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[isis] 14/4/2011 10:55

In my own experience I select the best Wines for the early part of the evening as the taste buds abandon their finesse after the first bottle.
Often you cannot tell the difference between a five pound and a fifty pound bottle of plonk. Some may deny this but I'm sure if you did a supervised test all would be revealed.

[bionicdog] 14/4/2011 10:52

It was done in Scotland.
I think that most people can tell a nice wine when they taste it. The real lesson should be that some expensive wines are not nice.

[isis] 14/4/2011 09:10

Plonkers:-



Expensive wine and cheap plonk taste the same to most people
In a blind taste test, volunteers were unable to distinguish between expensive and cheap wine

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Ian Sample, science correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 14 April 2011
Article history

People fool themselves into thinking expensive wines taste better than cheap ones, says psychologist Richard Wiseman. Photograph: Graham Turner/Guardian
An expensive wine may well have a full body, a delicate nose and good legs, but the odds are your brain will never know.

A survey of hundreds of drinkers found that on average people could tell good wine from plonk no more often than if they had simply guessed.

In the blind taste test, 578 people commented on a variety of red and white wines ranging from a £3.49 bottle of Claret to a £29.99 bottle of champagne. The researchers categorised inexpensive wines as costing £5 and less, while expensive bottles were £10 and more.

The study found that people correctly distinguished between cheap and expensive white wines only 53% of the time, and only 47% of the time for red wines. The overall result suggests a 50:50 chance of identifying a wine as expensive or cheap based on taste alone – the same odds as flipping a coin.

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at Hertfordshire University, conducted the survey at the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

"People just could not tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine," he said. "When you know the answer, you fool yourself into thinking you would be able to tell the difference, but most people simply can't."

All of the drinkers who took part in the survey were attending the science festival, but Wiseman claims the group was unlikely to be any worse at wine tasting than a cross-section of the general public.

"The real surprise is that the more expensive wines were double or three times the price of the cheaper ones. Normally when a product is that much more expensive, you would expect to be able to tell the difference," Wiseman said.

People scored best when deciding between two bottles of Pinot Grigio, with 59% correctly deciding which was which. The Claret, which cost either £3.49 or £15.99, fooled most people with only 39% correctly identifying which they had tasted.

In 2008, a study led by Adrian North, a psychologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, claimed that music helped boost the flavour of certain wines. North, who was commissioned by a Chilean winemaker, reported that Cabernet Sauvignon was most affected by "powerful and heavy" music, while Chardonnay benefited from "zingy and refreshing" sounds.

[bigbigdave] 31/3/2011 19:19

Oddbins in admin.

Shame, had some very decent wine from them over the last 25 years

[valhalla3] 11/3/2011 19:37

Nyce combo dog im on teh black sheep D=#

[bionicdog] 11/3/2011 19:28

Back to the NOP board with you Val.
I'm having Czech Bud followed by a Barossa shiraz.

[valhalla3] 11/3/2011 19:07

whats everyonez tipple 2nyte tehn? H=#

[valhalla3] 28/2/2011 07:06

thanks enia I=#

[jazza] 27/2/2011 22:09

or better still..

[maxk] 27/2/2011 22:02

Talking of Wagner...

[valhalla3] 27/2/2011 19:05

enia anything gud about my name? O=#

[enia] 27/2/2011 18:36

i just checked with a friend iN L.A. and they were not copying you but one of the owners of the vineyard is french and his american partners made fun of him thus the frog in the name but they probably stole the bionic from you !!!

[bionicdog] 27/2/2011 17:46

They tried to nick the name off me , but I wouldn't let them , so them used frog instead. I've been bionicdog since 1999 and I think that they started in 2000.

[enia] 27/2/2011 15:34

bionic dog is it a coincidence that your name is so similar to one of the best californian wines bionic frog by cayuse ? ihave some bottles and it is unbelievably good !!

[valhalla3] 27/2/2011 15:21

i cudnt elp it dog, owt 2 do wif alkohol n i av 2 poke me stiky beek in lyk, just bak from givin a pint o blud, so opend up a bottal o black sheep 2 up me nrg levalz i=#

[valhalla3] 27/2/2011 09:32

get it down you bob, your living teh dream like us ale quaffers ova ere me duk L=#

[jazza] 27/2/2011 09:17

Thanks for the tip bobby, good to see you are enjoying yourself over there :)

[bobp] 27/2/2011 03:15

Guys, if you EVER get the chance to go to California, stay at the Lavender B&B at Yountville, just North of San Francisco. Its got the best upmarket feel about it and the number of Mich' starred eataries is amazing.
The rooms are fab and you get free wine and nibbles from 4.30 to 6.30, very nice!
Pinot Noir is the best of the best out here. You can pick a cracker for about $15 and a Petit Shiraz for about the same. Enjoy!

[dysonhooverman] 05/12/2010 13:26

Just finished a very delcious box of Portuguese Ramos Reservada 2009. Opened a bottle of my usual Hardy's afterwards and it tasted terrible.

Very very nice.

[waldron] 19/11/2010 15:57

Source;the connexion


2010 Beaujolais Nouveau is here
November 18, 2010
THE 2010 Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé and the first bottles were opened at €25 a pop in Japan while most of France was still asleep.

Almost 40 million bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau will be drunk in the next three weeks in a welcome respite from the troubles of the wine industry that have seen 1,400 vineyards close down in the past 10 years.

Corks popped around the world just after midnight as the fruity new-harvested wine was sampled by millions: with six million bottles going to Japan alone amongst 110 countries.

Bertrand Chatelet, head of Sicarex research institute for the study of Beaujolais wines, describes the 2010 wine as "very aromatic with strong hints of wild strawberries, raspberries and redcurrants".

That augurs well for this year after an excellent 2009 vintage but the sour reputation of previous years' new wines has been accused of tainting the rest of the industry in Beaujolais.

Now vintners are launching a new advertising campaign focusing on wine that you can lay down and drink in years to come vins de garde.

Inter Beaujolais president Dominique Capart said the problem was of their own making: "We have strained the vines for Beaujolais nouveau but our challenge is to continue to produce quality wines that can be laid down

[bigbigdave] 02/10/2010 21:59

Lanson Rose Champers on offer at Tesco, from 33 quid down to 19.99 PLUS a further 25% off when buying 6 until next Tuesday(5/10/2010).