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In my own life, I have anecdotal experiences with bourbon and other whiskeys that have pretty thoroughly convinced me that the idea of wine tasting being "fake" is a combination of wishing that the expensive things weren't special, wishing that the experts were fake experts, and a desire to feel superior to silly people fussing about such things. I accumulate bourbon much faster than I drink it, so I now have a shelf with dozens of bottles, ranging from mundane (but enjoyable!) stuff like Bulleit and Woodford Reserve up to fairly uncommon and pricey bottles like EH Taylor Barrel Proof Uncut and Michter's 10 Year Rye. When my wife or I grab a pour for each other, we often take them blind and see if we can guess what we chose for each other - at this point, our success rate in picking them out is getting pretty close to 100%. This is true even for fairly similar and competitive products - it's not that hard to tell the difference bewteen a pair of single barrel picks that are bottled at the same strength and have similar age statements.

So, where I'm going there is that I'm a rank amateur, barely even a hobbyist by the standards of the whackos that are super into whiskey, but I can tell the difference between two products that are both distilled corn aged in newly charred American Oak barrels for X years. If I can pick that up, it seems impossible to me that wine experts legitimately can't tell the difference between red and white varietals - the experimenter either screwed up or they found the fakest experts around. Ever since I noticed that, I just brushed off the "studies" that say otherwise, but it's still nice to see the breakdown from Scott.

First, the experts weren’t exactly experts. They were, in the grand tradition of studies everywhere, undergraduates at the researchers’ university.

Honestly, this is such a bad starting point that I can't imagine that anything extracted from the data could plausibly be useful - everyone involved from the researchers to the journalists breathlessly reported on those silly wine people is bad and should feel bad.

Whiskey, I think, is a market where people are intentionally different. Jack Daniels isn't marketing to the same people as Woodford who aren't marketing to the same as single barrel offerings. I thing there are often huge sweetness differences which are easiest to pick up on. Is the same true of wine? Are the $10 winemakers intentionally making sweeter wine to appeal to college girls?

I am adjacent to the wine business and winemakers absolutely make sweeter wine to appeal to a mass market. Especially at the cheap and widely distributed end of the spectrum. That's what a lot of people want, and the more industrial side of the industry is happy to oblige.

I agree about whiskey too. Jack Daniel's and Woodford are owned by the same company, but appeal to very different people. Same with Old Forester, also the same company. Not just because of the flavor profile, but the branding and perceived associations too.

Great to know.