wine sooth

Blind games.

Steve Heimoff, today, wrote an interesting post about the importance of tasting blind. The core of his argument is that it eliminates taster bias and it levels the playing field.

I disagree vehemently. In short, blind tasting is a fun exercise and can make for an entertaining party game.

I believe tasting blind, while eliminating “cues” of reputation (from the label), relies primarily on the taster’s preferences. The idea of leveling the field disregards regional variation. This notion represents very misguided thinking which can only contribute to the much-decried homogenization and loss of diversity in wine. (more…)

From CNN.com's Political Ticker

Ever get the feeling some people have no perspective?

Ever get the sense that some journalists get a little shrill in their pursuit of sensationalism (and, in the process, get a little sloppy with facts and too generous with opinion or fail to see how they interject their biases into the story)?

Apparently, that is the case with the folks who run CNN’s “Political Ticker”. Now they are decrying the choice of Shafer Cabernet “Hillside Select” 2003 to be poured for “leaders of the U.K., France, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and 11 developing economies” who are in Washington D.C. to address the current economic turmoil. (more…)

Cheap Drunk

Chris Rock jokes that the best way to reduce gun-related deaths is to make bullets so expensive, potential offenders would think twice about using them. That seems to be the logic underlying the results of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study which found that increasing alcohol taxes reduced alcohol-related deaths.

This study tracked the relationship between changes in alcohol prices (as affected by increased excise taxes) and the incidence of “alcohol poisoning and alcoholic liver disease, and deaths linked to alcohol, such as cirrhosis and chronic pancreatitis” in Alaska. It did not track alchol-related traffic fatalities. (more…)

You have to show your work.

The wine bloggosphere is revisiting the “wine-scoring-is-bad” theme lately. Even the OWC has seen an intense debate over the meaning (or meaninglessness) of numerical wine rating - in which I was very active.

The main arguments in the anti-numbers and anti-objectivity debate are: 1) the 100-point system is meaningless and gives a false sense of accuracy, 2) wine is so subjective that one cannot establish a standardized numerical system and 3) wine is an aesthetic thing, and as a work of art, its quality cannot be captured with a number.

While I do not categorically disagree with all of these three arguments (I disagree with some more than I do with others), there are profound misconceptions underlying the thinking that drives those three arguments. (more…)

Paradox. From: http://dedroidify.blogspot.com

The last few weeks in the wine blogosphere have seen a large number posts taking the contest between Barack Obama and John McCain to realms previously unseen in political discourse. While some offer pretty humorous takes on comparing wines to the candidates, it is undeniable that others are stating their support for a candidate.

More often than not, that candidate is Barack Obama. That is fine by me (hey, the blogosphere is a free and unrestricted medium). But there is a painful philosophical paradox which many bloggers must face.

I would like to hear how many in the wine producing, wine writing, wine selling and wine promoting sectors explain the following paradox. (more…)

Jaguar X-type

The wine world is changing. Wine is changing. Amidst recurring discussions of trends and the globalization of wine (as a result of the influence of a purported small cabal of people), and murmurs that not every wine-producing region has the stuff to make world-class, complex wines, there is one essential point that goes unmentioned:

Democratizing luxury goods - making them appealing and accessible to the average consumer - devalues them and causes a decline in quality standards.

A luxury commodity is devalued by democratization because increased supply makes the good more common and, thus, less desirable. This seems to be the basic tenet of this book. Additionally, quality inherently declines with increasing volume of production. (more…)

Young adults and alcohol.

There has been much discussion lately about lowering the legal drinking age. Tom Wark has argued strongly for lowering the legal drinking age in the past and has again spoken in support of the idea.

Lowering the legal drinking age will not do anything to reduce road fatalities and it will not make 18, 19 or 25 year-olds more responsible with alcohol. The parenting attitudes and practices of an entire country would need to change to affect a difference in the behaviors of 18-25 year-olds.

Not that it would be easy. And it would not happen overnight. Then, there is the fact that we are still dealing with individuals whose brain development is not always ready for truly adult decisions. (more…)