine.

It's more about the underlying structure of the wine drinker.

Yeah, unless you're single

Really Nathan? Where are you located?

I frequently defer opening a bottle because I don't necessarily have anyone to help me drink it.

It is pretty widely ackowledged that the biggest, most intense, and showiest wines score big in large tastings because they stand out from the crowd and provide a 'wrecking-ball' wake-up call to the fatigued palate. These same wines rarely go well with food which depending on cuisine more often require delicate and subtle flavors and aromas. Personally, BIG wines are a deal-breaker for me. If I detect too much alcohol when nosing a wine, I am unlikely to put it in my mouth. Although I hardly ever visit New-world wineries, I have certainly taken part in exhaustive tastings in Europe where this is less of a problem. If anything, it is the more mineral wines that stand out for me in Alsace, Germany, Austria, the Loire or Burgundy. But, I am reminded of a Ben Franklin quote which goes something like: "Beer cannot be fully appreciated by one sip alone" (or to the effect). The same I believe, goes for wine.

Part the First:

Though I haven't read the entire book, Cynthia, interestingly enough I did read that part about the 'sip test' and the Pepsi Challenge.

What it comes down to for me is that when one is taking a sip, one isn't really applying any analytical faculties...and by that I really mean focused consideration---to what is being sampled. It's just a couple of sips of different things, then you respond with whatever your hedonistic impulse of the moment is. Given an absolute of This 1 or This 2, I choose.....oh heck, I dunno, this one. It's casual, not decidedly thought out, and there is no particular compelling reason why it makes a difference. (That last part is important)

Part the First:

When I do a 'sip test' on wine, I'm focusing my concentration as much as possible on the moment, but I'm also engaging, linking in, my wine memory bank as well, the accumulated storage of my experiences and reactions over many, many years. Am I doing this with methodical precision and instant total recall? Heck no. I'm not a machine. But with the combination of focus and memory, you can quickly assess your response to what's in your nose/mouth/mind.

It's like anything else, I suppose: the difference between the casual drinker and the 'professional' is that one is focused, the other isn't. And that one has vast experience to fall back on, and the other doesn't.

I'm reading a book right now that stresses the differences between Medieval crossbowmen and 'long bow' archers. It took a few months to train a crossbowman: crank, point, and pull the trigger. An archer took years and years and years of practice, until the actions and responses became immediate, instinctual, without thought.

And I think that is what Blink is getting at: to make so called 'snap judgements' you have to rely on rapid decisions...but those rapid decisions are based on practice, focus and experience. It's not that you're making decisions without thinking; you're just relying on sound judgement without spending a lot of time thinking about it.

Remember the old jokes about "Zen Tennis"? Well, you can work on all the Zen you want---but if you don't have that solid foundation of tennis skills, you'll still never be any good at tennis. On the other hand, if you rely on skills alone, and never develop a feel for the game, the rhythm of the gang, the instinct of the game, you'll never be as good as you could either.

The challenge---to me---about assessing wine is to be able to almost instantly consider the discrete components of the wine (how much acidity, how much sugar, how much body), but at the same time having the ability to consider the wine as a whole. Sorta like sizing up people too, I suppose.

Make sense?

[Robin Garr]

Robin ... when you judge a wine in a "normal" judging situation, how closely do your impressions of a wine line up later on in a meal setting if you get the opportunity to try that some time down the line?

One of the main points of the book, is that the more someone is an expert in a field, the more that very first tiny impression is ultimately correct, whether or not the expert can put her/his finger on why they had that "instinctive" reaction.

He also made a great case that we can train our minds to use that unconscious information we all possess. I know that I've done this in professional fields I've been involved in, particularly EMS.

Discuss!

Oops, sorry I missed this question aimed at me. Belatedly ruminating: In general, I agree, and I also think Hoke expressed very well some points that I agree with.

First, let's make clear that in wine judging there is no real alternative: Particularly in European competitions, judges are usually presented wines one at a time by sommeliers in quick succession - at the <i>Union Internationale des Oenologues</i> competitions run by Dr. Giuseppe Martelli in Italy, including Vinitaly, you have about 4 minutes per wine, and you just can't fall behind. Most of the competitions I've judged aren't quite that pressing, but it's pretty typical. And you're not just, as Hoke says of the "sip test," deciding "Yes" or "No" based on intuition, you've got to break out the wine's sensory analysis on a fairly complicated sheet - and add up the numbers, and get them right.

Other competitions, from the New York State Fair to the Sydney International, present all wines in a flight together, but there's still significant time pressure that, again, works out to just a couple of minutes with each glass.

That said, however, I strongly feel that - at least once you've had the training and experience - you can capture just about everything the wine has to offer in 60 seconds or so, <i>provided you've learned to trust your first impressions</i>. In competitions where time and the process allow, I'll sometimes come back to my favorites at the end of the flight to see whether they seem different on second exposure, but frankly, I very rarely, if ever, change my initial judgment.

As part of my personal process, I always tap my wine memories to try to gauge how the wines will go with food. (And at the Sydney International, where the leading wines actually are repoured with appropriate dishes in the second round, I find that I'm rarely surprised by the results.)

And, contrary to what Bill H mentions, although I know this is a widespread theory, I don't find at all that the blockbusters jump out and demand higher scores just because they stand out from the crowd. In the first place, good judges are very conscious of this phenomenon and adjust for it; what's more, personally I don't <I>like</I> blockbuster/Parkerized/fruit bombs, so if I were easily influenced by personal preference, I'd probably downgrade for such. (In practice, though, you try very hard not to let personal preferences intervene. That's why I can judge Rieslings or Sauternes or French hybrids or Concord fairly even though I may not count those wines among my favorites for personal enjoyment.)

Now, the one strongest fault in the judging system that I can see, as others have mentioned in this thread, is that it may not show wines like Pinot Noir, which are infinitely changeable in the glass, in their full glory. That's a problem. But for judging purposes, they're all being subjected to a similar snapshot in a similar state: Shortly, one hopes, after the bottle is opened. At least they're all being judged consistently. And again, in a competition with 2,000 to 4,000 entries, which is very typical of major international events, giving judges hours to linger over the wine is just not an option.

In my best judgement, it's not necessary. I think any experienced wine judge, or really, any reasonably experienced wine geek, has no real problem drawing conclusions about a wine on brief exposure.

For personal enjoyment, of course, that's a whole 'nuther story. I love to spend an evening over a glass or two, enjoying the wine analytically before dinner, subject to brief analysis with the meal, then relaxing and continuing to observe it more casually and, er, hedonistically with the rest of the meal and thereafter.

But is it <i>necessary</i> to finish the bottle in order to evaluate the wine properly? Sorry, but in my opinion, that's just not the case.

Thanks for the replies, very interesting reading!