Wine fancy a lot of bollocks

[GeoffW1]

I knew it, I just knew this, I had it from my instinct :rofl::rofl::rofl:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis

Lots of cheers

[TrevorW]

I've always said after the second glass :drink:they all taste the same Hic! hic!:zzz:

[multiweb]

The only good wine is the one you enjoy.

[Barrykgerdes]

The worst wines are the ones that taste great.

You don't know when to stop!

Barry

[Larryp]

Very true!

[Steffen]

In that case you need to stop worrying. Works for me :lol:;)

Cheers
Steffen

[cfranks]

I automatically stop when I fall over.

Charles

[multiweb]

:lol: That's because you need to roll, not drop. :P

[avandonk]

I would imagine it is just a daunting to compare astro images for judging as wine is. Everyone's taste is different.

I have never tasted an Australian wine that I would not drink to the last drop.

There are experiments where people were given identical liquids that only varied in colour. The dyes were tasteless. Yet their so called taste was biased just by the colour.

Even the effect of alcohol can be induced by the placebo effect. This has been proved with double blind tests where half the people at a party were systematically only given full strength drinks and the other half given drinks with only a trace of alcohol. Most of the people given virtually no alcohol stlll seemed to get drunk.

Taste is really governed by your sense of smell.

Much more work is needed to resolve this. I will keep on experimenting.

Bert

[Ric]

Now was that "Roll, Stagger, Stagger, Fall"

Or was it "Fall, Stagger, Roll, Stagger"

:lol:

[multiweb]

That's right. Wine will taste different depending on what you're eating at the time or even what you just drank before. The only 'objective' tasting would be to be blind folded, taste, spit and rince your mouth. But where's the fun in that. :P

[ZeroID]

Wine tasting should always be accompanied by a bit of cheddar, clears the palate and neutralises the acid taste before the next wine. I practice it a lot. One day I will get it right.... :P Hic !!

[goober]

That is a very interesting article.

I meet up weekly with a group of friends and a bottle or three will be vanquished. Two of them in particular smack their lips and try and place the region, grape variety, etc, and utter phrases like "hot", "chewy" and such.

I've tried for years to try and get on board so I can least hold a conversation with them. In the end I just gave up and drink it :)

[Terry B]

I wouldn't want to try to judge wine. Tasting 50 different items in a few hours would be terribly difficult to achieve any consistency.
The closest experience I have to this is being a judge for junior gymnastics. At least with it we have concrete things to look for and can deduct points accordingly. It is easy to judge a "bent arm or leg" compared to the vague palate feel for a particular wine.
Even so after the 40th kid in a row doing a simple vault they all blurr into each other and it is hard to be consistent.

[Baddad]

I read the article with suspicion. I am not a wine judge nor am I a beginner in wine circles. I have often blind tasted wines. The differences are worlds apart, between whites and reds, old or young. It becomes difficult when the wines are very similar. Particularly if you allow the olfactory senses to become saturated. That is when mistakes occur. After a few glasses similar wines taste the same and lose their zap.
Discriminating subtle differences is just too hard but red to white? I'd have to be unable to stand before a white can pass as a red.:cheers:

I do not believe that seasoned tasters can be fooled so easily, regarding colouring white wine. :drink:
Much of that article IMHO appears to be bovine fertilizer.
The "researcher may have stumbled on a few incompetent tasters who had too much and drawn conclusions from them alone.

Good wines are distinctly, that,.. Good. If you have never tried a good wine and only drink cheap, you can not judge.

Life is too short to drink bad wine.:cheers:

Cheers

[Terry B]

I agree but the problem would be tasting many quite similar wines and then trying to give a consistent score when you have 50 to taste. The very good and the terrible are easy, it is the middle ground that is difficult.

[Barrykgerdes]

What confuses people is the definition of wine tasting. I don't want to be a wine taster. All you get to to do is eat chese then spit it out.

Wine sampling is the real sport.

Barry

[Stardrifter_WA]

Wine is wasted on me, they all taste the same, more or less. Give me a good scotch, as I know a great scotch when I taste it. Which is really easy, as I get wasted on it :lol:

[taminga16]

Wine tasting would be a sport, if they were made to swallow every other glass, eat cheese and see how far they could spit the wine that they did not swallow:).
Greg.

[OneCosmos]

Now it doesn't really seem credible that even experts can really differentiate between wines of different prices without seeing the label, but it isn't only the world of grape where this happens.

Take a look at random astrophotos online and see if you could tell which instrument took them, and on which mount!

Everyone knows a Tak is better than a Meade, right? That a Paramount is better than a Skywatcher. But if you see several photos of some particular deep sky object you won't be able to tell which was taken with the more expensive equipment.

If the stars are round, with no trailing the EQ6 will look like the Paramount :)

[multiweb]

:lol: Spitting good wine and cheese. You guys better stick to vegemite and lager and leave the good stuff alone. :P
On another note how do you know if a wine is good without judging it by taste? During a meal if you switch between red and white (main/dessert) and don't get a massive headache the following day you're pretty sure you had a good drop. Also the bottom of the bottle is a dead give away if it has a deep depression. They don't bottle cheap wine in expensive bottles. :)

[Baddad]

Hi Terry B,:)
You and I think alike. I'd like to add that "wine sampling" is a better term as that person introduced.

