Something with lactate crystals. Manchego?
June 19, 2017 7:04 PM Subscribe
The Gaja Sperss mentioned in the closing paragraphs of the article is a fantastic wine. Mostly anything from Gaja is, but the Sperss and the Barbaresco – while I would never spend the money myself – are about as close as I've come to wines where I even entertained the thought.
posted by flippant at 11:20 PM on June 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by flippant at 11:20 PM on June 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
This is about more than just whether wine tasting is a real thing or not, it's about the replicability crisis in research, particularly psychology. It's hard to know why one should have more confidence in an experimental methodology known to be dubious than in the supposedly unreliable subject it is trying to study. (Isn't trying to test one possible unreliability by another unreliability getting into some weird meta level, unreliability squared or something?) I suspect the same is true with many other psychology studies showing our reactions are nothing more than random winds depending on subconscious environmental stimuli. Nice to know that at least with enough effort and training it's not all just complete subjectivity and variables.
posted by blue shadows at 12:18 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by blue shadows at 12:18 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Isn't trying to test one possible unreliability by another unreliability getting into some weird meta level, unreliability squared or something?
Yeah, that gets at something --- there was something sort of quintessentially British about this*, a savour of the amateur gentleman scientist. When your experiment consists of inviting a guy out to dinner...also, a selection of wines that "I considered to be priced fairly," the insistence that for a test to truly be fair the serving conditions and samples meet a series of elaborate requirements, which provides a terribly handy excuse when you get it wrong...
I dunno. It strikes me that it may be possible to train oneself to recognise varietals, but I dunno that it's possible to do so without also imbuing oneself with a sense of the reputation of those varietals within the wine world, the stuff you're supposed to like, supposed to find admirable. A guaranteed placebo effect.
*I mean, duh, The Economist
posted by Diablevert at 1:27 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, that gets at something --- there was something sort of quintessentially British about this*, a savour of the amateur gentleman scientist. When your experiment consists of inviting a guy out to dinner...also, a selection of wines that "I considered to be priced fairly," the insistence that for a test to truly be fair the serving conditions and samples meet a series of elaborate requirements, which provides a terribly handy excuse when you get it wrong...
I dunno. It strikes me that it may be possible to train oneself to recognise varietals, but I dunno that it's possible to do so without also imbuing oneself with a sense of the reputation of those varietals within the wine world, the stuff you're supposed to like, supposed to find admirable. A guaranteed placebo effect.
*I mean, duh, The Economist
posted by Diablevert at 1:27 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Who has figured out how to make wine in their Oxfords? The best I've been able to do is make vinegar... and I'd hardly call that 'the best'.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:09 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:09 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Thank god they didn't report on the annual Bullingdon Club wine-vomiting contest.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:31 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:31 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
The Gaja Sperss mentioned in the closing paragraphs of the article is a fantastic wine. Mostly anything from Gaja is, but the Sperss and the Barbaresco – while I would never spend the money myself – are about as close as I've come to wines where I even entertained the thought.
Gaja is actually notorious price-gouger, still profiting from having been one of the first modern wine marketers in northern Italy. Hunt a little more, and you will find comparably memorable wines for much, much less...
posted by progosk at 8:57 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Gaja is actually notorious price-gouger, still profiting from having been one of the first modern wine marketers in northern Italy. Hunt a little more, and you will find comparably memorable wines for much, much less...
posted by progosk at 8:57 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
It strikes me that it may be possible to train oneself to recognise varietals, but I dunno that it's possible to do so without also imbuing oneself with a sense of the reputation of those varietals within the wine world, the stuff you're supposed to like, supposed to find admirable
Well, it seems like everybody involved is aware that the object is to identify the kind of wines that wine-tasters are good at identifying, under the conditions that wine-tasters are able to identify them in. They're not pretending otherwise. And it seems pretty clear that they are genuinely able to win at this game -- yes, it's their own game, where they set the rules, but what's wrong with that? That's how all games work. I'm also absolutely certain that I couldn't win at this game. They're able to achieve a pretty high degree of accuracy and I would do little better than chance. I think it's undeniable that they aren't bullshitting.
