Blind Wine Tasting: The Pros and Cons of tasting wine blind.

00:00:00: [Music]

00:00:15: Welcome to just another Wine Podcast. I'm Emily Harman.

00:00:18: I'm Jamie Good and I'm Doug Rigg.

00:00:21: Today, gents, we're talking about...

00:00:24: Blind tasting?

00:00:26: So should we elaborate on that?

00:00:28: So should we... When we taste a wine, is it important that we know the identity of the wine?

00:00:33: Should we ideally taste blind? That is not knowing the identity.

00:00:37: Surely that's the fairest way, but then maybe if we're tasting blind,

00:00:43: we might not have the information we need to make a sound judgment about the nature of that wine.

00:00:49: And also, every wine has a story, doesn't it, Emily?

00:00:51: Yeah, and also how influenced are we by packaging and brand status?

00:00:56: Or the fact that we're friends with the wine maker?

00:00:58: Yeah, and how much we like them.

00:01:00: Yes. I mean, all these things factor in to...

00:01:04: Surely must factor in to the actual perception we have as well,

00:01:07: not just whether we like the wine or not, but actually the way that we experience the wine.

00:01:12: And I think there's some neurobiological studies that have shown this,

00:01:15: is if you feed people certain sorts of information,

00:01:18: whilst they're tasting wine in a brain scanner,

00:01:20: which is a slightly artificial way of tasting wine, an MRI machine.

00:01:24: That's totally casual.

00:01:26: You have a tube running into your mouth that injects the wine in.

00:01:28: But when they do experiments like this, with all those limitations,

00:01:32: what they do find is if they give people different information about the same wine,

00:01:37: then different bits of their brain light up.

00:01:39: And their interpretation of this, and obviously it's a perilous journey

00:01:43: from bits of your brain lighting up to actual perception,

00:01:45: is that that information is actually altering the actual nature of that perceptive event

00:01:52: in those people's brains.

00:01:53: It does beg the question, how much information we carry with us,

00:01:59: which affects the way we talk and think about wine.

00:02:02: A mutual friend of ours, Heidi Knudsen, runs a course called A Thousand Decisions.

00:02:08: And I recently did a masterclass, I hate that word,

00:02:12: but you know what I mean, on blind tasting.

00:02:15: And everyone was very alert to the first three wines

00:02:18: and sort of getting the great variety and the style.

00:02:21: They were describing the wines really down to a T,

00:02:23: and as they couldn't actually get the wines, they were pretty down well close.

00:02:28: Then on the fourth wine, I threw in my customary curveball,

00:02:32: which was a red wine, light red wine.

00:02:35: And everyone was saying, "It's like taste of cherries and strawberries."

00:02:39: And you know, it's gamé or Pinot Noir, and you know, it's this and that.

00:02:46: And I said, "It's a shabby."

00:02:47: And I put two drops of Saperavi in it.

00:02:50: - Seriously? - Yeah.

00:02:51: And suddenly, having told them there was a shabby...

00:02:54: That's a bit of a triton move, isn't it?

00:02:56: Having told them there was a shabby, they could taste it was a shabby.

00:03:00: Yes, but this is so interesting.

00:03:01: So what you're saying is that the colour curve overshadowed all these other sensory cues.

00:03:07: So the fact that you see a pale red wine, what it looks like a pale red wine,

00:03:11: suddenly you go to all the descriptors that you have for red wines.

00:03:15: So suddenly you're finding things in that wine that you would never find in a shabby

00:03:19: when you're right to taste it.

00:03:20: It's interesting because there's a book that I recall,

00:03:21: which I've just seen on the shelf over there as well, called "I Taste Red."

00:03:25: And I'm just thinking, "Isn't there a book about something about Mr. E?"

00:03:29: This is really interesting.

00:03:30: So when I was putting "I Taste Red" together,

00:03:32: which I'm fascinated by the perception of wine,

00:03:34: I think it's a really interesting subject,

00:03:36: that I was really impressed by the studies done by this guy called Frederick Brosch.

00:03:41: I think it's in 2000.

00:03:42: I quote him in my book to come.

00:03:43: Yes, yes, it's so fascinating.

00:03:45: And he did the same thing.

00:03:46: So he used this time though to be kind of really scientific about it.

00:03:49: He used a neutral food coloring, a sensory neutral food coloring.

00:03:53: And he did the tasting with the same group of professionals a couple of weeks apart.

00:03:57: And the first were white wine.

00:03:59: The second was a white wine colored.

00:04:01: And he said just basically all the descriptors that people use,

00:04:05: these are professionals, were red wine descriptors.

00:04:08: So they saw cherry fruit in it.

00:04:09: That's sort of cherries or berries in this white wine.

00:04:13: When they taste the white wine, they would never use those descriptors.

00:04:16: So people are basically suggestible.

00:04:18: That's what we're saying.

00:04:21: If I tell you, I've always wanted to do a blind tasting

00:04:24: where I've told someone information, which may or may not be true.

00:04:27: And whether they take that on board, I'm sure in most cases,

00:04:32: why would you distrust something I say?

00:04:34: But I could be tapping you on or I could be experimenting

00:04:38: on you like Monsieur Brosch.

00:04:40: Just to find out how easily impressed you are by the evidence.

00:04:47: And also, I think when we taste blind, we're struggling for cues.

00:04:50: We look for anything we can get.

00:04:52: And obviously, the thing you first see,

00:04:54: the first thing you see and experience is the color, not the smell, not anything else.

00:04:59: So it doesn't even need to be a wine.

00:05:02: If I'm telling you we're doing a tasting of red wine,

00:05:06: and I don't know, I put a wine glass full of red liquid.

00:05:10: You're going to say, OK, that's a red wine.

00:05:12: I just put ribena in there, basically.

00:05:15: And I think people would even hope ribena is so obviously different from red wine.

00:05:21: I think it would fool some people.

00:05:22: Because as soon as you see something, it becomes like imprinted,

00:05:26: and your brain is telling you what to taste, red fruits, in the case of the shabli.

00:05:31: It's interesting, though, because when I do wine training

00:05:34: and I teach a little bit about blind tasting,

00:05:37: and I often sometimes use it just for a reference point,

00:05:42: like the WSTT systematic approach to tasting,

00:05:46: of this analysis of the appearance of the wine actually being the most useless part of the inf...

00:05:51: Like it's not useful, actually, when you're trying to detect what a wine is by the color.

00:05:57: Right?

00:05:58: Like, yes, there are some cues that it could tell you maybe about the wine

00:06:01: and the way that it's made,

00:06:02: but it really doesn't give you very much information,

00:06:04: but it's so intriguing that it carries so much influence.

00:06:08: It's also very judgmental, the WSTT thing,

00:06:12: because they teach you to distinguish between a wine which is clean and a wine which is cloudy,

00:06:16: as if clean is good and cloudy is pejorative.

00:06:20: Clean being clear, like non-cloudy.

00:06:22: Yeah, but clean could be filtered or triple filtered or something,

00:06:26: and cloudy could be unfiltered.

00:06:27: And for me, when I look at the wine,

00:06:30: it's the quality of the color I'm looking at,

00:06:32: and all the weather it's like red.

00:06:34: Red is a notional color.

00:06:36: White is a notional color.

00:06:37: The wines are all white, are they?

00:06:38: I mean, they're not physically white like that glass there.

00:06:42: So there are so many grades of coloring,

00:06:45: but there's so much you can tell by the color,

00:06:47: by looking at it in terms of the texture,

00:06:49: you know, like the weave of the wine,

00:06:51: which is much more than this red is the opposite of white.

