For The Love Of Port

Why are you against blind tasting?
I think it's infantilizing. It gives consumers the illusion of a level playing ground. I think we're all very open to the idea that because we're Americans and we're democrats with a small d, aristocracy is a fiction and if everybody is given the same opportunity, then everybody can shine equally. I think there's a lot more to it than that. I think that's a dumbed down way of looking at wine.

I think for evaluating wine, there's a great deal to be learned by knowing what you're dealing with, the history, past performance, past experiences. It seems silly to me that only wine critics are asked to shut their eyes to that.

That's only the beginning of my objections.

Why should wine evaluators be asked to taste blind when nobody else is? There are a lot of good educational reasons to taste a wine blind. But I don't think it's a good way to evaluate wine.

Rob C. wrote:I found this quite an interesting opinion:

Why are you against blind tasting?
I think it's infantilizing. It gives consumers the illusion of a level playing ground. I think we're all very open to the idea that because we're Americans and we're democrats with a small d, aristocracy is a fiction and if everybody is given the same opportunity, then everybody can shine equally. I think there's a lot more to it than that. I think that's a dumbed down way of looking at wine.

I think for evaluating wine, there's a great deal to be learned by knowing what you're dealing with, the history, past performance, past experiences. It seems silly to me that only wine critics are asked to shut their eyes to that.

That's only the beginning of my objections.

Why should wine evaluators be asked to taste blind when nobody else is? There are a lot of good educational reasons to taste a wine blind. But I don't think it's a good way to evaluate wine.

I can see why this might apply to some wines when drunk very young - some can be tough and ungenerous and show little of the beauty that will ultimately develop, and tasting blind without knowing the proper context might therefore lead to an inaccurate assessment. Using the example of a Cornas, that seems to be the main point Asimov is making in this NYT article regarding his objections to blind tasting.

But otherwise I'm in favour of eg: Sandeman 07 having a chance to be judged alongside Taylor 07 without label bias. The interviewer for the linked articles aslo did an interesting follow up to Asimov's answer on this point - here