It seems like it also helps that the competition is about identifying wines, not judging them. Trying to determine which wines are good is obviously going to add loads more subjectivity, right? A lot of times conversations about wine tasting (and this article isn't an exception) conflate identification with judgement of quality, and that strikes me as unfair. Critics may often be unable to agree on how good a wine is, but it doesn't follow from that that all wine tastes the same.
But even so, the studies that purport to show that wine criticism is meaningless don't actually seem to indicate that to me. The article mentions one study that showed that wine experts varied in their judgment of wines by an average of 4 points out of 20. But that actually sounds like a pretty damn good degree of consistency. Is there that much agreement, on average, amongst film critics? Pop music critics? I mean, at a minimum it shows that they broadly tended to agree on which wines were good, which were bad, and which were middling. That's sufficient to show that it's not total bullshit.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 9:04 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Well, it seems like everybody involved is aware that the object is to identify the kind of wines that wine-tasters are good at identifying, under the conditions that wine-tasters are able to identify them in. They're not pretending otherwise. And it seems pretty clear that they are genuinely able to win at this game -- yes, it's their own game, where they set the rules, but what's wrong with that? That's how all games work. I'm also absolutely certain that I couldn't win at this game. They're able to achieve a pretty high degree of accuracy and I would do little better than chance. I think it's undeniable that they aren't bullshitting.
It seems like it also helps that the competition is about identifying wines, not judging them. Trying to determine which wines are good is obviously going to add loads more subjectivity, right? A lot of times conversations about wine tasting (and this article isn't an exception) conflate identification with judgement of quality, and that strikes me as unfair. Critics may often be unable to agree on how good a wine is, but it doesn't follow from that that all wine tastes the same.
But even so, the studies that purport to show that wine criticism is meaningless don't actually seem to indicate that to me. The article mentions one study that showed that wine experts varied in their judgment of wines by an average of 4 points out of 20. But that actually sounds like a pretty damn good degree of consistency. Is there that much agreement, on average, amongst film critics? Pop music critics? I mean, at a minimum it shows that they broadly tended to agree on which wines were good, which were bad, and which were middling. That's sufficient to show that it's not total bullshit.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 9:04 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I loved the classical, colonial (ie, racist) Britishness of the competition. The "Asian triumph," the comment "many of your names are too long and complicated to spell" showed just how much the judges still want wine lovers to look like the stereotype. Given the comments from the Oxford team, I wonder how much the Cambridge team, or at least its leader, tries to perpetuate that.
Also, I found it interesting that in addition to taste, things like color were used to distinguish wine. I wonder how well these teams would do with false colored wine, if their sense of sight would override their sense of taste (which is what one of the original studies showed).
posted by Hactar at 9:05 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Also, I found it interesting that in addition to taste, things like color were used to distinguish wine. I wonder how well these teams would do with false colored wine, if their sense of sight would override their sense of taste (which is what one of the original studies showed).
posted by Hactar at 9:05 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
This seems to be another one of those article that just feeds/jeers the stereotype, without actually bothering to examine what it's reporting about. From paragraph four:
"One academic study after another has found little scientific basis for wine criticism. Everyone has read florid promises of “gobs of ripe cassis”, “pillowy tannins”, and “seductive hints of garrigue”. Yet the relationships between such mumbo-jumbo and the chemical composition of a wine, between one taster’s use of it and another’s, and even between the same drinker’s notes on the same wine on different occasions tend to be faint at best."
Cassis and garrigue are notes (or, if you prefer, smells/aromas) as straightforward as cinnamon or vanilla, so not "mumbo-jumbo". If the point is that the correlation between specific notes and their chemical identifiability is not yet well researched or documented, that may be so for certain notes, but it's pretty well known for lots of the typical compounds that go into making up the nose and flavour of a wine.
Similarly, tannins, once you recognise their typical mouth-drying effect, are no weird mystery, and easily noticeable; whereas "pillowy" - yes, that is mumbo-jumbo - but it doesn't seem like adjectives or flowery prose is what the author is really after, here.
Will try reading on, to see if what follows is any more palatable.
posted by progosk at 9:12 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
"One academic study after another has found little scientific basis for wine criticism. Everyone has read florid promises of “gobs of ripe cassis”, “pillowy tannins”, and “seductive hints of garrigue”. Yet the relationships between such mumbo-jumbo and the chemical composition of a wine, between one taster’s use of it and another’s, and even between the same drinker’s notes on the same wine on different occasions tend to be faint at best."
