Blind tasting
A blind tasting ( tasting ) is a validation of wines , beer , mineral water , cheese and many other foods and stimulants for possible objective quality and characteristic value of the product. This should be made possible by switching off other factors, such as the tasters' knowledge of the origin, manufacturer or similar, so that these factors cannot influence their judgment.
In spite of all the (irresolvable) subjectivity of human sensory impressions of the nose, tongue and palate, the aim is to bring the greatest possible degree of objectivity into sensory testing. The tasting should only be limited to the object or objects to be tried and B. not be influenced by known or "famous names". Only after the end of the rehearsal is it revealed: the assignment of numbers or other neutral identifications to the producer is created. A blank sample must therefore be prepared; As a rule, at least one preparatory person knows about the assignments. However, there are also methodologies that allow even this preparatory person to extract the knowledge.
Blind samples of wine
The blind tasting is a special, ambitious type of wine tasting . The aim of a blind tasting is to evaluate wine as objectively as possible based on its sensory characteristics and to award points in one of the evaluation systems without wanting to be influenced by names and labels .
For a blind tasting, wine is served for which no data is known - or crucial data are not given, in order to only evaluate the wine itself qualitatively, without knowledge of famous names, famous locations or famous winemakers who are objective (as far as possible) Could cloud or influence the valuation process.
The preparation of a blind tasting requires a certain amount of effort. It must be possible to understand afterwards which wines were served in which order. So usually there is a person present who “knows” what can be a clouding of the fun.
A variant in the direction of complete “blindness”, however, is that one person fills two or more wines from the bottles into carafes and removes the bottles, then a second person who is called changes the arrangement of the carafes - or not, e.g. B. swaps the carafes for two wines to be rated, or leaves them where they are. Then even the preparer no longer knows which wine he now has in the right and left glasses.
During blind tastings, interesting new discoveries and surprises, including those of the unpleasant kind, can arise when tips have to be given as to which exact wine from a known panel of wines is in which glass. This task has already seen some self-confident experts fail.
Normally, in a blind tasting, wines with similar characteristics are compared , e.g. B. Wines from a growing area and from one year. This is called the “blind horizontal”. Here z. B. 12 or 15 distinctive Bordeaux wines of the year 2000 are tasted "against each other". The other variant is the Château vertical (see vertical (wine) ): you test the wines of a single winery, but across different vintages. This is then a “blind vertical”.
Trivia
In the short story "Taste" by Roald Dahl , a wine connoisseur is introduced who claims to be able to specify the origin and vintage of wines based on taste alone. In a decisive bet, in the case of a very rare wine, he offers his two houses if his judgment should be wrong; however, if the information is correct, the host must give the husband his daughter to wife. Solution: The wine connoisseur wins the bet - initially. Then a servant brings the familiar reading glasses of the wine professional to give them back to the man. The alleged wine connoisseur is exposed as a fraud. He secretly snuck into the "preparation room" and looked at the bottle. He left the glasses next to the bottle.