Ever wondered whether people who claim they can pinpoint the exact vintage of wine by tasting it are mad? I have. So has a fella named Frederic Brochet. Read on:
Frederic Brochet was a cognitive neuroscience researcher at the University of Bordeaux and in 1998 he conducted an experiment involving 54 particpants, all of whom were wine tasters, connoisseurs of wine.
He wanted them to taste some wine and write down their impressions. He began by serving them two wines; a red wine and a white wine. They drank these and wrote down their impressions, using terms such as plump,dark, cherry, fruity to describe the red wine and pale,dry, floral to describe the white wine.
Next he gave them another two drinks, again a red and a white wine and they drank these too before scribbling down their impressions. They described them with similar terms to the first round of drinks.
Unbeknownst to them, the second set of drinks were actually the same. He had taken a flavourless food colouring and added a little to the white wine to create a faux red. Not a single person wrote down that the second set of wines tasted similar.
In a followup experiment, Brochet introduced them two bottles of wine, one a common table wine and the other a premium vintage. Starting with the table wine, he showed them the bottle first then proceeded to pour them each at glass. He also poured himself a glass and had a sip. He promptly spay it out dismissively. The tasters all drank theirs and wrote down their impressions, describing it as simple, light, fluid, volatile ,unbalanced.
Brochet then showed them the premuim vintage wine, poured them all a glass. He tasted the wine and after a long sip, smacked his lips in appreciation. The tasters drank theirs and again wrote down their impressions, describing it as balanced,complex, flavoursome, smoky, woody and excellent.
The two wines were in fact the same common Bordeaux wine.
Brochet said;
" The subject perceived, in reality, what he or she has pre-preceived and finds it difficult to back away".
Seems like tasting is not always about what something really tastes like but what it looks like too. The brain constructs the experience of flavour by taking into consideration information from all the senses (sight,sound,smell, taste and touch) and places a greater emphasis on what you can see.
So if our brains tell us its red wine in the glass, our brains place more faith in that data than the information sent by our taste buds.
Taken from Elephants on Acid and other Bizarre Experiments by the author Alex Boese
Frederic Brochet was a cognitive neuroscience researcher at the University of Bordeaux and in 1998 he conducted an experiment involving 54 particpants, all of whom were wine tasters, connoisseurs of wine.
He wanted them to taste some wine and write down their impressions. He began by serving them two wines; a red wine and a white wine. They drank these and wrote down their impressions, using terms such as plump,dark, cherry, fruity to describe the red wine and pale,dry, floral to describe the white wine.
Next he gave them another two drinks, again a red and a white wine and they drank these too before scribbling down their impressions. They described them with similar terms to the first round of drinks.
Unbeknownst to them, the second set of drinks were actually the same. He had taken a flavourless food colouring and added a little to the white wine to create a faux red. Not a single person wrote down that the second set of wines tasted similar.
In a followup experiment, Brochet introduced them two bottles of wine, one a common table wine and the other a premium vintage. Starting with the table wine, he showed them the bottle first then proceeded to pour them each at glass. He also poured himself a glass and had a sip. He promptly spay it out dismissively. The tasters all drank theirs and wrote down their impressions, describing it as simple, light, fluid, volatile ,unbalanced.
Brochet then showed them the premuim vintage wine, poured them all a glass. He tasted the wine and after a long sip, smacked his lips in appreciation. The tasters drank theirs and again wrote down their impressions, describing it as balanced,complex, flavoursome, smoky, woody and excellent.
The two wines were in fact the same common Bordeaux wine.
Brochet said;
" The subject perceived, in reality, what he or she has pre-preceived and finds it difficult to back away".
Seems like tasting is not always about what something really tastes like but what it looks like too. The brain constructs the experience of flavour by taking into consideration information from all the senses (sight,sound,smell, taste and touch) and places a greater emphasis on what you can see.
So if our brains tell us its red wine in the glass, our brains place more faith in that data than the information sent by our taste buds.
Taken from Elephants on Acid and other Bizarre Experiments by the author Alex Boese
My Computer
System One
-
- Manufacturer/Model
- Wired2fire custom evolution
- CPU
- Core2Extreme X6800 @ 2.93ghz
- Motherboard
- Nforce 4 SLI 16x
- Memory
- Corsair DDR2 800mhz x 4gb
- Graphics card(s)
- XFX Nvidia 260gtx SLI
- Sound Card
- Soundblaster Audigy 4
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Dell 24inch
- Screen Resolution
- 1920x1200
- Hard Drives
- Western Digital Cavier 500gb Western Digital Raptor 150gb
- PSU
- Tagan Turbojet 950w
- Case
- Silverstone Timjin
- Cooling
- Fan custom modified
- Mouse
- Logitech MX518
- Keyboard
- Saitek Gamers Keyboard
- Other Info
- Its getting old, been upgrading it over the past few years, mainly the ram and the gpu's. Will hold out till some next year before I build another one.