Cassis and garrigue are notes (or, if you prefer, smells/aromas) as straightforward as cinnamon or vanilla, so not "mumbo-jumbo". If the point is that the correlation between specific notes and their chemical identifiability is not yet well researched or documented, that may be so for certain notes, but it's pretty well known for lots of the typical compounds that go into making up the nose and flavour of a wine.
Similarly, tannins, once you recognise their typical mouth-drying effect, are no weird mystery, and easily noticeable; whereas "pillowy" - yes, that is mumbo-jumbo - but it doesn't seem like adjectives or flowery prose is what the author is really after, here.
Will try reading on, to see if what follows is any more palatable.
posted by progosk at 9:12 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
or, as a mirror and encyclopedia put it: "A lot of times conversations about wine tasting (and this article isn't an exception) conflate identification with judgement of quality, and that strikes me as unfair."
It strikes me that it may be possible to train oneself to recognise varietals, but I dunno that it's possible to do so without also imbuing oneself with a sense of the reputation of those varietals within the wine world, the stuff you're supposed to like, supposed to find admirable
Well, it seems like everybody involved is aware that the object is to identify the kind of wines that wine-tasters are good at identifying, under the conditions that wine-tasters are able to identify them in.
What's actually interesting is how this connoisseurship game feeds back into the marketing, which in turn ends up gaming the actual production of wine. An example: everyone knows that you identify sauvignon blanc by its tomato-leaf / passion-fruit / cat-pee note, right? Well, turns out that if you let those same grapes ripen properly, the resulting wine will actually taste much more of peaches than of those notes that have come to define the varietal, notes that it exhibits when at a certain stage of unripeness. Why do we choose to define sauvignon blanc by its unripe notes? Well, because it helps a bunch if 1. what you're marketing your wine by is the varietal (rather than, as used to be the rule, its place of origin), because there are a lot of other white grapes that will produce delicious peachy wines, but none with that weird cat-pee note... plus 2. it's more difficult to grow grapes to full ripeness, so if your varietal marker is going to be intact even in the less than ideal years (= less than fully ripe grapes), who could resist choosing that as the official criterion?
posted by progosk at 9:27 AM on June 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
It strikes me that it may be possible to train oneself to recognise varietals, but I dunno that it's possible to do so without also imbuing oneself with a sense of the reputation of those varietals within the wine world, the stuff you're supposed to like, supposed to find admirable
Well, it seems like everybody involved is aware that the object is to identify the kind of wines that wine-tasters are good at identifying, under the conditions that wine-tasters are able to identify them in.
What's actually interesting is how this connoisseurship game feeds back into the marketing, which in turn ends up gaming the actual production of wine. An example: everyone knows that you identify sauvignon blanc by its tomato-leaf / passion-fruit / cat-pee note, right? Well, turns out that if you let those same grapes ripen properly, the resulting wine will actually taste much more of peaches than of those notes that have come to define the varietal, notes that it exhibits when at a certain stage of unripeness. Why do we choose to define sauvignon blanc by its unripe notes? Well, because it helps a bunch if 1. what you're marketing your wine by is the varietal (rather than, as used to be the rule, its place of origin), because there are a lot of other white grapes that will produce delicious peachy wines, but none with that weird cat-pee note... plus 2. it's more difficult to grow grapes to full ripeness, so if your varietal marker is going to be intact even in the less than ideal years (= less than fully ripe grapes), who could resist choosing that as the official criterion?
posted by progosk at 9:27 AM on June 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
Hactar: " I wonder how well these teams would do with false colored wine, if their sense of sight would override their sense of taste (which is what one of the original studies showed)."
Yeah, one of my friends points out that that study may not have actually shown that wine-tasting is all bunk but rather something more like "the brain is squishy and easily fooled, especially by the eyes".
posted by mhum at 9:41 AM on June 20, 2017
Yeah, one of my friends points out that that study may not have actually shown that wine-tasting is all bunk but rather something more like "the brain is squishy and easily fooled, especially by the eyes".
posted by mhum at 9:41 AM on June 20, 2017
Hm yeah, this is just all over the place:
"On one hand, these studies certainly sound definitive."
