“Fine Wine Is Now Almost Indistinguishable From The Cheap Stuff”
The article raises some new arguments about advances in oenology, but the wine thing has kinda been true for decades. In blind tastings the so-called experts have been ranking “inferior” wines high for years.
Not just wine …
I don’t remember whether I have told this story before, but if I have, bear with me as I tell it for the new guys. When I was running all the 7-Elevens in SW Florida many years ago, one of the local bars and a local TV station ran a blind beer rating test which was to be televised that night on one of their evening news special interest reports. In order to prevent ballot-stuffing or other monkeyshines, nobody was supposed to know about this in advance, but an employee of the bar was a close friend of our local Schlitz distributor, so he told him about it, and the top two Schlitz guys went down to the bar to rig the results.
Boy did that ever backfire! Their intent was to score Schlitz 10/10 and all the competitors 1/10, but BOTH of them failed to identify Schlitz and scored their own beer 1/10 while giving some other beer a perfect score. (I don’t recall which one, but it doesn’t matter.) As if it were not embarrassing enough that their beer finished last when all the scores were added together, it also happened that somebody there recognized them and identified them to the TV crew. As a result, the TV report ran with chyrons under the sampling footage for those two guys that said something like “local Schlitz distributor hates his own beer,” and “local Schlitz marketing manager ranks Pabst best, Schlitz worst.” (Again, “Pabst” is just a placeholder. I don’t remember which ones they rated 10/10.)
I knew those two guys quite well, and I grant you that they were both dumb as rocks, but that’s still an indication that even “experts” don’t really have an especially discriminating palate.
Moral of the story: eat and drink the things you like, not those which are supposed to be good.
Believe it or not, there is an academic journal called the Journal of Wine Economics. There was an article published in that journal a while back that this Cracked commentary on wine is likely based on
Journal of Wine Economics is the official publication of the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE), a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to encouraging and communicating economic research and analyses and exchanging ideas in wine economics.
I bet the wine expert in the Columbo episode “Any Old Port in a Storm” wishes he was also a so-called expert!
Adrian Carsini: That’s ironic.
Lt. Columbo: Sir?
Adrian Carsini: Well, I-I’m probably one of the few men in the world that could have told you that wine was spoiled and-and told you it was because it was overheated.
Lt. Columbo: Yes, sir. It required a very delicate palate.
Also from the episode
Lt. Columbo: I want you to teach me everything you know.
Wine Expert: It took me forty years to acquire my expertise.
Lt. Columbo: Well, what can you do in an hour and a half?
Wine Expert: Oh, just the very basics.
Lt. Columbo: Let’s start with this– How can you tell a good wine from an average wine?
Wine Expert: By the price.