00:06:55: Well, we know that's not the case.

00:06:56: You know, there are whites which are textural

00:06:59: and even have sultanin,

00:07:00: and there are reds which taste like fruit juice.

00:07:02: So, yeah, there's a lot more than what you see.

00:07:06: And I think the site is really important

00:07:09: to look at the cues properly,

00:07:11: but not to sort of be lazy about it,

00:07:13: and just say, "It's a red wine,

00:07:15: 'cause it's on the red spectrum."

00:07:17: The thing is with these wine education courses,

00:07:22: and you know, at the top end,

00:07:23: you've got the quarter master sommeliers,

00:07:27: and then you've got the institute of masters of wine,

00:07:30: is that when they're tasting their settings,

00:07:33: they're kind of like, yes,

00:07:34: they're trying to say intelligent things

00:07:36: about the wine and understand the wine,

00:07:38: but ultimately, you're trying to find out what that wine is.

00:07:42: It's like a tasting with a view to finding out

00:07:46: what that wine is without actually knowing its identity.

00:07:48: So you're doing a very, very different thing

00:07:50: when you're assessing quality as a journalist,

00:07:55: because you know, it's not just the taste of the wine blind

00:07:59: that matters, it's other stuff that matters.

00:08:01: It's putting things in context.

00:08:03: And you're doing something very different to what people do

00:08:05: is when they share a bottle of wine around the table.

00:08:08: So that sort of forensic mindset,

00:08:10: when you come into wine, you're looking at the color,

00:08:12: and you're already drawing conclusions from the color,

00:08:15: I think is a bit problematic,

00:08:16: and I think the same is true when you start smelling the wine,

00:08:19: and you sometimes, the color and then the smell,

00:08:22: those first two encounters for most people

00:08:24: when they're doing this sort of systematic tasting,

00:08:26: can be deceptive.

00:08:28: I think I try to hold my judgment

00:08:29: till I've got the wine in my mouth,

00:08:31: because you only really understand the wine,

00:08:33: I think, once you've got the wine in your mouth,

00:08:34: and then you smell it retro-nasally as well,

00:08:36: and then the color doesn't matter, and the appearance.

00:08:40: The appearance kind of gives clues,

00:08:42: but the appearance can be deceptive.

00:08:43: You can have a red wine that's a little faded,

00:08:45: and you're thinking, "Oh, this is going to be oxidized,"

00:08:47: or a white wine that's showing a little bit of gold or amber,

00:08:52: and you think, "Oh, it's past its best,"

00:08:54: but the wine can actually be magnificent.

00:08:56: So I think that sometimes we're led astray

00:09:00: by those first impressions,

00:09:01: because that's the way that people are taught how to taste.

00:09:04: And there's a different approach,

00:09:05: there's two different approaches, right?

00:09:06: There's the approach of what information am I receiving

00:09:10: that I recognize,

00:09:12: that I associate with something that I recognize,

00:09:14: and then there's the alternative of the process of elimination of,

00:09:19: "This is not this, this is not this, this doesn't have this,"

00:09:21: so you're eliminating the things that it could be

00:09:24: to then draw some conclusion.

00:09:25: And then with that,

00:09:27: we're also not even considering the contextual piece of,

00:09:31: "Where are we? How do we feel? What are we surrounded by?"

00:09:35: Because there are so many different studies that show,

00:09:37: when you experience a drink,

00:09:41: and depending on what genre of music

00:09:44: and how you relate to that genre of music,

00:09:46: will influence what notes and what kind of notes,

00:09:49: whether they're positive or negative,

00:09:51: will be pulled out,

00:09:52: or how you associate with that thing that you're relating to.

00:09:55: Like there's so many different factors of us as sensory beings

00:09:59: and how we're influenced,

00:10:00: that are just outside of just even the wine itself.

00:10:04: Well, we need attention filters as well.

00:10:06: One of the things I actually like discussing,

00:10:08: and we never talk about the point of noise

00:10:12: when you're tasting wine,

00:10:13: not as a good thing,

00:10:14: but in a noisy restaurant,

00:10:16: it's really difficult,

00:10:18: and when people are talking very loudly around you,

00:10:20: really difficult to taste wine properly,

00:10:22: because you're trying to filter out all this unnecessary stuff.

00:10:26: And when you go to a restaurant,

00:10:28: I think the average restaurant has 80 decibels,

00:10:32: which is actually physically painful.

00:10:33: You can't enjoy wine in that environment.

00:10:35: It doesn't matter how good the wine glasses are,

00:10:37: or how good the wine services, or how good the wine is.

00:10:39: But we have enjoyed a few bottles together in this.

00:10:42: Well, it's not 80 decibels here, I can tell you that.

00:10:47: But I guess a lot of it is, Jamie,

00:10:49: what do you think about human beings top down processes

00:10:52: or bottom up processes when they're approaching wine,

00:10:55: or is it a mixture of two?

00:10:57: Are we deductive, working back from stuff,

00:11:00: or are we inductive, experiencing,

00:11:02: and then sort of like working out from that?

00:11:05: I think the studies that have been done

00:11:07: show that experts and novices behave quite differently

00:11:11: when faced with a glass of wine.

00:11:13: So what novices do that's really good

00:11:16: is they focus on the liquid in the glass.

00:11:19: They focus on the sensations.

00:11:20: They dwell in that sensation,

00:11:22: and that's where they find their information.

00:11:24: What experts do is they come with this baggage,

00:11:28: which is a useful baggage,

00:11:30: which is their experience of all the wines

00:11:31: they've tried before, and their knowledge of wine styles,

00:11:34: and the vocabulary for wine as well,

00:11:36: which I'll come back to in a moment.

00:11:39: So what an expert's doing is they're almost like

00:11:42: a prototypical look at the wine

00:11:44: just to see what sort of type it is.

00:11:46: So they're prototyping.

00:11:47: So you might say, "This is a sauvignon blanc."

00:11:49: Then you've got all that knowledge

00:11:50: of what sauvignon blanc might taste like,

00:11:52: and you've got all those words for sauvignon blanc

00:11:54: that will then lead you to interrogate the liquid in the glass

00:11:58: through a verbal lens.

00:12:04: So you've got the words.

00:12:05: So you're trying to find that thing in the glass

00:12:06: because you know sauvignon blanc often has that.

00:12:08: So say, "Has this got this?

00:12:09: Has this got elder plants?

00:12:10: Has it got citrus?

00:12:11: Has it got high acidity?"

00:12:14: And you end up kind of then putting your knowledge

00:12:18: onto what's there in the glass.

00:12:19: And so the novice in some ways is purer

00:12:21: because the novice hasn't got this background.

00:12:24: You can just enjoy it.

00:12:25: But then what the novice struggles with

00:12:27: is that journey from the perception to words.

00:12:30: So novice might say, "I really love this.

00:12:32: It's fantastic."

00:12:33: And you're having the same perception as the expert,

00:12:34: I guess, more or less.

00:12:36: But then you say, "How do you describe it?"

00:12:39: And it's like, "Well, I can't describe it.

00:12:41: Just where you like it."

00:12:42: Because they haven't learned the vocabulary,

00:12:43: the code that people like us in the wine trade have learned.

00:12:46: But maybe they can't also pinpoint it.

00:12:48: Yeah.

00:12:49: Does the ability to express your perceptions in language,

00:12:52: does that improve the experience?

00:12:54: Are the novices missing something?

00:12:56: Or can they enjoy wine on a subliminal level quite strongly?

00:13:00: Does it matter so much?

00:13:03: What do you think, Emily?

00:13:04: Isn't that an intriguing question

00:13:06: because it's difficult to answer it

00:13:10: because I'd be answering a question for other people.

