I've tried blind tasting wines a few times with friends and it's a fun activity to combine with dinner. In case you were wondering you don't have to actually blindfold yourself or decant every wine - you can buy numbered wine tasting bags that conceal the bottles. You would think this is a pretty reliable way to assess the quality of wines, but it's not that straightforward.
Some people argue that the label is part of the experience of buying and drinking a bottle of wine - much like the ambiance of a restaurant affects our enjoyment of food. Or that knowing the basic facts about a wine such as the grape variety, age, country of origin (and let's face it - price) creates a better context in which to appreciate it. I agree with both of these arguments but I am nonetheless interested to know how wines perform under more 'scientific' scrutiny.
The problem with judging a wine after a few sips is that the more
powerful, up-front wines tend to perform better. They explode with flavour and create an impact. But that's not necessarily what we really
want from a wine over the course of an evening. It's great to know how each wine scores in a blind tasting but when I reveal the bottles and we drink them with
dinner I pay close attention to which bottle is finished first.
Sometimes this concurs with the scores from the blind tasting - but
sometimes not. So which is the better steer? When people stop analysing the wines and relax with some food and conversation it's
the more balanced, subtle wines they reach for and this tells me which wines my customers are more likely to enjoy time and again.
It's not a perfect way to judge wine but it's useful and enjoyable and there are worse experiments for human guinea pigs to endure.
