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In Reply to: RE: I find it interesting posted by bjh on April 14, 2014 at 17:10:59
It depends on the DBT. The standard triangle test (used to show how wine-tasters are unable to spot the difference between a good Saint-Émilion and a cheap bottle of 'plonk') fell out of favour with sensory scientists in the 1950s, when more reliable discrimination tests began to be used. These triangle tests sound 'sciency' enough to be convincing however, although when you start to follow the money to find out who's backing these tests, it ends up being the large manufacturers of cheap plonk.
Large, paired-comparison and duo-trio DBTs are judged to deliver better discrimination, but are not commonly run because the size of sample required and the costs that entails preclude their use, unless the test is backed by a large manufacturer of cheap wine. Strangely, the large manufacturers of cheap wine aren't that interested.
Generally, such tests conclude we are more capable of being able to discern a wider palette than these hobbled DBTs suggest, that our palette can be cultivated with experience and training, and that although there isn't a direct correlation between the cost of a bottle of wine and its quality, the "it's all nonsense" line is mostly nonsense.
Of course, when more reliable tests are published in journals of sensory science and oenology, they are routinely dismissed as self-serving in the public domain by shills for the larger wine producers, disseminating the information to 'useful idiots' in the process.
That might have changed in the ten or so years since I learned that snippet of information, but it's amazing what you can learn as a freelance production editor.
-
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus magazine, Lun-duhnn, Ingerland, innit
Follow Ups:
"Of course, when more reliable tests are published in journals of sensory science and oenology, they are routinely dismissed as self-serving in the public domain by shills for the larger wine producers, disseminating the information to 'useful idiots' in the process."The link in my original reply to Jim Austin does not work. This one does. The funding was financed with grants from the National Science Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Admittedly, it is a tiny sampling and not conclusive, but interesting nonetheless.
Edits: 04/16/14
...I was talking to someone who worked for them recently.
He said I would be surprised how many boutique California wineries buy juice from them to put into their wines.
According to him, most of them do.
To be called a particular appellation here, like Napa or Sonoma, it only needs 75% from that area.
The other 25% can come from anywhere.
If it says "California" then it has to be 100% from there.
> Large, paired-comparison and duo-trio DBTs are judged to deliver better
> discrimination, but are not commonly run because the size of sample
> required and the costs that entails preclude their use...
The same is as true for audio as it is for wine. If someone cuts corners
with blind testing in order to arrive at a predetermined result - there
are many such examples in the mainstream press - the situation is, as I
wrote many years ago in Stereophile, "blind testing is the last refuge of
the agenda-riven scoundrel." :-)
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
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