The important point isn’t the vessel, it’s that the person giving it to you doesn’t know what it is. The sample can be in a decanter and the test would still be single blind if the person who poured the sample into the decanter was the person who then gave it to you.
The goal is to avoid the tester accidentally or unintentionally influencing the testing conditions because they know what the sample is (like if they ask for the lights to get turned up, or give you the glass in a specific way, or say anything that gives a subtle hint, etc.)
But how often do situations like these happen in normal tastings? Plus those “lights to get turned up” or “give the glass in a specific way” sound ridiculous to me; for example in our tastings the lights are always fully on and the wines are just passed around in a decanter. Nobody is giving any subtle hints. On the contrary, normally when we are guessing, we start at no hints whatsoever, and only if nobody is getting even close, the person who poured the wine might give some clues.
Sure, I’ve arranged some wine tastings in which the wines are fully blind for others and half blind for me, ie. I know which bottles I’ve selected but I don’t know in which order they come from. However, I can’t remember if I’ve ever been to tastings of this kind arranged by somebody else.
Anyways, I’ve identified correctly some wines in competitions where I’ve been a judge. There the wine glasses are on the table and there are no clues of any kind - we just rate the wines. If I’ve happened to taste a wine I think I’ve identified, I’ve scribbled the name of the wine on the score sheet.
Same. This is about the extent of it for me both personally and in watching others. Outside of watching a room full of Berserkers go from struggling to pick out AVAs (in a post IPNC Willamette Valley Pinot Noir tasting of a specific vintage) to calling which vineyard of Cameron a wine was (everyone one of us knew it was Cameron from the signature reduction).
To be fair, by making the tasting all one vintage, varietal, and region we had taken most of the achievable deductions out of the equation and just left the hard choices.
I don’t care particularly how common it is or not, I’m just providing a definition of “double blind.” I agree that double blind tastings probably don’t happen often at all and the title should have just said “blind.”
Just “blind” would be any kind of blind tasting. The term “double blind” for wine tastings in which you know nothing about the wines has been around for a long time, just google the term. Lotsofresults. While it might be the same term as double blind studies in clinical drug trials etc., it has a different meaning in this context.
I myself prefer the terms “half blind” where you know the wines, but not their order, and “full blind” where you don’t know anything about the wine. However, I can see “double blind” used to differentiate it from a normal “full blind” where one might get some kinds of subtle hints or other means of deduction, ie. bottle shape, who brought the wine, etc., even if nothing explicit is told about the wine - and in “double blind” all these kinds of elements are eliminated as well.
As OP, I should define terms. Double blind is sitting in front of glass or glasses of wine knowing absolutely nothing about what has been poured.
Others have pointed out that in blind tastings, everything is fair game. So it includes the shape of the bottle, the color of the glass, any neck label that is showing, knowing the cellar of the host etc etc.
It should be noted that the descriptions ‘single blind’ and ‘double blind’ can encompass a lot of subtle permutations.
Single blind, you know which wines are being poured in a group.
Double blind, you don’t know jackshit.
To be outrageous:
You are poured a dozen wines.
You are told they are all Bordeaux, and that some are red and some are white.
It is likely that you will be able to distinguish the colors.
But that’s it.
Happy Hunting.
Well, Steve, it’s a bit more complicated than thumbs up/down — at least earlier in the evening!
Our group in LA that tastes Burgundy double blind uses this rubric: one person is ordered to set the “over/under” on the vintage for bottle under scrutiny. That essentially means his/her best guess on vintage. The other 5 or so tasters then state whether it’s younger or older than the initial guess and why they feel that way. Triggers a good discussion.
Then we move onto guessing village. Iron means Gevrey, cherry gloss means Chambolle, spice means Vosne or lime zest means Chassagne, prim minerality means Puligny, etc —- the usual cliches. Then we debate Grand Cru or 1er. Then onto producer. The person who brought the wine isn’t allowed to say anything.
Some 20 minutes later the wine is nearly gone and we haven’t decided a damn thing! It’s glorious.
