re: Watched the documentary Somm last night

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This documentary showed me how much of it is a learned skill.

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The primary skill in selling wine is creating a "story" - so and so hill is only in the sun for so and so hours per day and this vintage is the year the so and so army attacked so and so etc. etc. Human consumers are suckers for a good story.

Very few humans actually have the "master taster" ability - in anything (wine, food, etc.) Virtually all of the rest is bullshite. The consumers themselves are full of shite almost always. The entire concept of a sommelier recommending appropriate wines to normal diners at normal restaurants is a fraud in and of itself. The entire practice of letting someone at the table sample the wine to see if it's "acceptable" is nothing but window-dressing dramatics.

Wine is nothing more than a socially acceptable way for relatively affluent people to get drunk in public.

Even the people who say "I know what I like, I don't care about the price" are full of shite, as they would be unlikely to pick the "one that they like" out of a blind lineup 5 minutes after they declared their like of it.

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I was curious when you mentioned the junk science if it applied to the entire field as a whole or just the majority of it.

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The entire field. I mean, it's obviously possible to understand grape varietals, geographies, process of manufacture, etc. The junk science is in pretending as if human palettes are somehow highly discerning amidst all of this mumbo jumbo.

There are real-world experiences in which humans have judged white wine to be red wine merely because it had food coloring added to it.

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There are real-world experiences in which humans have judged white wine to be red wine merely because it had food coloring added to it.

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I get that, but just playing devils advocate here I HIGHLY doubt one of the hundred or so MSs out there would fall for this.

I mean I myself can probably BARELY discern the difference in brands of light beer but I imagine a profession brewer can tell the difference quite well.

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No you can't.

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are you telling me I can't tell the difference in a bud light and miller lite?

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are you telling me I can't tell the difference in a bud light and miller lite?

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I'm telling you you would likely not do better than random at the triangle test, yes.

Just watched, and regardless of whether or not you believe the whole field is bs or not, I definitely think it's worth a viewing.

Spolier























I'm so glad that bitch arse Ian didn't pass the first time.