Skip to about the 20 minute mark. I’m not a huge P&T fan (fell asleep at their Vegas show!), but this is funny stuff.
@ Mike Heyse: your quote above from the study, “In this experiment the perception of fragrance and taste conformed therefore to colour,” actually makes my point. I need no convincing that our senses can fool us, but the red dye test does nothing to convince me that there is no difference in the taste between red and white wines (or white and white or red and red, for that matter.)
There is a lot of BS in wine tasting, but there is BS everywhere in wine, including the (over-)pricing of many bottles. But having tasted the likes of 2BC and Barefoot, I have no doubt that I would hate them in a blind tasting. I may not be a super-taster, but I definitely have a sense of taste.
But could you pick out a red from a white? From opaque glasses? Or with the dye test? Blindfolded? Try it! I ask again, why not? Of what are ye afraid?!
This makes no sense to me: “the red dye test does nothing to convince me that there is no difference in the taste between red and white wines (or white and white or red and red, for that matter.)”
I don’t think that’s what the “test” was getting at. The test was trying to see whether the tasters could spot that it was a white wine. The dyed white almost certainly tasted different from the reds, but apparently not different enough to be outed as a white. Not one of the 50+ spotted the trick. Were they wine experts? Who knows. Possibly not. All the more reason for several of us here, who think we can beat the test, to take the test. I intend to try soon, hopefuly this weekend.
The real trick would be dying a red wine white! 
Fine, I will clarify. “the red dye test does nothing to convince me that there is no significant difference in the taste between red and white wines.”
My main point is that the eyes are extremely powerful, and people will believe them before anything else, including taste and smell. To have an honest test, the eyes should not be deceived, but removed as a factor. That is all.
I have no fear of blind tastings, I love them; it taught me that pricey wines are usually BS. Maybe I should grab a (relatively) inexpensive Mercurey and Macon tonight and give it a try. I’m heading to the wine shop tonight, in any case… ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
“The conditions under which most wine is consumed” is basically an endless list of conditions with limitless permutations.
The purpose of tasting in a controlled environment is to avoid distractions and confounding environmental influences, offering the taster a chance to render a “true” (reproducible) judgement of the wine.
When we sit down to drink wine with family and friends it is these very distractions and environmental influences that make the occasion so memorable.
The purpose of tasting in a controlled environment is to answer the question “what is this wine?”, not “how will it play off my wife’s perfume?” or “how well will it go with veal shanks?”
The answer to your question is: “None whatsoever”.
Nor should it. At least for the test mentioned in the OP link (the one by Brochet).
Giving people white wine dyed red and telling them it is red wine doesn’t test the proposition “is there no significant difference in the taste between red and white wines?” It looks at whether your tasters can be fooled by visual cues.
In truth, though, it is not as easy as one might think to tell the difference between some reds and whites. Easy enough to test yourself… buy a red light bulb and some black wine glasses, and have someone pour you a randomly selected wine to try.
This tired premise comes up time after time. The tools you use to taste wines are the same exact tools you use to taste cheeseburgers and pizza. If you can tell the difference between those two things you can taste and adjudicate wine. There’s not some magic part of the brain that only experiences wine and no other flavors and aromas.
Nonsense.
This is some good shit!
This is pretty good.
Whatever.
This tastes like shit!
This is how some people taste cheeseburgers…
Sitting by themselves in a booth with white walls on three sides, carefully adjusted lighting, and purified air pumped into the room.
These kinds of techniques only come into play if you’re making some claim to accuracy and consistency in a professional setting.
Whatever you do by yourself, for yourself is fine.
I’ve got some of the opaque black reidels, and I have tried a number of times different wines to experiment (ie red vs white), and not once had any trouble picking the wines correctly…