Comments on the Wall Street Journal "A Taste of Illusion" Article

The Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal issue of Nov. 14-15 featured a front page article entitled "A Hint of Hype, A Taste of Illusion" about how "They pour, sip and with passion and snobbery, glorify and doom wines. But studies say the wine-rating system is badly flawed. How the experts fare against a coin toss." It is a very interesting article, and I agree with much of it, although it makes more assumptions than it should. Wine evaluation can be highly subjective, and results can vary significantly. But I do have a few comments to make.

My first comment is about the contention that "even flavor-trained professionals cannot reliably identify more than three or four components in a mixture, although wine critics regularly report tasting six or more." I agree that even the most seasoned taster cannot identify more than four components at one moment. But wine continually changes in the glass so that multiple components can be identified in repeated nosings and sips. In re-evaluating wines from samples purchased at tasting rooms, I generally will spend 10-20 minutes smelling, tasting and swirling to pick up the various components. Continued tasting can reveal more nuances or shortcomings as well. I also do believe that the more complex a wine is, the more components there are to be identified (so I'll just go on and keep providing detailed descriptions in my reviews).

I totally agree with the randomness of wine competitions. I have already addressed this in my blog of