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Comment by mfrisbie | Hacker News Reader

I took the introductory sommelier exam as a hobbyist, but I was in a room with ~200 people in the industry. We collectively blind tasted about a dozen wines, and I watched as people around me mostly guessed correctly with astonishing accuracy.

There may be some nonsense in wine tasting, but it is definitely possible to develop a body of knowledge and experience that allows one to identify wines based on only your senses. It's important to note that the CMS only includes traditionally produced wines in the blind tasting - no curveballs (pinot grigio grown in Alaska or whatever).

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Some people say you can't tell the difference between Pepsi, Coke, and the diet versions of both, but I certainly can.

I've no doubt a sommelier can tell differences between wines.

What I do suspect is that you can enjoy moderately priced wines just as well as many more expensive ones.

I suspect there's a chicken and egg effect with pricing and blind tasting. Someone who can identify wines blind surely knows how much each region/producer/style costs, and based on that would assign a guessed price. Example: Paulliac is expensive, this tastes like a Paulliac, therefore wines that taste this must also be expensive.

I once found myself at a fast food joint where there was a self serve fountain with Diet Coke in the regular Coke dispenser. I hesitantly asked if that was the case and the counter person cheerfully admitted that they'd run out of regular Coke and figured nobody would notice the substitution.

I regret not asking how many people had, in fact, noticed and inquired.

I think people who regularly drink Coke might not notice the difference right away but for someone who drinks diet drinks, regular coke tastes like straight syrup now.

I noticed immediately. I find the flavor of artificial sweeteners (and some of the recent plant-derived sugar substitutes) as distinctive as you find sugar.

I recognize the irony of including HFCS among the "natural" sweeteners. Isn't that just 10,000 spoons (of sugar)?

Yeah I suspect the “it all tastes the same” comes from people who never drink it.

> Some people say you can't tell the difference between Pepsi, Coke, and the diet versions of both, but I certainly can.

I feel sorry for people with such insensitive taste buds.

I can understand not having a preference, but being unable to tell the difference at all? I wonder what other flavors they're missing out on in other foods.

At the other end, yes, there are some sommeliers with very sensitive tastebuds that are ridiculously good at identifying wines.

But I would wager that at least 90% are faking it, or it's all in their head, and the blind taste tests expose them. It's like audiophiles and their need for HDMI cables that cost 4 digits.

at least with wine there's less of an ability to quantifiably refute most of the bullshit

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