00:13:13: But my point of view is that language

00:13:16: or my development of language around how I articulate wine

00:13:19: has been very meaningful for me

00:13:22: to be able to connect with other people like the two of you.

00:13:24: And also, I just very much enjoy that

00:13:28: to be able to express what I'm experiencing in that moment.

00:13:31: Does it, is it limiting to a novice?

00:13:35: Potentially.

00:13:36: Like I think, obviously, you and I have both worked

00:13:39: as sommeliers in restaurants.

00:13:41: And there's a lot of interpretation that must occur

00:13:45: for a sommelier to be able to understand

00:13:48: how to guide someone through a whineless

00:13:49: because the language is missing on the other side of it.

00:13:53: So we have to overcompensate and read through the lines

00:13:56: and understand with quite minimal language on the other side.

00:14:01: Like what is someone actually looking for?

00:14:03: So it can be complicated,

00:14:05: but at the same time, I don't think it's a necessary attribute

00:14:09: that somebody has to have in order to receive pleasure

00:14:11: from a glass of wine.

00:14:12: I don't think so.

00:14:14: Well, I don't know, language can also dumb down.

00:14:16: It's used as a tool to communicate broad brush strokes of flavour,

00:14:20: but what about something more intrinsic to the wine,

00:14:23: more like aesthetic for the want of a better word?

00:14:26: What about beauty?

00:14:27: For example, this wine is beautiful,

00:14:28: like a piece of music or a work of art or a sunset.

00:14:32: When you respond, it's beyond language, isn't it?

00:14:34: But it's something you feel on your pulse.

00:14:36: And also subjective.

00:14:38: What I'd say though is it's like the sunset, right?

00:14:40: So imagine that, well, we can't see the sun's probably setting now,

00:14:44: and it's probably setting really nicely over the river,

00:14:46: which is that way. We can't see it.

00:14:48: We'll pretend that we can.

00:14:49: But you could be walking along that river,

00:14:51: and one person could be,

00:14:54: say, neither of these people are experts in sunsets.

00:14:58: Most of us aren't. We don't study sunsets.

00:15:01: We don't learn about the way that the atmosphere diffracts the light,

00:15:05: and that's why the colour changes.

00:15:07: I don't know what it is, or bits of soot in the air,

00:15:10: how they change the formation of this colour.

00:15:14: That purple tonight is coming because of this, this, and this, and this.

00:15:17: So we're not experts, but what it is is a question of attention.

00:15:20: So one person could be on their phone checking their TikTok,

00:15:25: and the other person could be gazing at that sunset and going,

00:15:27: "Whoa, this is beautiful."

00:15:29: So it's a question of attention.

00:15:31: It's not expertise, I think. That's what I'd say.

00:15:33: So in a restaurant setting.

00:15:34: Attention and a willing to receive the experience.

00:15:37: Yes, a willingness to be lost in wonder.

00:15:40: And I think we lose that.

00:15:41: Sometimes as experts in wine, or people who've been trained in wine,

00:15:44: we lose that immediate sense of wonder when we come across a beautiful bottle.

00:15:48: We can't just sit there and be grateful and thankful

00:15:52: for this beautiful experience that we're having with the wine,

00:15:55: which someone who's not schooled in wine may be able to do in a pure way.

00:15:59: And I remember when I first got into wine,

00:16:00: that what would happen with me is that I'd taste lots of wines,

00:16:03: not so many, but I'd taste some,

00:16:05: and some wines would really grab me, and I'd love them.

00:16:08: Other wines, it's okay.

00:16:09: But the ones I really loved, I couldn't explain why I loved them,

00:16:12: but then trying to replicate that experience was really frustrating

00:16:14: because I could find the same region,

00:16:16: I could find the same grape variety or whatever,

00:16:19: and the wine didn't taste the same.

00:16:22: But it was something in my memory about this wine,

00:16:24: the flavor, that really grabbed me.

00:16:26: There's a resonance sometimes to an experience with a particular wine.

00:16:30: Well, once it's lodged in your memory,

00:16:31: then it's like part of you, isn't it?

00:16:33: And you can't replicate that precise set of circumstances

00:16:38: which led to that feeling.

00:16:39: So usually these feelings are engendered by open-mindedness

00:16:43: and innocence, I think.

00:16:45: And actually, what you said, Jamie, is very abscite

00:16:47: because I was thinking when I was talking to Heidi's class

00:16:51: of "The Thousand Decisions," and I said,

00:16:53: "Be open-minded when you're tasting."

00:16:56: In other words, innocent, be receptive,

00:16:58: but be open-hearted as well.

00:17:00: Be open to the possibility

00:17:02: that something may blow your heart.

00:17:04: I was going to say mind or heart,

00:17:06: but something could be beautiful as well.

00:17:08: You're not analyzing to destruction.

00:17:11: And I think so much tasting is about, what's the word?

00:17:14: Like disentangling the component parts of wine

00:17:18: as if it was like bolted together,

00:17:21: as opposed to this beautiful fluid

00:17:23: which has come from a particular place.

00:17:25: And but also arouses emotions as well.

00:17:29: They're trying to shut off their emotional response

00:17:31: from a scientific response,

00:17:33: as if the scientific response is more legit.

00:17:36: Yes. And what I find tasting with lots of different sorts of people

00:17:40: is that sometimes tasting with winemakers,

00:17:43: there is this feeling amongst the wine community

00:17:46: that the winemakers trump everyone else

00:17:48: because they taste very forensically.

00:17:51: So there's a feeling that forensic taste does trump everyone else.

00:17:54: So like if one person, we're all enjoying a wine

00:17:56: and in a competition setting, we're saying,

00:17:58: "Oh, this is really good.

00:17:59: Maybe this could be a silver or gold."

00:18:01: And a winemaker who is fairly skilled

00:18:04: at diagnosing problems in wines early on,

00:18:06: because that's the job,

00:18:07: is if you want to see a thing that's going awry,

00:18:09: then you need to do something to save that wine.

00:18:12: So you're really good at particular faults often.

00:18:16: And so a winemaker might say, "Well, this is pretty, guys."

00:18:18: And it's like, that's supposed to trump everything else.

00:18:21: So we're all supposed to say, "Let's kick it out."

00:18:23: And that's what happens. The wine gets kicked out.

00:18:25: Rather than a little bit grumpy.

00:18:28: It's like, "Oh, there's something not quite right

00:18:30: about this wine."

00:18:31: And suddenly the cast of doubt on that wine,

00:18:34: it's like a cloud and it's like that wine is cursed.

00:18:36: That wine will never go anywhere in a competition.

00:18:39: And this is a problem, I think,

00:18:42: where we assign too much authority

00:18:45: to the most forensic tasters.

00:18:47: Rather than how does it actually feel for you

00:18:50: when you experience this?

00:18:51: But also, Emily, you must have visited growers and their sellers

00:18:54: and you know that when you taste drink from a barrel

00:18:57: or a whatever or a tank,

00:18:59: that the wines are going to be very different

00:19:01: on very different days

00:19:02: and the grower will be happy with it

00:19:04: or unhappy with it because it's like,

00:19:06: it's still his or her child, isn't it?

00:19:08: They're very protective of what they have.

00:19:10: What James is talking about is like wine competitions,

00:19:13: which is like, the wine is a product.

00:19:16: It is ceased to live.

00:19:17: It is just there for our inspection and analysis.

00:19:20: And I find that like a bit soulless, if I'm honest,

00:19:23: because we're awarding points for something

00:19:26: that may not be great on the day,

00:19:29: or may be fine on the day,

00:19:31: but it's a bit like,

00:19:32: what are you awarding at points for correctness or beauty?

