How would you be backing up anything without knowing what was in the bottle and what it smelled and tasted like? What if it was a very believable forgery?
Especially if it was delivered by helicopter.
So, Philip, why precisely are you interested in critics giving high evaluations to counterfeit wines? How would the case be different from their giving high evaluation to any other wines?
is it that bad for a critic to give a high score to a counterfeit wine? A good counterfeit wine should be better, without limitations on ingredients and production method.
Anecdote. When in Bordeaux in 2014, we visited Mouton. During the tasting part of the visit, we also had barrel samples of the d’Armailhac and Clerc Milon, which are owned by the same owners. The d’Armailhac had some of the power of the Mouton and the Clerc Milon had some of the finesse. I horrified the tour guide when I suggested that the two wines be combined (they both are from Pauillac). Then, after drinking most of each wine, I combined what I had left, to the horror of the tour guide, and think it tasted better than each of the d’Armailhac or Clerc Milon did separately. In fact, it tasted a good bit like the Mouton.
The tour guide doesn’t seem to value or appreciate counter-terroirism. Such naïveté.
When a critic insists that one was not fooled, especially by the party paying for the tasting, then that critic manages to fool only oneself while also deceiving others.
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This sounds strangely like Richard Nixon’s farewell speech to White House staffers after he resigned. ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
When I tasted with the Grand Jury Europeen it was pretty usual to have the same wine twice in the same setting. At least. I remember one occasion when the first 5 wines were the same but coming from different sources (Leoville Poyferre 2001). I was confused because the wines had obviously tons of similarities but I couldn’t believe that its actually 5 times the same wine. I thought I have lost my tasting abilities over night, was under the weather or something like that. I rated the wines within 2 or 3 points because I actually felt there were small differences. But to put tasters in such situations can be counterproductive because I needed quite a while until I got my confidence back. And I wasn’t confident enough to state that the 5 first glasses may contain the same wine but from different bottles. Though I had actually the idea that this could be the truth. Well – human nature is a super complex issue.
Jurgen and others,
I understand what you are saying about variations and possibly very good counterfeit wines (Joe Davis, the most Burgundian of our local Pinot producers went to a tasting of Rudy counterfeits and said most were actually pretty good Burgundies)- but the Parker issue I cited above would be different: I don’t see how someone could fake a wine of the level of a 1921 Petrus.
Again, this post has nothing to do with me trying to trip up wine tasters , just looking for one more example of top-down processing for my lecture.
Maybe you have it backwards. Instead, our expectation of the 1921 Petrus is so high that we think it should taste as good as one of Rudy’s counterfeits
And, I’ll ask again, given that top-down processing is a theory of how we do perceive and not how we make mistakes, what particular relevance does a wine critic giving a good tasting note to a a fake wine, as opposed to a real wine, have to do with it? Wouldn’t both cases be cases of top-down processing?
and again:
"I don’t see how someone could fake a wine of the level of a 1921 Petrus. "
If it was indeed a fake, his perception was most likely modified by top-down processing .
top-down processing is not a theory of how we perceive
There are umpteen gazillion references to top-down processing on Google. This is a representative summary explanation:
Top-down processing is when we form our perceptions starting with a larger object, concept, or idea before working our way toward more detailed information.
So how is that not about how we perceive?
Or is top-down the view from the 'copter?
I should have said it’s a theory of one way we perceive. Here is an admittedly popularizing explanation (please correct it if it is inaccurate):
"If you look at a diagram of the central nervous system, you will notice that the brain is literally positioned higher, or on top, of the sensory systems. Therefore, higher-level cognitive processes, such as thinking, are considered to be at the top of the sensation and perception process. On the other hand, lower level brain structures, such as those involved in the sensory systems of vision, touch, or hearing, are considered to be at the bottom.
Top-down processing refers to how our brains make use of information that has already been brought into the brain by one or more of the sensory systems. Top-down processing is a cognitive process that initiates with our thoughts, which flow down to lower-level functions, such as the senses. This is in contrast to bottom-up processing, which is the process of the senses providing information about the environment up to the brain."
One can’t mistake a wine for a 21 Petrus unless one has tasted it before. That is not the same as giving a good note to a counterfeit wine presented to you as a 21 Petrus. In the first case, the mistake might come as a result of any number of reasons, including that the wine one has mistaken for it does, for some reason taste a lot like it. In the second case, bias confirmation might explain the error if one does not take the note has having been made completely in response to the wine one is tasting.
In neither case would top-down processing explain the error any better than it would explain the case of having rightly identified a 21 Petrus because one’s taste sensation was informed by information about 21 Petrus, Petrus, Pomerol, bordeaux and wine that one already knew.
your right
I should have gone to google university
To Jonathan
this stuff is quite complicated and is based on brain mapping and psychophysical data, and like I said, I am only looking for a possible example. I have several, far more concrete examples
Well at least now I know what it is:
It’s what you use to look down on everyone. 
I get that you want a sort of more fun, real-world example, and blind tasting anecdotes could work. But this particular example is a really poor example, not least of which is that there isn’t any sort of control whatsoever to prove your point. The entire example rests on the postulation that a wine cannot be faked to the level of a 1921 Petrus, which is really a faulty assumption to base your entire example on, for numerous reasons. It’s not like a real 1921 Petrus was present as a comparison/control.
There must be examples of critics who scored certain wines better/worse when tasting a wine blind versus with the label.
A side question:
Parker rated a wine 100 points and said “it was out of this universe” and it is pretty certain from the articles I cited that it was a fake wine .
Does this mean a counterfeiter can make wine of the same organoleptic level of a 21 Petrus? If so , sign me up for his mailing list
Your fallacy is assuming that a real 1921 would’ve elicited the same “out of this universe” reaction. Just given the age, bottle variation, and any storage provenance issues associated with such a wine, I wouldn’t expect such a wine to always be great.
Your second fallacy is assuming that the fake wine is not a great wine. For all we know, the counterfeit mixed together some Parker 100 point wines to make this petrus 1921. That would still net you a really healthy profit. Rudy, as one example of a counterfeiter, by all accounts was a supreme taster and master “mixer” who made delicious wine.
But that’s beside the point. Even if there was a label bias that informed Parker’s perception beyond his tactile senses, your example doesn’t clearly really show that. Now, if that same fake wine were served in another label and received a significantly different reaction, that would be the ticket
It means Parker liked it 100 points worth. It could have been a bottle of Harlan that someone counterfeited as a 21 Petrus. But it would still be a wine that Parker liked 100 points worth. I think you are fixated on his giving a counterfeit wine a good review, which may say something about his abilities to identify wine, or something about his taste in wine, or something about bias confirmation, or nothing about any of those things. But it is a side question.