[Walt]

On 4/12/2014 4:30 PM, Scott wrote:

"Wine snobs can barely distinguish red from white when they're blindfolded."

Aside from being total nonsense there is no connection.


Um... not "total nonsense" but the result of a 2001 experiment at the
University of Bordeaux:


"The perceptual ambiguity of wine helps explain why contextual
influences—say, the look of a label, or the price tag on the bottle—can
profoundly influence expert judgment. This was nicely demonstrated in a
mischievous 2001 experiment led by Frédéric Brochet at the University of
Bordeaux. In one test, Brochet included fifty-four wine experts and
asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of
red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of
which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn’t stop the
experts from describing the “red” wine in language typically used to
describe red wines. One expert said that it was “jammy,” while another
enjoyed its “crushed red fruit.”

Another test that Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a
middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle
bore the label of a fancy grand cru, the other of an ordinary vin de
table. Although they were being served the exact same wine, the experts
gave the bottles nearly opposite descriptions. The grand cru was
summarized as being “agreeable,” “woody,” “complex,” “balanced,” and
“rounded,” while the most popular adjectives for the vin de table
included “weak,” “short,” “light,” “flat,” and “faulty.” "


As for the connection to violins and turntables, I'll leave that as an
exercise for the reader.

--
//Walt