00:19:36: Does beauty ever win out in the argument?

00:19:39: Or deliciousness?

00:19:40: It's being tasted, not drunk as well.

00:19:44: So it's quite an old thing.

00:19:46: Yeah, I think it goes back a little bit to our podcast

00:19:49: on like the spectrum of wine flaws and faults, actually.

00:19:52: Some of those points that we made in that discussion,

00:19:54: sort of I feel irrelevant in this chat today,

00:19:57: because I think, again, it's like,

00:20:00: what are we seeking for perfection

00:20:02: and a textbook example of something?

00:20:05: And again, like this idea of the blind tasting method

00:20:09: around what is teua,

00:20:11: what is a true expression of sight, of place, of a riotel,

00:20:15: is it this industrialized example of that?

00:20:19: Because I mean, I'm just looking behind you there,

00:20:21: and I'm looking at those Alexander Band bottles

00:20:23: that are behind you on the shelf there, for example.

00:20:25: One of the producers who makes, for a lot of people, atypical...

00:20:30: That's brilliant wine.

00:20:31: I bought six bottles of it.

00:20:32: 20 quid of bottles as well.

00:20:34: But there'd be so many people out there,

00:20:36: they'd get that blind, and they'll be like,

00:20:38: what is this?

00:20:38: This isn't representative of Loire's so many wines.

00:20:40: It's not a big deal as wine.

00:20:41: Now lots of people reject those wines.

00:20:43: Yeah, but like, actually, it's still true to place.

00:20:46: And I think, again, it's like, how do we...

00:20:49: Like my question is, and I guess something I wonder about,

00:20:51: is how do we broaden that lens,

00:20:53: and how do we open up the topic of wine?

00:20:55: Like I think about this all the time through my own import business,

00:20:58: when I'm showing people wines, when I'm like,

00:21:00: oh yeah, okay, this is gonna be a little bit different,

00:21:03: maybe looking at their wine list of what they're already listening,

00:21:05: if like, how do I explain to them?

00:21:07: Or how do I really give them the opportunity to look at this wine,

00:21:11: that they can actually, hopefully see, like, the beauty in it,

00:21:16: the wonder in it, they can see the person behind it,

00:21:18: who I really believe in, that they can put aside these ideas,

00:21:24: that they've formulated, or that have concreted in their mind,

00:21:28: because of wine books that are a little bit outdated, maybe,

00:21:32: or certain wine education that's convinced them,

00:21:34: that this is the only way that wine should be.

00:21:37: How do we actually reformulate these ideas,

00:21:40: for blind tasting, and for perception around wine,

00:21:45: to like, expand somebody's horizon on it?

00:21:49: Well, if we enable people to be more confident,

00:21:52: in the understanding that wine is singular,

00:21:56: it's different on different days,

00:21:57: but you know, like, if Alexander Barrett's making a sauvignon,

00:22:02: and just because it isn't lemons and limes,

00:22:05: there are other fruits, other fruits may apply,

00:22:08: and if it's at the autumnal fruit, like,

00:22:10: I don't know, pear, and, I don't know, something, spice plums,

00:22:15: now that may not be in the classic dictionary definition

00:22:19: of what sauvignon tastes like,

00:22:21: but it's what it should taste like, perhaps,

00:22:23: and perhaps he's making an authentic style of sauvignon,

00:22:27: rather than a sort of mechanical chemical style of sauvignon.

00:22:31: So we shouldn't just brush, you know, like, grape varieties,

00:22:36: you know, believe the varietal is what people say it is.

00:22:40: That's just like a shorthand,

00:22:42: so that people can recognize something in a quite an obvious way.

00:22:45: But what happens when people transcend,

00:22:47: like growers transcend that by working harder,

00:22:50: with lower yields, by expressing sight, or vintage,

00:22:54: or longer aging, then that's legit as well,

00:22:57: you know, coming back to that thing.

00:22:59: So when you're tasting blind, you have to sort of say,

00:23:03: your first instinctions be, is that a sauvignon,

00:23:06: or is that another sauvignon?

00:23:08: It is what it is, like, what's its it-ness,

00:23:10: and how do I relate to it?

00:23:12: I think that's what, well, I think the thing

00:23:14: about blind tasting should be just trying to sort of almost,

00:23:18: like, dive into the wine and taste it inside out.

00:23:21: And you've got some blind wines for me and Jamie today,

00:23:24: that you're going to put us on the hot seat with.

00:23:26: So yeah, so this, I mean, before we go to the wines,

00:23:30: which I think we should go to very soon,

00:23:32: because I'm really quite thirsty.

00:23:34: It's been a long day.

00:23:36: No, it hasn't been a long day.

00:23:37: It's been quite a short day really.

00:23:38: But the thing is, this blind tasting,

00:23:43: what I kind of like is, if you've got a group of people together,

00:23:45: it's kind of fun to do a little bit of blind tasting.

00:23:48: But please don't let's use the whole bottle up, you know.

00:23:50: Yeah, because actually what we really want to do

00:23:52: is to drink the wine sighted.

00:23:54: Yes.

00:23:54: So have some fun tasting the wine blind,

00:23:56: make some suggestions, don't labour over it too much,

00:24:01: and then actually drink the wine knowing what it is.

00:24:06: I think that's how you can appreciate a wine to its full extent.

00:24:09: I think blind is good.

00:24:10: It's like blind is quite a useful tool to lower our preconceptions,

00:24:15: but it's almost like a pause before the tasting.

00:24:17: It's not the final goal of it.

00:24:18: That's a tease, isn't it?

00:24:19: Don't you find like your senses are tingling?

00:24:21: Because you're using all parts of your brain,

00:24:24: your knowledge of your prior knowledge of wine,

00:24:27: but also like you're trying to sense the wine, you know.

00:24:30: And because you don't know what it is,

00:24:32: it's a struggle between almost like you're left

00:24:37: in your right hand side of your brain.

00:24:38: And Neil Pino once said, and I hope I'm quoting him accurately,

00:24:42: he said, "Great wines tasted blind always disappoint."

00:24:45: Because I think for great wines,

00:24:49: Sometimes you might spot them when you taste the wine.

00:24:51: You might say, actually, this is a truly great wine.

00:24:53: But often you need the knowledge and the context

00:24:56: to kind of interpret those sensory signals

00:25:01: in a way that you can actually make sense of.

00:25:03: - Yeah, of course.

00:25:04: Also, if you've never had those wines

00:25:06: and you've got no reference for it,

00:25:07: how are you even gonna be able to say that statement?

00:25:09: - Well, this also raises a really interesting question.

00:25:11: I think when the wine, when I first started learning

00:25:13: about wine, I remember reading about the first growth

00:25:16: and thinking, "Is it gonna be mind-blowing?

00:25:18: This is the most famous wines in the world,

00:25:20: the first growth, Medoc Chateau."

00:25:22: And I was going, "Wow, I can't wait to try these wines

00:25:27: on Petrus in Pomerol."

00:25:28: It's like, "Wow, this must be amazing."

00:25:31: And so I think people think that these wines are like

00:25:33: a gulf away.

00:25:35: They're tremendously much better than anything else.

00:25:38: But when you taste them, it's like,

00:25:40: sometimes they're really amazing,

00:25:41: but then not that amazing compared with some

00:25:44: of their peers sometimes.

00:25:46: That's my impression.

00:25:47: - Well, so you can try a wine that's maybe 2% of the price

00:25:51: that can be wonderful and life-changing.

00:25:54: Right, that's the thing.

