French wine experts can't tell a grand cru from an ordinary table wine

In other news, experts can't tell the difference between a long line and a short line:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments</a><p>This study doesn't show that there is no difference between a great wine and a mediocre wine. All it shows is that people can be tricked into disbelieving their senses.<p>EDIT: As for the study about experts disagreeing, you could just as easily claim that because some ice cream experts prefer vanilla and others prefer chocolate, the ice cream industry is teh fraud.

Yet wine ratings in places like Wine Spectator are always done in a blind manner.<p><a href="http://www.winespectatorschool.com/wineschool/Tasting_Guide" rel="nofollow">http://www.winespectatorschool.com/wineschool/Tasting_Guide</a><p>Wonder how both things can be true at the same time? Perhaps the tasting methodologies are just a fancy random-number generator? Something smells fishy.

It's indeed an industry loaded with pretentiousness. <p>Here's a clip from a related and interesting article about the wine industry:<p>Source: <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/05/news/companies/Two_Buck_Chuck.biz2/index.htm" rel="nofollow">http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/05/news/companies/Two_Buck_Chuc...</a> <p>&#62;&#62;&#62;In 2002, Franzia persuaded Trader Joe's to sell a low-end label called Charles Shaw (after the winemaker who sold the tony label to Franzia, and dubbed Two Buck Chuck by consumers) that waged war on domestic wines in the $4 to $10 range - and was named best chardonnay in a blind taste test at July's California State Fair over far pricier competition. The label is one of America's fastest-growing, selling 5 million cases per year, all through one chain of stores.

If you go to the store without much prior knowledge and grab an expensive bottle of the shelf your chances of getting something great aren't that high. Some things to consider: wines sell for the same price whether or not it was a good or a bad year. A premium wine in a bad year is likely to be less enjoyable than a cheap wine in good year. Premium wines are generally made to be aged, so if you don't cellar your wines you are wasting your money buying an expensive wine. Even the snobbiest wine collector doesn't suggest there is a linear relationship between price and enjoyment, but premium wines generally take more effort to make.<p>A lot of the quality of a wine comes down to the fruit. Do you doubt your ability to identify a beautiful strawberry?

&#60;expert&#62;<p>I don't know why anyone even bothers serving Coke. Pepsi is so much better. Obviously.<p>And Rails is so much better than PHP.<p>And Apple is so much better than Microsoft.<p>And Chevy is so much better than Ford.<p>See how easy that was?<p>&#60;/expert&#62;

You should see what master sommeliers have to go through to earn that title. There are more people out there than you could imagine who can look at a glass of wine and tell you what varietal (or roughly what blend) it is, what vintage it is from, what location the grapes were grown in, rough ABV, etc. It's seriously mind boggling how good some of those guys are.