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OUTTAKE #4 Connoisseurs

Frédéric Brochet, a researcher in the enology department at the University of Bordeaux, invited fifty-four wine-lovers to participate in a series of two wine tasting experiments. The subjects were asked to describe a red wine and a white wine that were served in clear wine glasses. A few days later, the tasters were invited back, and each subject was again served a glass of white wine and a glass of red wine. The samples in both glasses were actually the same white wine; the “red wine” had been turned red with an odorless and flavorless food dye. The real red wine of the first tasting had been described by all the subjects with classical red wine terms such as “dark,” “intense,” “complex,” or “blackcurrent;” the real white wine of the first tasting had been described using classical white wine terms such as “floral,” “fresh,” “pale,” or “crisp.” During the second tasting, the subjects all used white wine terms to describe the white wine, while the white-wine-pretending-to-be-red was generally described using classic red wine terms. Brochet told an interviewer: “About two or three per cent of people detect the white wine flavour, but invariably they have little experience of wine culture. Connoisseurs tend to fail to do so. The more training they have, the more mistakes they make because they are influenced by the color of the wine."