00:25:55: - Maybe we should do a podcast about the price of wine.

00:25:58: That would be quite interesting.

00:25:59: - Yeah, quite soon I think would be great.

00:26:02: Right, Doug.

00:26:03: - Okay, what have we got?

00:26:04: - Blindness, bro.

00:26:06: Show us what you got, mate.

00:26:08: What have I got on my sleeve?

00:26:09: Up your sock, I should say.

00:26:11: Let me just, it's quite a wet sock.

00:26:15: I don't know where this is the one that went on the floor.

00:26:18: - We had a spillage just before.

00:26:20: Just anybody that's wondering about the wet sock comment.

00:26:23: - It was wine.

00:26:25: Yes.

00:26:28: No, it's not Shannon, 'cause that's Doug, not wet sock.

00:26:32: - Mm, really interesting.

00:26:36: - Listen, I like it here.

00:26:39: - The first impression is this really nice reduction.

00:26:42: Sort of a little struck flint.

00:26:45: And little subtle oxidative hints.

00:26:47: - Yeah, and I was wondering. - Really nice.

00:26:49: - I was wondering if that's my making or if that's development.

00:26:52: 'Cause there's a hint of like more like tertiary flavours

00:26:56: there on the nose.

00:26:57: - Then I put it in the mouth.

00:26:58: Wow, that's acidity is pretty brisk.

00:27:00: That's beautiful.

00:27:01: It's quite crystalline, isn't it?

00:27:03: There's a crystalline citrus character.

00:27:05: Some apple hints, little hint, very faint hint

00:27:08: of oxidative character, but not too much.

00:27:11: Lovely precision, lovely fruit.

00:27:14: It's quite a ripe fruit profile, isn't it?

00:27:16: We're getting into the other fruit.

00:27:17: - A bit of peachy, little bit of like,

00:27:19: I get a lot of like ripe apple as well.

00:27:21: I also wonder if it's something coastal,

00:27:24: 'cause I get a little bit of saltiness there.

00:27:26: Coastal or something like, I don't know.

00:27:28: - It's really so that it's a bit of a citrus high acidity.

00:27:30: - Yeah. - The high acidity

00:27:31: makes me think juurra, really high acidity.

00:27:37: - Really? - Yeah.

00:27:38: - Okay.

00:27:38: I didn't go to juurra with this.

00:27:41: I went more like, I don't know,

00:27:43: Northern Portugal, Alicia, maybe,

00:27:45: but it feels a bit too fruit driven,

00:27:48: aromatic to be the Loire,

00:27:50: but I was also like, initially when I first smelled it,

00:27:52: I was like, masquerade, but then if it's got that development,

00:27:55: it doesn't have the cheese, something.

00:27:56: - Oh, Loire, it could be Chenna.

00:27:57: That's my second guess, it's Chenna.

00:28:01: - Actually, this is actually raised to the point,

00:28:03: 'cause I'm not gonna say anything

00:28:04: during this part of the podcast normally.

00:28:06: But when you're tasting blind with someone

00:28:08: you know very well, do you play the man or woman,

00:28:11: or as well as playing the wine?

00:28:13: - Well, there's certain things

00:28:14: I wouldn't expect you to bring along.

00:28:16: And there's certain things I would expect you to bring along.

00:28:18: - I don't think it's probably about,

00:28:19: like I'm pretty certain you haven't bought me some blossom

00:28:22: hill to try today, for example.

00:28:24: - I will tell you that much is true.

00:28:25: (laughing)

00:28:27: - It would be really cruel if you did that,

00:28:29: like you just popped down to the local corner shop

00:28:31: and bought some commercials.

00:28:32: - I'm also devious, so it's anything that's possible.

00:28:34: - I actually really like this wine.

00:28:36: That's the main thing.

00:28:37: I think this is a beautiful wine, and I love it.

00:28:40: I love that really piercing acidity

00:28:42: that just throws everything, all that richness

00:28:44: into lovely tension between that piercing acidity

00:28:46: and the richer ripe of fruit notes,

00:28:48: sub-oxidative characters.

00:28:50: And then some of that reduction,

00:28:52: maybe it's a little lesson before, but, and that's fine.

00:28:55: - Sometimes when you open a bottle,

00:28:57: I mean, you must all experience it

00:28:58: and you haven't carafted it.

00:29:00: You'll get a little bit of, you know,

00:29:02: it's been under the leaves for, I don't know,

00:29:03: two, three years, for all we know.

00:29:05: - There's a waxiness that's there as well.

00:29:08: - But then it really develops.

00:29:10: I'm gonna totally agree with all your descriptors

00:29:13: so far, that the tension, the acidity is really marked,

00:29:17: and I think it's typical.

00:29:19: The richness is less typical,

00:29:22: and I think it's to do with, well,

00:29:24: to do with all vines and fantastic farming, you know,

00:29:28: which sort of transform what could be

00:29:32: not so interesting lining to something pretty beautiful.

00:29:36: So I reckon, Loire or Jura,

00:29:39: and maybe after what Doug just said,

00:29:42: I'm kind of heading more to the Loire,

00:29:43: but I don't, kind of, I don't really care,

00:29:45: because I think it's fantastic.

00:29:46: - Well, that's the thing.

00:29:47: It's like, we don't have to worry about it,

00:29:49: getting it right or wrong.

00:29:50: That's the other thing about blind tasting.

00:29:52: There isn't a right or wrong.

00:29:53: It's what you feel and what you feel you're tasting,

00:29:56: and everyone's palate's slightly different anyway,

00:29:57: but I miss this as good as a mile, but.

00:30:01: - Doug, what is it?

00:30:02: Let's show us, show us, show us.

00:30:03: That's what we're very excited about.

00:30:04: So I brought this with Jamie in mind.

00:30:06: - Oh, I was like, oh, I was like.

00:30:08: - Aligotti from Renault Boillet.

00:30:10: So biannamic and 80, I think 80 year old vines.

00:30:15: - This is fantastic.

00:30:16: - Yeah, it's.

00:30:17: - I feel like our guesses of like,

00:30:19: Muscaday to Shennan to Jura.

00:30:22: - Not terrible.

00:30:23: - They're not terrible.

00:30:24: They kind of.

00:30:24: - Has aspects of a lot of these grape varieties.

00:30:27: Aligotti is a really tricky one.

00:30:28: I know you've been drinking a little bit recently, Jamie.

00:30:31: And, you know, it can be really fantastic.

00:30:35: And it's always one of those,

00:30:37: has been one of those underrated grape varieties.

00:30:40: I remember working in restaurants, Kio Aligotti,

00:30:42: you know, it's only good enough.

00:30:44: The acidity is so high,

00:30:45: it's only good enough for creme de cassis to go in.

00:30:48: And, you know, we, you know, you taste the D'Amour one,

00:30:51: you taste this one, and there's various,

00:30:52: a L'Ampathai, and there's a lot of.

00:30:54: - How much will this cost?

00:30:55: Retail?

00:30:56: - I don't know, retail around, it'll be about 33, I guess.

00:31:00: - That's good.

00:31:01: - Yeah, I'm really impressed with this.

00:31:03: - Nice wine.

00:31:04: - Yeah.

00:31:05: - Strong stuff.

00:31:06: - Vintage.

00:31:07: - To.

00:31:08: - It tastes 21.

00:31:08: - 22.

00:31:09: - 22.

00:31:10: - Yeah.

00:31:11: - It's like a warm of vintage.

00:31:12: - It tastes 22.

00:31:13: - Yeah.

00:31:13: - It tastes 22 now.

