What is Single Blind?

In Ryan's post below he uses the term single blind in a way that is different from my experience.

In his case he knew all the wines but not which one was in each glass.

In my experience people use single blind for a tasting where you know something (red Bordeaux, Sauternes, 1990 vintage, California Cabernet, etc.) but certainly not the individual wines.

Which is it? Both? What is more common?

[David M. Bueker]

Ryan's format is the most common use of the term.

[Robin Garr]

In scientific studies, single blind means that the test subject does not know the identity of the sample, but the test giver does. Double blind means that neither tester of subject knows. Double, obviously, is more rigorous, tending to limit the "Clever Hans" effect.

Wine geeks really don't use the terms in their scientific sense. For us it's just jargon. But in terms of what is general practice, I go along with David.

Thanks, guys.

I thought it was Stevie Wonder before he met his wife. You know, on a blind date.....Ta dum.

Surprised so many agreeing with Ryan. I agree with Tom. I don't want to be condescending, but have people got a bit confused about the position they are agreeing with I wonder? How often do you get tastings where you know all the wines, but not which is which? Does it really need a name?

Robin is correct about scientific studies. Strange that in wine we never think that the organiser could influence the taster. In fact there are usually all sorts of clues in so-called blind tastings.

How often do you get tastings where you know all the wines, but not which is which?

Never once. That was why I questioned the use of the term.

As Robin says wine geeks are totally unscientific in their use of this terminology so everyone is wrong but I was just a bit surprised that Ryan used "single blind" to describe that particular scenario (and I also wanted to get some wine talk started!)

Ryan´s use is the only one I have met in Europe.

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L

How often do you get tastings where you know all the wines, but not which is which?

Every tasting of every wine club I've attended. They always list the wines, but not the order they're in. That must be four or five hundred tastings over the last 30+ years.

[Robin Garr]

Here's a good article on blind tasting by Jamie Goode. He addresses it in the usual wine-geek understanding and doesn't get into the scientific definition. I assume that's by choice, as I can't imagine that Jamie wouldn't know this.

Anyway, it should answer Tom's question quite thoroughly from the wine-geek standpoint. Here's the headline and first paragraph. Click to wineanorak.com for the rest:

Understanding a wine:
where blind tasting fails
Wine nuts are a strange bunch. When wine geeks gather, a favoured activity is to 'brown bag' wines (disguise their identity) and then taste them in 'flights' (matched groups of two or three at a time), identity unknown. This is known in the trade as 'blind tasting'. Two versions exist. 'Single blind' is when the list if wines to be tasted is known, but not the order; 'double blind' is when nothing is known about them at all.
http://www.wineanorak.com/understanding.htm

Speaking of Jamie, Tom's post would function as a fine Friday Troll.

Mark Lipton

My use mirrors Ryan.
I don't think I've done it with such a diverse group of wines, however. I find the single blind format is great within defined parameters. For instance, when one of my tasting groups was doing 1998 Right Bank, single blind enabled us to not duplicate wines and ensure we got a nice mix of St Em and Pomerol. But at actual tasting (we had waiters bag bottles out of sight) no label influences.

Here's a good article on blind tasting by Jamie Goode. He addresses it in the usual wine-geek understanding and doesn't get into the scientific definition. I assume that's by choice, as I can't imagine that Jamie wouldn't know this.

Anyway, it should answer Tom's question quite thoroughly from the wine-geek standpoint. Here's the headline and first paragraph. Click to wineanorak.com for the rest:

Understanding a wine:
where blind tasting fails
Wine nuts are a strange bunch. When wine geeks gather, a favoured activity is to 'brown bag' wines (disguise their identity) and then taste them in 'flights' (matched groups of two or three at a time), identity unknown. This is known in the trade as 'blind tasting'. Two versions exist. 'Single blind' is when the list if wines to be tasted is known, but not the order; 'double blind' is when nothing is known about them at all.
http://www.wineanorak.com/understanding.htm

Quotations with typos don't count, Robin. Seriously, if you google, and don't just take the first hit, you will easily find how most people use the term

How often do you get tastings where you know all the wines, but not which is which?

Every tasting of every wine club I've attended. They always list the wines, but not the order they're in. That must be four or five hundred tastings over the last 30+ years.

That's an impressive sample size, but not as random as it might be

To be honest, I don't do a lot of blind tastings, and so I just used what seemed to be the most appropriate term, without a rigorous understanding of how the term is used by other wine geeks. Based on this thread, it seems that we have here a fairly even split between the two uses of the term.

My question is this: for those who use the term to describe one of the two possibilities, what term would you use for the other? Perhaps some qualifier like "strict single blind" should be applied when the scientific sense of the term is being invoke, i.e., theme known but not the wines?

Now frankly, I'm more interested to know what the other Bordeaux lovers here think about the fact that, under what ever kind of blind tasting this was , the St. Estephe and the St. Emilion had me convinced that each was the other . . . .

Seems to me that the tasting as described would be a "mix and match."