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Adventures in Blind Tasting
By D. Mark Gapinski, CSW

I've lived my life to this point, generally avoiding placing myself in embarrassing and humiliating situations. I do not golf, ski slopes with moguls, or attempt to speak French with someone who actually does. I do not sing in public. One inevitably humiliating situation I just can't seem to avoid is blind tasting wine. As a wine professional of sorts, everyone seems to expect that I can easily identify a wine by smelling and tasting it. In fact,  little could be further from the truth. I'm certainly not alone in this. The internet is full of videos of sommeliers misidentifying Chablis as Gruner Veltliner or wine writers confusing Cabernet Sauvignon with Merlot. Brave souls putting that out there for eternity.

Recently, the Wine Guys and Gals at the Grapevine Cottage decided it would be both fun and educational to do blind tastings for the staff on Saturdays. We jumped into the deep end of the pool. We would each secretly buy a bottle of wine and pour it into a decanter. The wines were blinded in a way that no one even knew which wine was theirs. We only had a few rules. First, the wine needed to be at least 75% one varietal. Second, for obvious reasons, there couldn't be only one red or one white wine. We inevitably chose red wines. We agreed, informally, to avoid exotic varietals until we had some idea of our capabilities. Finally, we elected to focus only on identifying the varietal and where we thought the wine might be from. Vintage year and producer seemed a bridge too far.

None of us were shocked by how difficult it was to identify wines blinded. How can anything so familiar suddenly seem so complicated? While we had a lot of fun with this exercise, our success rate of getting both varietal and geography correct was around 10-20%. One week, two people unwittingly selected the same wine, a low probability event given we have about 1200 labels to choose from. One taster stated the two wines were very similar, but in the end, we all called them different wines. We all correctly called them Cabernet Sauvignon, but the geographies were different. Over the course of several weeks, we improved but from a meager baseline.

So, why is blind tasting so difficult? My guess, informed by a bit of research, comes down to expectation. When you go through the process of selecting a wine to drink, your brain creates a set of expectations as to what sort of sensory experience you are about to have. Seeing a label or being told a wine is Pinot Noir, for example, brings to mind all the memories of the smells and tastes of earlier Pinot Noir experiences. At that point, smelling and tasting the wine becomes largely confirmatory, matching well (hopefully) with the expectations your brain has created. Blind tasting does not allow those expectations to be created.  Your brain is on an island, desperately trying to map the sensory signals being received onto a library of earlier wine-tasting experiences without any template to follow. No wonder there's confusion! Evidence for the importance of expectation is that the tasters were generally able to determine which wine was the one they selected. Another complication may be that there are a wide variety of expressions for a given varietal. Chardonnay, for example,  can manifest itself as a crisp, steely Chablis or as a buttery oak bomb from California. It takes a good deal of tasting experience to understand and recognize what is within the limits of normal for a given varietal.

I am hardly in a solid position to give others advice on blind tasting, but I have learned a few things. It's important to be systematic in evaluating the wine. Look, smell, sip, think. Even by just looking at the wine, you might be able to eliminate some possibilities. You often discover what a wine is by eliminating what it isn't. I found taking notes to be helpful. One thing I learned early on is that after systematically going through the look, smell, and sip process, you're better off going with your initial impressions. I've talked myself out of many correct initial guesses by simply over-analyzing the wine. Finally, practice makes progress. Working at the Grapevine Cottage, we have the opportunity to taste lots of different wines each week. Wine professionals preparing for exams will taste dozens of wines daily (taste, mind you!). As you work at blind tasting, you'll get better at it.

What tips can I give you if you want to try a blind tasting? First of all, consider enrolling a few friends in the process, folks you wouldn't mind going 0-4 around. Try to limit the number of wines to no more than four. Things just get too confusing if there are too many wines. Initially, stick to mainstream varietals. Be sure you can tell a Sauvignon Blanc from a Chardonnay before you move to esoteric Italian whites. Stick to single-varietal wines as much as possible. Blending further complicates blind tasting. Try to identify wines that are typical of the varietal. If you need help with what's typical, consult with a knowledgeable Wine Guy or Gal at the Grapevine Cottage. It's important to get the wine out of the bottle it came in. Pour it into an inexpensive carafe or even an empty wine bottle. A lot of information can be learned from bottle shape and weight. The capsule can also be a giveaway. You can introduce a junior varsity twist that makes the process a lot easier but still fun. After everyone has made a guess for all the wines, bring out the original bottles. Now, it becomes a matching game. Our success rates went from about 10-20% to 50-75% with this modification. Once your brain can start creating some expectations for you, it becomes a lot easier to figure out who's who!

While blind wine tasting can put a few bruises on your ego, it's actually a lot of fun. You'll see wine in a new, fresh way that will challenge preconceived notions. Don't hesitate to consult with any of the Grapevine Cottage staff to help plan your next blind tasting experience.

June 26, 2024