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1 correction found
no human can differentiate anything beyond the upper middle segment for wine.
This overstates what the cited wine research shows. Brochet’s paper was about how experts describe wine, and multiple studies have found that trained tasters can distinguish wines and even separate premium from secondary wines under blind or constrained tasting conditions.
Full reasoning
The claim is too strong and is contradicted by the research it invokes.
1) Frédéric Brochet’s 2001 paper does not show that “no human can differentiate anything beyond the upper middle segment for wine.”
The paper’s abstract says Brochet and Dubourdieu analyzed tasting notes from four expert tasters to study wine language. Their conclusion was that wine language relies on prototypes rather than fully analytical description. That is a claim about how tasters verbalize what they perceive, not proof that humans cannot perceptually distinguish higher-end wines.
2) Blind-tasting research shows trained tasters can in fact identify meaningful wine differences above chance.
A 2018 study of the Oxford University Blind Tasting Society found that with training, blind-tasting guesses for grape variety became more accurate, and for grape variety, location, and vintage the most common within-group guess was significantly more likely to be correct than chance/frequency baselines. That directly contradicts the blanket claim that no human can tell wines apart beyond some vague “upper middle segment.”
3) Expert tasters also show measurable perceptual advantages and can distinguish quality tiers.
A PubMed-indexed study comparing wine experts with novices found superior olfactory recognition by expert wine judges. And a 2020 study of expert tasters reported “a clear quality distinction favoring premium wines” when experts judged red wines under multiple sensory conditions. Those findings are inconsistent with the assertion that nobody can differentiate high-end wine quality.
So the problem is not merely that the post is skeptical; it is that it converts studies about bias, language, and imperfect judgment into an absolute empirical claim about human inability, which the cited literature does not establish and later studies contradict.
4 sources
- Wine descriptive language supports cognitive specificity of chemical senses - PubMed
Abstract: In order to understand wine perception we analyzed tasting notes of four expert wine tasters... (2) Wine language is based on prototypes and not on detailed analytical description.
- Does Blind Tasting Work? Investigating the Impact of Training on Blind Tasting Accuracy and Wine Preference | Journal of Wine Economics
Abstract: Over time, guesses for grape variety increased in terms of accuracy... for grape variety, location, and vintage, the chances of the most common within-group guess being correct were significantly higher than the underlying frequency distribution.
- Demystifying wine expertise: olfactory threshold, perceptual skill and semantic memory in expert and novice wine judges - PubMed
Results showed superior olfactory recognition by expert wine judges, despite their olfactory sensitivity and bias measures being similar to those of novices.
- Comparing the effects of vision, smell and taste in red wine quality judgments by experts: sensory cues, mental imagery and verbal representations as drivers of consensus in the multisensory space • IVES
Overall, our results showed a coherent quality concept across unconstrained and constrained wine tastings, with a clear quality distinction favoring premium wines.