Interesting read...

Link below

Blind tasting of 2005 Bordeaux

Blind tastings are so humbling,even for someone who claims to recall every wines he ever tasted in his life.
When pros mistake Lafite for Troplong and l'Eglise for Cos, something is wrong !

Anyway, not a thread to bash Parker, it is just a fun read.

Great article. I always suck at blind tastings, I'm glad to see I'm in such good company!

I much prefer to sit with a wine for a while to really appreciate what it has to give rather than swig a 1/2 ounce pour. It also helps if I can see the label

Speaking of blind tastings being humbling, I tried the blind taste challenge at Starbucks which is promoting the new instant coffee. I failed to pick out the instant coffee. Either the product is good, or I suck. Maybe if I had the proper Riedel coffee stem...

Thanks for the link, F16. A very enjoyable read.

I have long been a fan of blind tastings.

While blind tastings can always humble even the best and most experienced tasters, the newer style of wines does not help any. It is my opinion many Left Banks are now more Right Bank in style ( see Pontet-Canet and others) which disappoints me personally.

Thanks for the link French16.

I remember at a blind tasting some years ago that featured most of the 2001 first growths that a wine I brought, a 2001 Smith Haut Lafitte won as the best red of the night. Why?
Simply because it was the most ready of all the wines to drink and it benefited the most from being drunk young. The next day, I had re-tasted some of the 2001 1st growths from the remainder of the one or two 1st growth bottles that were left and they tasted better than the WOTN (SHL) of the previous night. So, it is not entirely inconceivable that a more ready to drink bordeaux or one that is more approachable young may come out on top in these kind of tasting events.

Blind tastings are fun and humiliating both. I do recall that Purple Haze, Comet Spider and Gentleman Farmer were outstanding at this in an early Maryland offline a few years back. PH identified a wine precisely (I think it was a Cali Cab) based on his knowledge of an earlier vintage of the same juice. Comet Spider and Gentleman Farmer can nearly always identify the grape, even when there is some trickiness to it.
Most impressive.
Then there was a friend of mine, Nelson, who used to be big into German wines and he once picked the wine precisely by the nose alone.
That blew me away.

quote:

Originally posted by wine+art:
I have long been a fan of blind tastings.

While blind tastings can always humble even the best and most experienced tasters, the newer style of wines does not help any. It is my opinion many Left Banks are now more Right Bank in style ( see Pontet-Canet and others) which disappoints me personally.

Thanks for the link French16.

was quite embarassed in a double blind where doubled broughth a 95 pontet canet that i thought was a 94 heitz martha

Blind tastings are fun for many reasons ... being very very wrong on some of the wines is one of those reasons.

I was doing a Du Tertre vertical for a AWS presentation. It's usual to have several bottles of social (cheap) wines out prior to the meeting. I put out blind four bottles of inexpensive Bordeaux (the most expensive was a Reignac) and three "Bordeaux-style" local (Monticello AVA) selections. It was interesting to see people's analysis.

Of course the only blind testing I've really got worked up was the tasting part of my certification exam.

Time to flip my Le Gay for 3x! Next 100 pt WA wine for sure!

I did not taste 05 lafite, but did try troplong...hard to imagine that what i tasted could be mistaken for a lafite.

Very interesting article. Never done a blind tasting but will try to organize one soon to test my "skills"

quote:

Originally posted by mitPradikat:
Speaking of blind tastings being humbling, I tried the blind taste challenge at Starbucks which is promoting the new instant coffee. I failed to pick out the instant coffee. Either the product is good, or I suck. Maybe if I had the proper Riedel coffee stem...

From my experience with Starbucks, the bar is set pretty low. Not surprised at all they can manufacture a packaged product that tastes better.

Blind tasting is very difficult. I have come across just a few great blind tasters in my day.

I think blind tasting is now more difficult than it was 20 years ago. As w+a mentioned, and I totally agree, more and more right and left banks Bdx taste similar. And this is just one example among many.

quote:

Originally posted by Gkapoor:
Very interesting article. Never done a blind tasting but will try to organize one soon to test my "skills"

They're invaluable. I help organize a monthly blind event that is illuminating to say the least.