To appreciate wine a person needs to do a lot of sampling. Then the differences become much more intense. It is something that you learn only through experience.
With a "learned palate" you can buy good cheap wine. There are bargains there but not easy to find. Also the product does not last a long time on the shelves. Good cheap wines get sold quickly.
Hence you need to do a lot of sampling in the meantime. LOL;):P:lol:

Cheers:)

[Barrykgerdes]

The answer to tasting and sampling is
Take a trip UP the Barossa Valley and taste every drop you can you can then make a note of the good ones and take a trip DOWN the valley just sampling the good ones. :thumbsup:

Of course most of them are good so you probably won't remember much when you wake up in the "drunk tank" with no car or licence.:sadeyes:

Barry

[avandonk]

The point the article tried to make that even a 'trained' palate is open to error. This error is larger than the actual real 'differences' detected by these 'trained' palates.

We are dealing with another classic signal to noise problem. It is immaterial what the quality of the wine is meant to have, when the measurement criteria cannot accurately and consistently differentiate between these so called qualities!

As any scientist will tell you if you are looking for a signal in the noise then you may as well flip coins!

To get some sort of statistical measurement, very many 'trained' palates should test the wines in question until a two sigma or a 95% probabilty is reached of all the measurements. Then the mean or median of these measurements could then be considered being close to the real 'value'.

My feeling is that to reach this level of scientific consensus is that the whole vintage needs to be consumed in order to test it!!



Bert

[tlgerdes]

I agree! I vote that Bert buys us a whole vintage of Grange and that we can act as the test subjects by drinking it for him. ;)

[rmuhlack]

This is why scientific research in the field of sensory science will use an expert panel to determine links between sensory perception and physical/chemical properties. Discrimination tests such as triangle test or duo-trio test are good for this, however for a purpose trained panel descriptive analysis is also used with an appropriately designed experiment, where panelists will rate different flavours/aromas (eg citrus, toasty, mineral etc) on a 0-10 point scale. Principle-component analysis is commonly used here to draw out correlations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_analysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_testing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_component_analysis

[multiweb]

:eyepop: After reading this I feel like I need a drink. :lol: :P

[rmuhlack]

These sorts of sensory studies (like i mentioned) are relevant from a winemaking perspective.

Sales and marketing research will show that certain products are popular at a given price point, or that certain styles are more popular in different markets than in others (emerging markets in China and India for example have different style preferences to the West) - So there is value in quantifying wine attributes which characterise those product and then using that as a benchmark for future winemaking.

It can also be helpful in identifying a new market gap or niche to direct the development of new grape varieties and wine styles.

[rmuhlack]

:cheers:

[Steffen]

Also, trying to walk a straight line or hit your nose with your finger, eyes closed.
;)

It's amazing how many people are making a career out of missing the point. I for one will continue to enjoy the wines I love and to discover new ones as I go along. Sensory science or not.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Steffen]

Exactly, there's your problem. That sort of stuff has removed the bread I used to buy from the shelf of my local Woolies store.

Cheers
Steffen.

[rmuhlack]

I think we're talking at cross purposes here. What exactly is the point that has been missed...?

The primary value of sensory science like this is to grape and wine producers, in that it allows winemakers to make sense of the consumer trends, and so produce wines that consumers like to drink.

[Steffen]

The point of winemaking in the first place is being missed.

Wine makers put their craft and personality into their product. I want to sample and experience what they have to put forward, and decide for myself what I like. Those personal likes change of course – with my age, my mood and lots of other factors. I do not want an offering that has been pre-screened by sensory robots (or worse – engineered) to match the average taste of the population in my area.

Cheers
Steffen.

[AndrewJ]

No science is needed
Just drop the prices and they will drink
( no matter what it tastes like )
After the first glass kills the palate,the rest just flows.:zzz:

Andrew

[rmuhlack]

You like what you like and that is fine, but the fact remains that Australian grape and wine sector is a multi-billion dollar industry, and relies just as much on science as it does on artistry and passion. And if you're developing new products or targeting new markets, the type of studies I mentioned have proven value.

For the consumer that's all irrelevant. Engaged wine consumers like yourself will try new wine products and styles, and then perhaps make a repeat purchase of the ones they like. But the wine still needs to be on the shelf and at a competitive price for you to purchase - that's where the science comes in ;)

[Baddad]

Just deviating a little from Steffen's and Andrew's points::)
I grew up in an area only minutes from wineries in South Aus. In my twenties I stalked the wineries of SA and Victoria. I found in the 70's Victorian wines were not up to the quality of SA.

The same I noted for Qld wines. I rarely found a good one.
In the 80's Victoria excelled. So did Qld in the late 90's.

Now it has become difficult to judge which are better. The quality of QLD wines has improved to the point where I buy them regularly. Rather than just sampling.

