I've always had a feeling oenaphiles were a fraud...

Wine experts beware. Read the whole story here.

"So much for objectivity. But results like this shouldn't be surprising.
I've blogged about this before, but it's such a cool experiment that it's worth
repeating. In 2001, Frederic Brochet, of the University of Bordeaux, conducted
two separate and very mischievous experiments. In the first test, Brochet
invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked
like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white
wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop
the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to
describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed
its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white
wine.

The second test Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a
middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was a fancy
grand-cru. The other bottle was an ordinary vin du table. Despite the fact that
they were actually being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the
differently labeled bottles nearly opposite ratings. The grand cru was
"agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded," while the vin du table was
"weak, short, light, flat and faulty". Forty experts said the wine with the
fancy label was worth drinking, while only 12 said the cheap wine was."

While I know many folks that consider themselves fine arbiters of the grape, I'm tempted to call bullshit. I would love to hold a blind taste-test to see if anyone can separate the wheat from the chaff. We'll go screw-top to grand cru, white to red, Loire to Napa...any takers?

It's much easier with scotch...I generally like the one that's in front of me.