recursion

Turns out that most wine snobs can't even tell white wine from red wine, and their rating of a wine changes based on the label on the bottle:

[Frederic] Brochet carried out two studies. In the first, he invited 54 of Bordeaux's eminent wine experts to sample different bottles, including a white wine to which he had added a flavourless substance giving it a red colour. Not a single expert noticed. "It is a well known psychological phenomonen -- you taste what you are expecting to taste," M Brochet said. "They were expecting to taste a red wine, and so they did." Similar experiments elsewhere had come up with similar results.

"About 2 or 3 per cent of people detect the white wine flavour, but invariably they have little experience of wine culture. Connoisseurs tend to fail to do so. The more training they have, the more mistakes they make because they are influenced by the colour of the wine."

In the second test, 57 experts tasted the same average bottle of Bordeaux wine on two occasions. The first time it was labelled as a high-prestige grand cru, and the second time it was labelled as a cheap vin de table. When they thought it was a grand cru, the experts described it as agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded. When they thought it was a vin de table, they said it was weak, short, light, flat, faulty and with a sting. Forty said the wine was good when they thought it was expensive, but only 12 when it was cheap.

I'm going on vacation in Sonoma next month, and I'll try to take the wine with a grain of salt.