00:31:14: (laughing)

00:31:17: - The easy side of tasting

00:31:18: is when you can actually look at the label though.

00:31:20: - No, but that's a fantastic one.

00:31:23: - Drain loss.

00:31:23: - Do another.

00:31:24: - Okay.

00:31:25: - Oh, that's faulty, it's cloudy.

00:31:27: (laughing)

00:31:28: - Get it out of here.

00:31:29: - That's your WSTT training.

00:31:31: - Talking to you.

00:31:32: - I haven't done any WSTT training.

00:31:34: - I did, a long time ago.

00:31:36: - That's why you used such a good product.

00:31:36: - 2010.

00:31:38: - Right.

00:31:39: - Oof.

00:31:40: (laughing)

00:31:42: - This is apples.

00:31:44: - Yeah, I feel, I need a moment with this.

00:31:46: It smells.

00:31:47: - It's very apple, it's like a cider.

00:31:49: - Yeah, I wondered.

00:31:51: - No, in a good way, it's like a fresh.

00:31:54: - It's gonna be a bow and arrow or something.

00:31:55: (laughing)

00:31:56: - It's a treat.

00:31:57: - This is a really, really good cider.

00:31:59: - I think it actually is a cider.

00:32:00: - It's totally a cider.

00:32:01: - Yeah.

00:32:02: - Okay, good.

00:32:04: (laughing)

00:32:06: Damn.

00:32:06: - We know our treats.

00:32:07: - I thought we'd be more like wine, but yes, yes.

00:32:09: - No, but it's a beautiful cider.

00:32:10: - Is it wood fine or is it like, what is it?

00:32:13: - It's little Pomona.

00:32:14: Ribble, which is Egremont Russell, Russet, sorry.

00:32:17: And I asked James from Little Pomona.

00:32:20: I said, what's the most Venus one?

00:32:22: And it was like between that one

00:32:24: and one called orange cider.

00:32:25: You know, it's sort of--

00:32:27: - I love the label.

00:32:28: - It's a brilliant cider.

00:32:30: - Really textural.

00:32:31: And, you know, it's got the tannins

00:32:34: that you sort of associate with certain sorts of white wine

00:32:38: or even skin contact wines.

00:32:39: - Yeah.

00:32:41: This is actually a cider, a gastronomic cider

00:32:45: that does the same job as wine.

00:32:47: It's quite beautiful.

00:32:49: - Yeah.

00:32:50: And one of the things we've discussed before

00:32:54: is that, you know, people are snobby about cider

00:32:56: because this is if like apples aren't as good as grapes,

00:33:00: but there isn't the heritage,

00:33:02: the tradition across the world of like cider making,

00:33:05: even though in England, particularly,

00:33:07: okay, I should say,

00:33:09: that cider is the wine of this country.

00:33:13: And there are so many different apple varieties.

00:33:16: There's so many different styles.

00:33:17: There's so many ways you can make it like wine.

00:33:20: So, same as I said, it's gastronomic.

00:33:23: It's, you can have so many different types of food.

00:33:26: - Also the first sparkling drink, alcoholic drink,

00:33:29: before there was even champagne,

00:33:30: there was sparkling cider in the UK.

00:33:33: That's where a lot of the technology with bottles

00:33:36: and bottling sparkling beverages came from

00:33:39: was the cider production in the UK.

00:33:40: - Well, I like what Tim Phillips, Charlie Herring, is doing.

00:33:44: - Yes.

00:33:44: - 'Cause he's got a lot of apples.

00:33:48: And he's just pragmatic.

00:33:50: He says, look, the cost of farming apples

00:33:53: is so much lower than grapes.

00:33:54: They cost so much less.

00:33:56: And what he does that I think is brilliant

00:33:59: is he uses grape skins for his ciders.

00:34:02: And he planted Pinot noir just for-

00:34:05: - Pipped perfect strangers.

00:34:06: - So he could make cider on the skins.

00:34:09: And I think that those are profound drinks.

00:34:12: They're really good.

00:34:13: And they're not crazy priced.

00:34:15: And it's profitable for the grower.

00:34:17: So I think there's this sort of cider grape hybrid thing,

00:34:21: which a lot of people are doing, as you say, Emily,

00:34:23: it's quite a thing now.

00:34:24: Works really well.

00:34:25: - I mean, would find.

00:34:26: But also Vermont, no?

00:34:28: - Yes, like a register.

00:34:30: But the whole thing is based on-

00:34:32: - We had it all together in the basement of Towers

00:34:34: many moons ago.

00:34:35: - That's right.

00:34:36: It was based on sort of mixed agriculture.

00:34:37: People would grow apples and grapes, you know?

00:34:39: And they would make the, you know,

00:34:44: they'd press the apples and they put some grape skins.

00:34:46: 'Cause in a way it's recycling, isn't it?

00:34:49: It's upcycling or whatever you want to do.

00:34:51: And you can make even the, what's the word?

00:34:55: I want to call it piquette.

00:34:57: It's probably technically perikin or ciderkin.

00:35:01: It is like, again, you don't waste anything

00:35:04: when you're, you know, obviously a lot of winemakers

00:35:07: make a mark or was it was a grappa or something like that.

00:35:11: So it's using all parts of the grape.

00:35:12: It's nose to tail drinking.

00:35:14: - It'd be interesting to know if you use the skins of the grape

00:35:17: after you made the wine to then ferment the cider,

00:35:19: if then you could then still press like the leftover

00:35:23: to make grappa.

00:35:24: Probably you could, hey, with all of it.

00:35:26: - You might be able to, I'm sure.

00:35:27: - Yeah.

00:35:28: - Yeah, so you could get three products out of those two

00:35:30: props, be cool.

00:35:32: And then compost it at the end.

00:35:34: - Yes. - Four.

00:35:36: - Yes.

00:35:37: - So here we are with the sort of tasting blind.

00:35:41: And, you know, I think,

00:35:43: 'cause you're what I call sensitive tasters,

00:35:46: I think you sort of like, you feel it,

00:35:49: you've got a good sense of smell and taste as well.

00:35:51: So I think you're combining your senses and your knowledge,

00:35:55: you know, to really good effect.

00:35:57: - Yeah.

00:35:58: - Whereas I think sometimes super professionals,

00:36:03: they, as I say, they banalise, you know,

00:36:07: they analyse to death and they look for the faults

00:36:09: and they think the wine is the sum of all its faults

00:36:12: and flaws and therefore it's not worthy to be called

00:36:15: whatever it is called.

00:36:17: Others perceive wine as a product,

00:36:20: so it must be correct in all facets of it.

00:36:22: And adhere to, you know, received wisdom

00:36:26: about how a particular wine or grape variety

00:36:28: or wine from a region should taste.

00:36:30: And we've all come across growers,

00:36:32: we, you know, we work with growers who basically

00:36:35: have had to downgrade their wines to Vendor France

00:36:38: or whatever it might be or Craig Hawkins,

00:36:40: whenever, where their wines--

00:36:41: - Or upgrade to Vendor France,

00:36:43: depending on the restrictions.

00:36:45: - Yeah, their wines are considered atypical

00:36:47: 'cause they're not filtered,

00:36:49: 'cause they're not filtered and that's considered

00:36:51: by the wine board as to be not fit for sale.

00:36:55: So many times in the past,

00:36:58: you had to do it once, Jamie, I think.

00:36:59: We had to write letters on behalf of certain growers to say--

00:37:02: - I've written a few letters in my time, yeah.

00:37:04: - I'm sure you have.

00:37:05: But if people tasted the wines blind properly, you know,

00:37:10: rather than to sort of discourage them from being exported,

00:37:15: it would be a totally different ball game.

