[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