After dozens of events, I can’t remember anyone nailing the trifecta. Best is usually two elements.
This week at Marea I was pretty proud of nailing the vintage on our two reds — 02 Hudelot Noellat Richebourg (open-knit and rich) and 08 Rousseau CSJ (acids).
We have no lawyers in group but there’s a lot of debate and objections. We are trying to tighten up our game because by the time the reveal comes, there’s like 1 oz of wine left to ooh and aah over.
The funny thing about the reveal is how once people do see a baller label they unconsciously rethink their assessment and grab the Liger Bel-Air for a good slug before it’s drained.
As others have noted, we know certain tells of our crew: “No way Methuselah Steve is bringing a Cote de Beaune to Marea after his friend drove two hours to be here” or “No way is Wildcat bringing Coche on a Tuesday night at a rando Chinese joint that lets us bring wine in with no corkage.”
We should focus on what’s in the glass but the psychological Mindhunter sleuthing inevitably crops up.
Surprised there is confusion on double blind. Certainly you are sitting in front of glasses that you do not know ANYTHING about . . . If you are “double blinding” a wine with a friend and you know what they like and are likely to bring, I really do not consider this double blind.
“Half-blind” as @Otto_Forsberg puts it, is a much more reasonable proposition in my book. We do double blinds (which are hard and I have never guessed the exact producer, cuvee and year) and half blinds where people know what wines are in the line up, but not the order (glasses have ranged from 4 to 12 for us). In single blind tastings of a 4 bottle set, I think it is relatively easy to get 90% guesses dead-on (as an average) if the wines are not all of the same type, but double blind is really a tough exercise and I think if you can get the grape and country more than 50% of the time, you are upper echelon good.
Best I’ve ever done is narrowing to region/varietal/relative age. Worst I’ve ever done… recent vintage of Meomi. I had not realized how far that wine had fallen off from the first time I’d tasted it.
Personally I think blind tasting is more fun and educational when experienced tasters (ie: us) know the theme broadly, like: Red Burg or Bordeaux, “Chard from somewhere” or something.
But if the bottles are 100% anything goes? Almost no one has that broad experience, except Otto and Mike. I have dipped my toe occasionally in Riesling, Italians, Bordeaux, Rhône, Spain, CA/OR etc, not to mention whites, but I’m not much above a novice there.
Once my friend tried to make things really difficult for me. Poured me a wine (and a few other people) blind, without any kinds of hints whatsoever. Not saying anything about the wine, if it was something obvious or obscure, nothing.
After about a minute of sniffing, tasting and analyzing:
So not completely correct, but that friend was expecting nobody had any idea what we were drinking even after when the bottle was revealed, but I went for the correct answer immediately with my first guess.
So, yes. Anything goes. Although it really depends on the wine! I’d say 75% of the wines I taste blind, I have no idea what we are drinking; for 20% I have an educated guess; for +4% I’m quite sure of the region and/or variety; and for only less than 1% I am actually able to identify the wine immediately or with some thinking and deduction.
However, if you drink wines blind all the time, you’re bound to get correct guesses eventually.
A group of about 15 were touring Bordeaux with Francois Audouze back in 2005. We had a tasting, tour, and dinner one evening at La Tour de By with the manager or owner. Francois had brought a “special wine” that he wanted to serve blind at the end of the evening, and we were all supposed to guess.
Unknown to Francois, earlier in the afternoon one of the group who was sitting at our table overheard him telling the owner what it was (it was a very old Rivesaltes). We decided to put one over on him and had the one of the quietest, most unassuming women in the group take a sniff, a sip, and immediately name the wine and vintage. The stunned look on Francois’ face was unforgettable. We immediately let him in on the joke and he was a good sport about it.
My second favorite isn’t a real story but a joke about terroir and an incognito Baron Philippe de Rothschild ordering a bottle of Mouton in a restaurant and being served a d’Armailhac instead, but it’s too crude to post.