00:37:17: - But the strange thing with the South African situation

00:37:20: was people who are making some really good wines

00:37:23: getting kicked back by the tasting panels.

00:37:26: Yet, you go into any supermarket and buy a cheap Pinnatage

00:37:30: and it's like, how did that get passed?

00:37:32: What would you rather drink?

00:37:34: Crave and Pinot Gris or Order 4 Pounds,

00:37:38: 99 Special Pinnatage?

00:37:41: - Tastes like bin bags.

00:37:42: (laughing)

00:37:43: - But it makes me think, what are they tasting?

00:37:46: - There are some great Pinnatages.

00:37:48: - At good prices.

00:37:49: - Yes, but there are some horrible ones as well.

00:37:53: This is not--

00:37:53: - It's all about the varietal in that example though,

00:37:56: is it?

00:37:57: It's more about the fact that it's a--

00:37:58: - It's about some very cheap and quite unpleasant wines.

00:38:01: Get through these tasting panels

00:38:02: and they're the wines that damage the reputation

00:38:04: of the country abroad.

00:38:05: And then somebody hand crafting something like Craig

00:38:08: or Mick and Jeanine, you know,

00:38:12: their wines get booted back regularly

00:38:15: and they're just so good and they're delicious.

00:38:17: And this is building the reputation of South Africa

00:38:21: and it's not just South Africa.

00:38:22: Australia had a big problem,

00:38:24: but they've now abandoned their tasting panels.

00:38:27: We kicked up such a fuss,

00:38:28: I think the whole wine trade generally

00:38:31: with some quite interesting wines

00:38:33: that they've already found a buyer

00:38:35: being refused export permit, you know,

00:38:38: and that's problematic.

00:38:41: - But the danger of blind tasting, I think, as well,

00:38:44: is that you do have these panels and committees

00:38:48: and people sit on them

00:38:50: and they're given basically instructions

00:38:52: on what to pass and fail.

00:38:54: You've been on hundreds and you've been on loads,

00:38:58: obviously, for the world wine awards

00:39:02: or international wine challenge and decanto,

00:39:04: and I've been on decanto a bit.

00:39:05: And honestly, you know what it's gonna be,

00:39:09: but you know that you're tasting a flight of 12,

00:39:12: you calibrate your pallets together,

00:39:14: otherwise you'll never get through anything.

00:39:17: And you say, this is the right sort of thing.

00:39:19: This is what we're marking as bronze or silver.

00:39:23: You know, these are the qualities we're looking for

00:39:24: in this particular grape variety or region,

00:39:26: and these are the qualities we're not,

00:39:28: you know, just to save a bit of time.

00:39:30: And then everyone's pretty well tasting on the same level,

00:39:33: except there are always some outliers,

00:39:35: I guess we'll taste in their unique way

00:39:37: and hold up proceedings.

00:39:39: But maybe that's the flaw of the system anyway,

00:39:42: is that we have to get to the other end.

00:39:45: And it's probably not ideal to taste wines sometimes

00:39:49: that you don't really feel, you know,

00:39:50: it's another 10, another 10, another 10.

00:39:53: It doesn't respect the wines.

00:39:56: On the other hand, a lot of times the wines

00:39:58: don't respect themselves,

00:39:59: because they're not that interesting.

00:40:01: - I think the way to kind of draw this

00:40:04: to some sort of conclusion would be to say that,

00:40:06: blind tasting, it's obvious that we can trick ourselves

00:40:09: quite easily.

00:40:10: We use the example of the color dye

00:40:13: or the drops of Saperavi.

00:40:15: - Rich will be looking out for now

00:40:17: every time you blind wine us.

00:40:19: (laughing)

00:40:20: - And I'm gonna waste it more shabbily on that.

00:40:22: - Yeah, just saying that.

00:40:23: - Kill me to do that.

00:40:24: - And you know, they said,

00:40:26: but we're not saying that blind tasting is impossible,

00:40:30: 'cause otherwise no one will be able

00:40:31: to pass these fancy tasting exams.

00:40:33: You know, tasting blind,

00:40:34: you can be kind of analytical and do things.

00:40:38: But then what we have to remember is that--

00:40:40: - There's so much more to it.

00:40:41: - This is not the ultimate goal in wine,

00:40:43: of being able to identify things

00:40:45: without knowing their identity.

00:40:46: I think the ultimate goal of wine is understanding the wine,

00:40:49: in which case then our best bet

00:40:51: is if we actually know what we're tasting.

00:40:54: And we have sight of the label.

00:40:55: And you know, I think that once you've been tasting enough,

00:40:59: you're not likely to let the label sway you too much.

00:41:03: It will sway you a little bit,

00:41:04: but you're not gonna suddenly say,

00:41:05: "This is a great wine," when you don't think it is,

00:41:07: just 'cause it's a famous wine.

00:41:09: I think most of us were prepared to say,

00:41:11: "This famous wine isn't as good as,"

00:41:13: or this bottle of this famous wine

00:41:15: "isn't as good as people say it is."

00:41:17: - I don't know about a challenge you a little bit on that.

00:41:19: I mean, we all saw that,

00:41:21: what was the documentary, it was on Netflix,

00:41:23: about the guy Randy who did all the wine scamming.

00:41:26: - Rudy. - Rudy, sorry, not Randy.

00:41:29: - Randy, Randy Rudy.

00:41:31: - But like, that was also quite telling, right?

00:41:34: Of people buying these wines, selling these wines,

00:41:37: but not necessarily having access to them or experienced them,

00:41:40: or just so excited to try them,

00:41:42: that so many people couldn't even detect

00:41:45: that they were fraudulent wines.

00:41:46: And again, he was very skilled with how he--

00:41:49: - But before Rudy was Hardy Rodenstock,

00:41:51: and if you read, I mean, Janssys Robinson's book,

00:41:54: "Confessions of Wine Lover,"

00:41:56: this is before Rodenstock was exposed,

00:41:57: she talks about going to these amazing wine lunches or dinners

00:42:02: or lunches that became dinners,

00:42:04: where there would be this succession of stellar famous bottles.

00:42:08: And the problem is once you get to age in a wine

00:42:13: and you get to famous wines with a reputation

00:42:16: and you're primed to think that you're drinking the real thing,

00:42:19: it becomes very hard to then to spot.

00:42:21: I mean, how many people have got experience

00:42:24: of lots of old vintages of many of these famous wines?

00:42:29: And not so many.

00:42:30: And then you also get the thing which is that

00:42:33: once a wine's been 30 years under a cork,

00:42:37: all the bottles in the case will be a little bit different.

00:42:40: Once it's been 50 years,

00:42:41: then especially if storage has not been perfect,

00:42:43: then there's no such thing as the 1924 Chateau,

00:42:49: I don't know, Chateau Latour.

00:42:52: Every bottle will be quite different.

00:42:54: And so nobody's going to have the expertise

00:42:57: to be able to call this.

00:42:59: They can have suspicions,

00:43:00: but you see that it's proved that once you get to these old wines,

00:43:04: even the most venerated names in the wine world

00:43:11: can be thought.

00:43:12: And do you not think people also want to taste greatness?

00:43:16: You know, they want to taste these old wines.

00:43:17: They don't, they probably, you know,

00:43:20: and if they want to taste them that much,

00:43:21: they want them to be that great.

00:43:23: Yeah.

00:43:24: It's a, again, power of auto suggestion.

00:43:27: Yeah, and then the other factor

00:43:29: that we haven't really come up touched on,

00:43:31: but I don't think we have got much time left

00:43:32: to really discuss this one.

