It’s called “So, You Think You Know Wine?” and three wine experts compete at blind-tasting wines. Each episode is about 5 minutes long, making it easy to binge-watch these.
Pro’s: About wine. I get to see their thought processes.
Con’s: They show the viewer the wine, so you don’t get to play-along or guess. Most of the wines are cheap and limited to what’s available in Ontario, Canada. The format changes in seasons 3-5 as they try a game-show format, and then a comedian host.
But still… it’s about wine, so it’s great.
Here’s an episode from season six (yes I watched six seasons since yesterday)
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[Special thanks to Glenn for showing me how to embed a youtube video!]
I must admit that I watched a ton of these before taking my Sommelier exam, they reinforced that even experts really screw things up sometimes, and sometimes they get it spot on. Restored some of my confidence when I was totally messing up my blind tasting.
I saw the title to this thread and instantly thought “I bet it’s So You Think You Know Wine” !
I’ve been watching this show for years and absolutely love it. I really like the MS John.
There was one season or two where the format was AWFUL partly because of the host and how they set it up but all in all it’s a really fun series and I wish there were more things like this. I think they could do a little better with picking the bottles though.
We used to do this weekly for many years. Trying to get a group together out west now. But I don’t want to hear the opinions of others until I have my own clarified, which is why we never talked about the wine until everyone had written down their ideas. The thought processes of others get distracting and in the clip, were a little irritating and since I’m easily distracted, I would have been focused on the one guy’s thinking that the oak somehow made it new or old world.
It’s fun to do these things. Even if you’re mostly wrong most of the time.
I enjoy single-taster evaluations personally, but this video was fun. Thanks for sharing!
Very often, a group tasting can lead a taster off-course, second guessing his/her initial reactions to the sampled wine. Perhaps this phenomenon is less common among more experienced tasters?
On a note about the specific wine in this video, I have been consistently impressed with the upper/mid-tier products from Concha y Toro, especially the Sauvignon Blanc (Terrunyo) and Cabernet Sauvignon (Marques de Casa Concha) wines. For Syrah, Matetic EQ Syrah is very good.
Thanks for the reco - I’ve been enjoying the hell out of the first 5 episodes so far. Like you said…I’m pretty much down to give any wine related show/series a shot, and this ones been really entertaining.
Yeah - I think the group can get thrown off when the first to speak ‘leads’ them in the wrong direction with incorrect thoughts. I think it would be more helpful if each tasted on their own, then described their thoughts when they were giving the answers.
Glad this is getting some well deserved traction here. I’ve been following from the beginning. The wine selections are at times questionable (why do an episode on a Sicilian Pinot Grigio?). I’d prefer they stick to traditional varieties and regions.
I def have a bit of a man crush on JS. Very strong palate alignment with me and he is a damn good blind taster thanks in no small part to his MS training. I often buy the bottles he recommends in our local market and am rarely disappointed.