My point is: The difference gap between good and poor wines has been closing and a bad wine today is an average quality from yesterday.
This has been brought about by the improvements in all parts of the industry.

50 years ago, judging wines was much easier. Not so today. That is reflected in certain wineries in Western Aus.

A few wineries produce wines using age old traditional Italian methods. (No not grape stomping)
These are absolutely disgusting. Highly oxidized, cures sunburn, makes weak men strong and strong women weak. Best drank with clenched teeth to prevent the ingestion of seeds.

Once you sample any of these you will realize just how far wine making has come. It is no longer comparing Model T Fords to present day Fords. These days it is Porsche and Ferrari. The packaging is different but they perform with similar results.

The same applies to wine. Even the $4 and $6 wines are now drinkable. From $15 upward there are some excellent wines.

Cheers:)

[multiweb]

My dad's a real hard a$$ when it comes to wines. It's Bordeaux or bust. When he came over in 2000 I took him to the hunter valley and he loved what he drank there. The standards in Oz are excellent.

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

The next shot now from Australian Wine Sceptics :D

http://www.smh.com.au/money/saving/its-only-plonk-if-you-look-at-the-price-tag-20130702-2p8a9.html

More cheers :cheers:

[blink138]

wine IS subjective...... much the same way eyepieces, objectives and mirrors are
it only becomes a load of bollocks when people do not understand it and scared of it (yes.....scared!)
now I am not saying that it is easy to pick a $5 bottle and a $20 bottle as they would be of similar quality anyhoo, simply because the 5 buck might represent excellent value while the 20 may represent poor value
the british marking system for wine is fantastic, and at first does not seem "right"
for instance they mark the colour of the wine out of 3 points, so really just about every wine gets 3 straight away, unless it is cloudy or lumpy of course
then the nose or bouquet is marked out of 7 points, the next bit is the, at first "strange" bit..... they account 10 points for the palate!
its strange because 90% of our taste is through smell
but it all does make sense for instance one can smell a wine and it could have that exuberance of youth on its nose and you think...... yeah this is fantastic, but all too often the palate can be thin and watery or sweet and gluggy from immature vines etcetera
I love and collect a lot of wine, but I would never buy quantity on someone else' palate
pat

[Baddad]

Articles such as the one Geoff W has produced interest me.:)
I say again the point I made earlier. That is that unless you have a "clean palate" and have some experience it is difficult to judge a wine.

Having experience I take that article to be somewhat insulting. Interesting but not good. Nothing untoward you Geoff.:)

Wine makers no longer produce bad wines. They are all quite drinkable.

To further prove that most people can taste the difference between a bad and good wine. Here is a small exercise you can do. It will show you what a bad wine tastes like. Don't get me wrong. The wine is still drinkable but....

Buy any two bottles of wine. Both bottles need to be the same.;)

Open only one bottle. Drink half. Recap the bottle and leave it for a week.

If you prefer chilled wine place both the unopened and opened bottles to chill a while.

Taste both and compare. Now you know what oxidation does to wine.
That is what was hard to avoid in the early days. From there you can progress further. Some early wines were so badly oxidized it made them almost undrinkable.:cheers:

Cheers:drink: Oh! Pat, Well said... er written.

[blink138]

further marty and other members I was going to mention this in my ramblings to, but the first and the last glasses out of the same opened wine will never taste the same either!
I think the original article is just sour grapes and pun intended!
im afraid on the whole Australian winemakers are not interested too much on "subtleties" in their wine, with their 15% alcohol fatarses a punch in the face is more what they are like, but this is exactly what they say the consumers demand...... very obvious, high alcohol, unsubtle and to me undrinkable anyhow
looking back at some old penfolds wines from the 80's and early 90's and some wynnes red vintages virtually none of them were near 13%, now some of them are approaching 16%! they will have to change the style on the label to "port" with another 0.5% more ha ha!
not attributable to global warming as just bad winemaking!
pat

[Kunama]

Wine doesn't get a chance to oxidize around here!

At the moment I am trying to find the bottom of a bottle of d'Arenberg 'The Footbolt' then it will be the turn of a Bin 407 that has been patiently waiting its turn.

Next week it will be a 1999 Dalwhinney Moonambel Shiraz ............. looking forward to next week already !

[bloodhound31]

Just lay down and drink... you can't fall off the floor.

[Ric]

:rofl: So true Baz.

[AstralTraveller]

A little bit of info I found.

"A recent blog illustrated just how many obscure wine labels there are. The top prize in the “Wine Labels with Unusual Names” category went to Fat ******* Chardonnay. Interestingly, there is a similar label for a Scotch Style Ale on the beer list. Honorable mentions include a Spanish red wine called ”Scraping the Barrel” and two French red wines whose names you’ll have to see for yourself. Our personal favorite though was a red Zinfadel called Cardinal Zin which was banned in Ohio due to the illustration on the wine label."

[GeoffW1]

:rofl::rofl: Of course there really was a Cardinal Sin, now passed. I always thought of him in the same league as Doctor Kadivar and Doctor Boner (Florida), and the politician Oliver Loser (Germany I think).

Cheers