The studies quoted show tasters to be influenceable by outside factors. Which is why a well-organised blind tasting is, well, blind.
"On the other, blind tasting is really hard. In identification tests like the Varsity match, there are so many possible answers it’s a miracle anyone gets anything right."
Erm, no, unless what you mean by "miracle" is training.
"They only do when a wine displays the precise attributes a taster associates with a given region and varietal."
Wait, isn't that the task at hand?
"There may be no easier task in science than inducing an “expert” to flub a wine: if you pour a Merlot that tastes like Syrah, they’re going to say it’s Syrah.
You're just making shit up at this point.
posted by progosk at 9:45 AM on June 20, 2017
"On one hand, these studies certainly sound definitive."
The studies quoted show tasters to be influenceable by outside factors. Which is why a well-organised blind tasting is, well, blind.
"On the other, blind tasting is really hard. In identification tests like the Varsity match, there are so many possible answers it’s a miracle anyone gets anything right."
Erm, no, unless what you mean by "miracle" is training.
"They only do when a wine displays the precise attributes a taster associates with a given region and varietal."
Wait, isn't that the task at hand?
"There may be no easier task in science than inducing an “expert” to flub a wine: if you pour a Merlot that tastes like Syrah, they’re going to say it’s Syrah.
You're just making shit up at this point.
posted by progosk at 9:45 AM on June 20, 2017
Hactar: " I wonder how well these teams would do with false colored wine, if their sense of sight would override their sense of taste (which is what one of the original studies showed)."
Yeah, one of my friends points out that that study may not have actually shown that wine-tasting is all bunk but rather something more like "the brain is squishy and easily fooled, especially by the eyes".
Colour will tell you a lot about the ripeness of the grapes, and about the age of the wine. (And transparency, or lack of it, about the wine's vinification.) As regards the "legs" in the glass... though widely studied/debated, it's not actually not all that significant in identifying or even rating a wine.
posted by progosk at 9:59 AM on June 20, 2017
Yeah, one of my friends points out that that study may not have actually shown that wine-tasting is all bunk but rather something more like "the brain is squishy and easily fooled, especially by the eyes".
Colour will tell you a lot about the ripeness of the grapes, and about the age of the wine. (And transparency, or lack of it, about the wine's vinification.) As regards the "legs" in the glass... though widely studied/debated, it's not actually not all that significant in identifying or even rating a wine.
posted by progosk at 9:59 AM on June 20, 2017
mdonley: "partly because many of your names are too long and complicated to spell"
If we're going to harp on this point, I feel like it's worth mentioning that all of the students quoted in the article have names that are shorter than average, and are easy to spell.
posted by schmod at 10:17 AM on June 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
If we're going to harp on this point, I feel like it's worth mentioning that all of the students quoted in the article have names that are shorter than average, and are easy to spell.
posted by schmod at 10:17 AM on June 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
I loved the classical, colonial (ie, racist) Britishness of the competition.
I don't know: if they were all Anglo-Saxon chinless wonders, you'd say it was racist on that account. As it happens they're largely Asian, Slovenian, and mixed; you label that colonial and therefore racist again.
posted by Segundus at 12:41 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I don't know: if they were all Anglo-Saxon chinless wonders, you'd say it was racist on that account. As it happens they're largely Asian, Slovenian, and mixed; you label that colonial and therefore racist again.
posted by Segundus at 12:41 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I don't know: if they were all Anglo-Saxon chinless wonders, you'd say it was racist on that account. As it happens they're largely Asian, Slovenian, and mixed; you label that colonial and therefore racist again.
Probably because there just is a lot of racism and classism and postcolonial ugliness in upper-class Oxbridge settings (and many other elite settings in the West). So yes, the critique would be right either way.
posted by col_pogo at 1:08 PM on June 20, 2017
Probably because there just is a lot of racism and classism and postcolonial ugliness in upper-class Oxbridge settings (and many other elite settings in the West). So yes, the critique would be right either way.
posted by col_pogo at 1:08 PM on June 20, 2017
> as it happens they're largely Asian, Slovenian, and mixed; you label that colonial and therefore racist again.
nooo, the racist part is when the judges are like "LOL NAMES HARD TO PRONOUNCE LOL." Or when a Canadian guy wins the competition and they report it as "ASIAN TRIUMPH!!!!!"
