What’s The Deal With Wine Tasting?

Have you ever been to a wine tasting before? Like, an actual event where you can taste a whole bunch of wines and then spit them out (because nothing says first world consumerism like drinking a $500 liquid only to spit it out) in order to determine their taste? I’ve been to a few of these events. I mean, of course I have, I love wine! I’d drink wine whenever there’s a glass in front of me (geez, I sound like an alcoholic), but honestly? I have NO idea what’s the difference between a red wine from Spain bottled in 1995 and a red wine from Italy bottled in 1996. I don’t! They taste the same to me! I also can’t really tell the difference between a cheap, store-bought wine and an expensive one that I paid hundreds of in some fancy restaurant. Sure, whenever I get together with my friends and order something nice and expensive we all go “Hmm, oh, yes, indeed, it’s quite dry with just a hint of aroma” or whatever random words we can think of throwing in there, but honestly, I’m rather certain that store-bought wine and expensive wine taste exactly the same, and the “sophisticated” taste that we feel in the restaurant is merely due to the atmosphere, a sort of placebo effect – we expect it to be good, so our taste buds tell our brain that it is.

Sure, you can say “Well, you know, dude, that’s, like, your opinion, man” (that’s how you normally speak, right?), but what if I told you that science has my back on this? Enter Mr. Frederic Brochet, who conducted a study that famously humiliated wine experts everywhere. He got a bunch of renowned wine experts together for what they thought was a study on wines. For the first test, the participants were given a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white wine, asked to taste both and then tell the difference between them. Sounds simple and straightforward enough, right? Except for the fact that they were both the exact same white wine, except in one bottle it was dyed red, and absolutely none of the so-called experts even noticed. Whoops. For the next test, Brochet asked them to taste a store-bought wine and an incredibly expensive bottle and describe the differences. You know where this is going – they were both the exact same wine. Wow.

So, what does that tell us? Well, two things, mostly – first of all, experts have NO idea what wine actually tastes like and mostly judge it based on labels and preconceived notions rather than on, you know, their taste. Second of all, it tells us that there’s no “right” and “wrong” wine. Just like everything else in life, it’s all up to your personal preference. Sure, there are subtle differences in the taste (even if a lot of people can’t really detect them) but overall there’s nothing that makes the expensive wine objectively taste better than the cheap one. So drink what you like and don’t be ashamed of it!