The Ultimate Blind Tasting Glass

[Craig Camp]

Now they only have to put a top on it so you can't taste it or smell it either.

For wine drinkers wishing to stay completely in the dark about the wines they are tasting, Riedel Crystal has made it possible. The Austria-based stemware company has introduced the Blind Blind Tasting Glass, a jet-black, opaque glass that masks a wine's color.

[aprilmei]

I've seen something like this in use at an induction dinner for the Commanderie de Bordeaux in Hong Kong. The point is that some people can't tell the difference between red and white wines based "only" on smell and taste - they have to have the visual clue.

The inductees were on stage, handed these "blind" glasses of wine and the first question they had to answer was, "Is it a red or white wine?"

Thank goodness for the pride of the inductees, all of them got the correct answers.

[Harry Covére]

Wine Spectator dispelled this theory last year, after Ann Noble's infamous "UC Davis Test." I've tried it myself, with some friends: bogus. It is a little more difficult to distinguish between the two when the reds and whites are both at room temp, but that's the whole point of chilling white wine and drinking reds around 60 degrees--to maximize their characteristics. Has anyone else tried this?

[vengroff]

I'm holding out for a magentized version.

[tommy]

does chilling a white maximize it's characteristics? does it hide flaws?

i think that this approach is used so that the taster doesn't make any assumptions based on visual clues. that goes for comparing reds to reds and whites to whites i'd think.

Edited October 2, 2003 by tommy (log)

[slacker]

I can't help feeling that the glass is quite simply horrible to look at - thus bad taste. A little bit Austin Powers, or Stringfellows. Would perhaps suit fizzy milk.

That chianti shape, though, is just gorgeous to drink out of.

[tommy]

I can't help feeling that the glass is quite simply horrible to look at - thus bad taste.

good point. perhaps the only true "blind" tasting is when one's eyes are covered.

[budrichard]

The question to be asked is "Does color affect one's taste sensation of a wine?". Without any qualitative or quantitative(hard to obtain in tasting) evidence, I prefer to see my wine and the thought of tasting a wine in a black glass leaves me cold. Since the subject of taste is so subjective, the black glass is " a solution in search of a problem. More likely it is another of Riedel's marketing ploys to sell glasses, at which they have been very successful. The only Riedel glasses we have are a set of the tasting glasses and the ones i picked up at Sam's Club for cheap. Over the years we have used and broken at least a hundred or more from slamming in the tailgate of a Yukon to simply dropping! Can't afford Riedel at that rate of breakage. -Dick

[tommy]

More likely it is another of Riedel's marketing ploys to sell glasses, at which they have been very successful.

i thought that covering the glass is something that is often done in wine tasting.