Blind and sighted tastings

Horses for courses: Both blind and sighted tastings have something to offer when it comes to wine judging.Between the life of a reprobate and a teetotaller lies a whole world of indulgence. Only as zealous a temperance advocate as Carry Nation would seriously argue that, for the average human being, the first sip of good wine is the first step on the slippery slope to perdition. In most matters we have come to doubt – if not to ridicule – extreme views. Hardly anyone seriously espouses the policies of Joe Stalin any more, just as supporters of the ideas of Pol Pot or Eugene Terre’Blanche now happily find themselves in the minority. Why, then, has the debate over whether wines should be tasted blind or sighted become so polarised and acquired such vehemence?

 

Fight aficionados would probably account for the intransigent nature of the opposing positions by explaining that the nuance of debate, the refinement of ideas as a synthesis of two quite diverse positions, requires an open-mindedness that is almost always absent from a battlefield. When the intention is to draw blood, rather than to resolve a discussion, there is great value in belligerence.

If the blind vs. sighted camps focused on the pursuit of a useful truth, they would immediately acknowledge that judging wines blind can produce a result which a sighted tasting could never hope to obtain. In the same way, rating a known product can yield information which could never really be discernible to a panellist sampling blind.

Skilled tasters, judging a young wine in a show environment, will establish an assessment based on the quality of the fruit and how it has been handled. They should be able to rate the achievement of the winemaker and the viticulturist rather than the merits of the site. Guaranteed to be dispassionate about the brand, they are like a vet with a foal – able to comment on the mechanical potential of the creature, rather than the more interesting question (from the investor’s perspective) of the value of the bloodline.

The sighted tasting, on the other hand, deals with the long-term potential – not in survival terms (the vet’s job) but in racewinning attributes. A young vintage of Mouton or Lafite should simply taste like an immaculately made Bordeaux blend. What should be discernible to a show judge is the weight and balance of the fruit, the barrel-ageing, the seamlessness of the tannin management, the persistence of flavours. Whether a wine generously endowed with all these attributes will turn out to be one of the great bottles of the century finally depends on something which can never be evident to someone who has not had sight of the pedigree.
When the French talk honestly about terroir, they mean the tried-and-tested features of a wine expertly made from grapes harvested from a particular site – where the location of the vineyards has added its stamp of personality to the finished product. Proof of the meaningfulness of the term is easily come by: when experienced tasters consistently identify old bottles served blind, distinguishing between two relatively proximate sites vinified by the same grower, terroir alone determines the difference.

Terroir, in this sense of the word, is the wine’s pedigree, and it only fully expresses itself with the onset of maturity. The foal’s potential as a racehorse can only be properly assessed after its elevage – once it is race ready and fully formed. Specialists in judging horseflesh make at least as many mistakes as tasters for Platter’s.

However, if bloodlines weren’t important, no one would pay the astronomical amounts at which the right stock trades at yearling sales, nor would there be any buyers when the Bordeaux chateaux unveil their en primeur prices.

Michael Fridjhon is a leading wine writer and consultant with extensive international judging experience.