I have no idea how you could read the article and the comments here and not understand that.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 2:44 PM on June 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
nooo, the racist part is when the judges are like "LOL NAMES HARD TO PRONOUNCE LOL." Or when a Canadian guy wins the competition and they report it as "ASIAN TRIUMPH!!!!!"
I have no idea how you could read the article and the comments here and not understand that.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 2:44 PM on June 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Not to undercut your comment, but you just misgendered that same person. Janice Wang is female (at least, according to the pronouns used in the article).
posted by schmod at 5:00 PM on June 20, 2017
posted by schmod at 5:00 PM on June 20, 2017
The article represents, without really endorsing or condemning, some charmless surface racism from the Cambridge team and the sponsors/other journalists--I'm thinking of the name thing in particular. But it seems to me that the author ends up fully endorsing a deeper racist (and classist, and in other iterations anti-semitic) premise, articulated by the Etonian Cambridge dude, which is that the superior discipline and work ethic of the victorious Oxford team don't matter because they are good at wine for the wrong reasons and aren't being all Flyte and Ryder during that magical first summer at Brideshead about it.
If someone has taken the trouble to be better than you at something, there's a good chance they care about it and enjoy it just as much. Maybe more!
posted by sy at 6:57 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
If someone has taken the trouble to be better than you at something, there's a good chance they care about it and enjoy it just as much. Maybe more!
posted by sy at 6:57 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Gaja is actually notorious price-gouger, still profiting from having been one of the first modern wine marketers in northern Italy. Hunt a little more, and you will find comparably memorable wines for much, much less... – progorskAny recommendations?
posted by flippant at 10:10 PM on June 20, 2017
Any recommendations?
Well, depends what you're into, of course :-)
I've found myself straying from the two duelling papacies of Italian wine, Piedmont and Tuscany - there's just too much orthodoxy to wade through (and I was too involved in the Tuscan side), but mainly because there's just so. many. wines. here.
I tend to fall for things that are delicious-with-a-story-to-tell, either from an enological perspective, or because of a producer's vision. When that becomes too commercial, which is just what happens to large producers (it's a market, after all), my instinct is to tune out.
So though I don't have a great many recommendations for nebbiolo wines - though I do have fond memories of Bruno Rocca's Rabajà Barbaresco - from Piedmont I like the forgotten, aromatic red Ruché, or fascinatingly serious white Timorasso (Walter Massa). I also remember some great bottles from Rivetti/La Spinetta (their iconoclastic Pin, in particular).
Let me know what speaks to you, so as to order my memorydex, and I'll memail you.
posted by progosk at 11:34 PM on June 20, 2017
Well, depends what you're into, of course :-)
I've found myself straying from the two duelling papacies of Italian wine, Piedmont and Tuscany - there's just too much orthodoxy to wade through (and I was too involved in the Tuscan side), but mainly because there's just so. many. wines. here.
I tend to fall for things that are delicious-with-a-story-to-tell, either from an enological perspective, or because of a producer's vision. When that becomes too commercial, which is just what happens to large producers (it's a market, after all), my instinct is to tune out.
So though I don't have a great many recommendations for nebbiolo wines - though I do have fond memories of Bruno Rocca's Rabajà Barbaresco - from Piedmont I like the forgotten, aromatic red Ruché, or fascinatingly serious white Timorasso (Walter Massa). I also remember some great bottles from Rivetti/La Spinetta (their iconoclastic Pin, in particular).
Let me know what speaks to you, so as to order my memorydex, and I'll memail you.
posted by progosk at 11:34 PM on June 20, 2017
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The discussion in the article of how the race and ethnic origins of the competitors have been commented on through the competition process and in their wider journeys through oenophilia made me realise that there is definitely a stereotype out there of what a wine lover looks like - indeed, should look like - and it does the wine world no favors to ignore this. Thank you for posting this.
posted by mdonley at 7:31 PM on June 19, 2017 [7 favorites]