00:43:34: Remember, we should just park it out there as a factor,

00:43:37: is the fact that as individuals,

00:43:40: we change every day, you know,

00:43:42: we change from morning to night, you know,

00:43:44: our actual, so I find this fascinating looking at wines blind,

00:43:48: that the previous I've really liked,

00:43:50: do I still really like them?

00:43:51: Is this something about me

00:43:53: that on that day liked that wine a great deal,

00:43:55: but then, you know, four days later,

00:43:57: I tasted it again blind and I like it,

00:44:00: but not as much as I liked it four days ago.

00:44:02: But this idea that we're not,

00:44:04: this, we're not measuring devices.

00:44:06: That's not how we work.

00:44:07: But you're changing and also the wine is changing too, right?

00:44:10: - Yeah, but we're never the same two days running.

00:44:12: I mean, you know, like whether it's your hormones

00:44:14: or your health changes, like you might have a cycle.

00:44:18: - Also the amount you sleep, like also that's a big factor.

00:44:21: - Yeah, what side of the bed you get out of,

00:44:23: you know, if you've, you've not had enough sleep,

00:44:24: you're not sharp sometimes.

00:44:26: I also think the quality of your light

00:44:28: is really important. - I always get out of it

00:44:29: at the same way because there's no other way

00:44:31: to get out of it.

00:44:32: - Yeah, but mood-wise, you know,

00:44:34: depending on, yeah, being dehydrated or something,

00:44:37: but also like the light, I find that, you know,

00:44:39: I went to the market the other day, my local market,

00:44:42: and everything, the quality of light was amazing.

00:44:44: The temperature was beautiful as well.

00:44:45: It was like, it was brand sort of 13, 14 degrees.

00:44:49: So things were crisp, but the colors were incredibly sharp

00:44:53: and everything, all the food on the stalls tasted extra good.

00:44:57: You know, like every, you know, precise.

00:44:59: And I felt like more alive and precise.

00:45:01: I felt like, you know, in the zone.

00:45:03: And so I bought, I have a lot more as a result.

00:45:06: Last week, you know, it was chilly, you know,

00:45:09: dark, wind whistling.

00:45:10: The people themselves, other people are really important.

00:45:14: Their moods, they could see they were a bit huddled,

00:45:16: whereas they were much more open and expressive

00:45:19: when the weather was better.

00:45:20: - Also depending on what's on even on the news,

00:45:22: like all of that stuff impacts us.

00:45:24: - Well, we carry, yeah, we carry, you know,

00:45:27: Jamie said we carry our baggage, you know,

00:45:29: and whatever our emotional baggage,

00:45:31: but also we react, you know, physically to the smallest

00:45:36: impulses, you know, whether external or internal.

00:45:40: And that affects the way we taste.

00:45:42: We can't, we're not immune to that.

00:45:44: And we don't know it's happening sometimes.

00:45:46: And we can rationalize it afterwards.

00:45:48: - So what this calls for is a degree of humility

00:45:50: in the face of wine.

00:45:51: We're trying to get the wine.

00:45:54: I mean, we obviously believe that there is this thing

00:45:56: called the flavor of the wine,

00:45:57: which is what we're trying to taste.

00:45:59: You know, this is an objective property of that glass.

00:46:01: It has chemicals in it that creates a certain flavor.

00:46:04: And as taste is we're trying to subjectively approach

00:46:07: that objective property of the wine,

00:46:09: the flavor of the wine and get it.

00:46:11: So we're straining to get it.

00:46:12: And some days we do better than others.

00:46:14: But what we've got to realize is that we are never going

00:46:16: to be measuring devices.

00:46:18: We're never going to get to a stage where we just

00:46:21: know everything and read out the wine straight away,

00:46:23: you know, like a, like a pH meter would do or something

00:46:27: or a, a false scanner.

00:46:28: - Yeah, we don't have the apparatus for it.

00:46:30: - That's not the way we work as humans.

00:46:32: Our perception is a unity.

00:46:34: And it goes through all these editing stages

00:46:36: before we get actually,

00:46:37: we're consciously aware of anything.

00:46:38: So, so we're modeling what's around us, this whole world,

00:46:41: the things we're seeing, tasting, smelling, touching.

00:46:45: We're making models of those because we can't,

00:46:48: we have to run this model,

00:46:49: this sort of reality generator that we've got within us

00:46:52: because we can't respond in real time quick enough

00:46:54: to the environment around us.

00:46:56: And as we have this model running,

00:46:57: and we kind of, we're using like object recognition,

00:47:00: I decided that that's a cup, I decided that's an Emily,

00:47:03: I decided that's a Doug,

00:47:04: I decided that that's an iPhone filming us,

00:47:07: you know, their objects that immediately you log

00:47:09: without really thinking about it.

00:47:10: And then you have those expected behaviors of those things.

00:47:13: And this is how we deal with reality.

00:47:15: And so when it comes to tasting, we're not,

00:47:18: we, you know, the receptor level,

00:47:20: the receptors are doing something,

00:47:21: but we're taking that information,

00:47:22: doing a lot of processing before we have access to it.

00:47:26: And with wine tasting,

00:47:27: we're trying to do something quite different,

00:47:28: which we're trying to undo all that work

00:47:31: to try and get to what's actually in the glass.

00:47:33: So it's never going to be an easy thing to do.

00:47:35: - We don't even know how a brain works.

00:47:36: So yeah, we have all this,

00:47:37: we perceive things rather than, you know, see them,

00:47:40: we perceive them.

00:47:41: But then you're filtering it through so many different

00:47:46: layers of your brain, which have like memories.

00:47:48: So like so much of what we experience or perceive

00:47:51: is through our memory,

00:47:53: but we're not conscious of the memory, particularly,

00:47:55: occasionally people say, oh, this reminds me of something.

00:47:57: So, because our memories are probably stored

00:47:59: in different places.

00:48:00: And the wine acts or the perception,

00:48:04: the experience of wine acts as a trigger

00:48:06: to unlock certain memories.

00:48:09: But even those memories are unreliable.

00:48:12: How could they, they're degrading constantly,

00:48:15: you know, they're changing.

00:48:15: So, you know, if we talk about this tasting, maybe,

00:48:19: you know, next time we meet,

00:48:21: we'll have different recollections of it.

00:48:25: So, I mean, what hope for wine?

00:48:27: Basically, when we're all like on a different level sometimes.

00:48:30: But we do share some common things as well.

00:48:32: - Yeah, but then it also comes back to maybe

00:48:34: that initial question of like, what's important?

00:48:39: What's the goal?

00:48:42: - So what we've got to recognise is that the,

00:48:44: the sort of blind tasting we do in professional capacity

00:48:47: when we have to do it is one thing.

00:48:49: But that doesn't necessarily.

00:48:52: - It's not the be-all and end-all.

00:48:53: - Yeah, it doesn't trump.

00:48:54: - It's the experience of enjoying wine

00:48:58: in the context where most normal people enjoy it.

00:49:01: - That's, that's very true.

00:49:03: - It's a very nice way to round up this podcast, I think.

00:49:07: - I think so.

00:49:08: So it's goodbye from me, Jamie Good.

00:49:11: - Goodbye from me too, Emily.

00:49:15: - And goodbye from me, Doug Rigg.

00:49:16: - Till next time.

00:49:18: - See you then.

00:49:19: - Cheers.

00:49:20: - Cheers.

00:49:20: (bell rings)

00:49:23: (laughing)

00:49:25: - Can't even do that.

00:49:26: (upbeat music)

00:49:29: (upbeat music)

00:49:31: (upbeat music)

00:49:34: (upbeat music)

00:49:36: .