Chemists Build App That Could Identify Cheap Replacements For Luxury Wines 206
schliz writes "Australian startup Wine Cue is combining the chemical composition of wines with customer ratings for what it hopes to be a more objective wine recommendation engine than existing systems that are based on historical transactions. The technology is likely to reach the market as a smartphone app, and could be used to identify cheap alternatives to expensive bottles."
More objective would be welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is one thing that needs more objectivity its wine tasting.
Too often the results are the opinion of the person who bought the bottle, and too seldom is there truly blind taste testing by people not already familiar with the vintage.
Re:More objective would be welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
Even with blind tastings there is subjectivity, as people sense of taste and smell is quite varied. I tend to be good at picking up secondary aromas (not the primary fruit) but amd not as good at picking out some of the subtle fruit smells. It all come down to chemicals ... esters and other compounds, that can be measured objectively, but for now is still quite expensive to do accurately. Any good sommelier can generally pick out a cheaper example of an expensive wine for you based on what you like though. It may not be *as* good as the expensive one, but it is a game of diminishing returns for the most part, although it is occasionally possible to get a *better* wine for less money. Wine sells for what the market will bear, based on origin, availability, and reputation.
Re:More objective would be welcome (Score:5, Interesting)
Example: You drink a wine and say that you taste X. The next person at the table hears this and therefore tastes X. It also probably works in reverse. That's not to say that you couldn't tell the difference between two wines that are drastically different, but subtle differences are likely imperceptible.
Re:More objective would be welcome (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it make any sense to speak of confirmation bias and objectivity when talking about "taste"?
Re: More objective would be welcome (Score:3)
it does if you're trying to indirectly identify chemicals in a glass of wine.
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However, even this can be foiled by expectations. There have been several instances where researchers have found that supposedly knowledgeable judges tasting wines in a blind (as in blindfolded) context have been shown to be unable to distinguish white wines from red.
Objectively, that might stand to reason, given that both are likely to carry a similar array of organic compound
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Citation please.
Citation here [archive.org].
Taste is subjective
Taste is subjective, but discrimiation is not. Whether a $15 red wine is better than a $60 white wine is subjective. But if they have different flavors, a human should be able to discriminate between the two.
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Yes. If you slap a higher price tag on a cheap bottle of wine it "tastes" better. There is no price receptor on your tongue, so there must be something else at work. That's confirmation bias.
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Re:More objective would be welcome (Score:5, Informative)
Why on earth would people who eat different foods and have different taste profiles and come from different ethnic heritages be expected to like wines equally.
I've had several blind tastings.
For most people, the ability to taste a difference tops out in the $20-$30 a bottle range.
I've only known one person who had the ability to finely discriminate wine and he came from the new york area.
At one tasting- the one bottle he disliked, everyone else liked.
There is a tremendous difference at the lower end because many of the less expensive wines are either
a) Just bad (and just about anyone can tell this)
b) or they are "Thin" (watered down, one note) which anyone can taste pretty quickly and easily in comparison to a good wine.
But there are plenty of wines good enough for 14-18 a bottle.
And plenty of wines that are good enough after you are tipsy for $9-$14 a bottle.
The truly great wines require an experienced and truly great wine tasting ability.
And why give truly great wine to people who can't tell the difference anyway (i.e. most of us).
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Why on earth would people who eat different foods and have different taste profiles and come from different ethnic heritages be expected to like wines equally.
...
There is a tremendous difference at the lower end because many of the less expensive wines are either
a) Just bad (and just about anyone can tell this)
b) or they are "Thin" (watered down, one note) which anyone can taste pretty quickly and easily in comparison to a good wine.
But there are plenty of wines good enough for 14-18 a bottle.
...
And why give truly great wine to people who can't tell the difference anyway (i.e. most of us).
Raises hand. That would be me. I don't know how to buy wine in the first place except to know that some wines are sweeter than others and there are reds vs. whites and the pink ones that fall in between.
Of course, that means I don't have to spend a lot of money on wine in order to be happy with my purchase. I suppose I do better selecting beer which I consume several times in a month. If this app gives me some way to evaluate wine in the first place it could be a win for me. However I'm a little skeptical t
Here's to... (Score:4, Funny)
"A fine-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon, with rich chocolate and blackberry notes. Will get you shitfaced."
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Afaik, this was a trap soft drink manufacturers fell into. They had taste tests with dozens or even hundreds of participants. Later on, it was found out that human genetics alone can produce thousands of different "taste types", depending on whether a persons smell/taste receptors can pick up the presence of certain chemical compounds.
Hence, having a hundred people in a taste test is far from being a repres
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If there is one thing that needs more objectivity its wine tasting.
Too often the results are the opinion of the person who bought the bottle, and too seldom is there truly blind taste testing by people not already familiar with the vintage.
So they should invent a device that can detect a pack of Winnie Red's (Cheap but powerful cigarettes) and recommend a box of 4 penny dark (cheap red wine) as they wont taste anything anyway?
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But taste is by definition completely subjective. It's like trying to make an algorithm to detect good art: at the absolute best you can simply predict how a given test person will judge, since there is no objective quality to measure.
Besides, wine is an excellent luxury item: a $1000 bottle doesn't really take any more resources to make than a $0.99 bottle, despite resulting in great perceived difference in lifestyle, so from society's poi
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I can't speak to $1000 bottles of wine, but that $100 bottle took more resources on average than the $0.99 bottle. The land those grapes grew on is expensive.
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Re:More objective would be welcome (Score:5, Informative)
Wine is not as fragile as some wine snobs would have you believe. You pretty well have to really abuse a bottled wine for an extended period of time for it to be noticeable. Virtually every wine you find on the shelf has gone through shipment sweltering in 100 degree heat in the back of a semi, or stored too cold in a warehouse by a uncaring wholesaler.
There is more obvious difference in a wine attributable to how long the bottle has been open than there is attributable to it was shipped, or stored.
More often than not the wine snob won't notice this either, unless it was egregious and prolonged.
Many fine australian table wines (Score:4, Funny)
Black Stump Bourdeaux is rightly praised as a peppermint flavored burgundy, whilst a good Sydney Syrup can rank with any of the world's best sugary wines.
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I have a terrible palate but I've tasted these notes and it was kinda cool.
There are probably a dozen that anyone can taste after drinking a couple dozen bottles of a particular type.
I've had a "peppery" wine and a "chocolatey" wine- which was bizarre because as you say, they were just grapes.
I've also had 3 perfect pairings and 1 near miss. When that happens- it's like magic. Each sip of wine makes the food taste better and each bite of the food makes the wine taste better in a swirling dance of gustator
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I have to admit-- I did try to find out whether peppermint was a standard wine aroma, and instead came across this choice tidbit on wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
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They're not just grapes, though. Besides the yeast pitched, there's other stuff in the grapes. don't have a link but there was an article on how if your grapes don't contain wasp spit they won't make great wine...
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"Peppermint flavored" my ass. How do you get that from grapes and yeast?
I pour myself a nice claret and put in a Monty Python DVD.
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Drinking wine is a subjective experience.
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Sugar is an acquired taste. As is beef, pork, beets, corn, or anything else you consume. For the most part, you are introduced to all the foods you will ever eat by the time you are five to ten years old. Your tastes may change during your lifetime, but relatively few of us go exploring the world in search of new tastes.
Imagine - billions of humans of been born, grown up, aged, and died without ever tasting beef. If offered beef, they would turn their noses up at it.
Meanwhile, other billions can hardly
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Dislike of/indifference towards sugar is acquired and overrides the instinctive preference for sweet food.
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There is indeed a preference for "sweet food". But, sugar, as we use it in the US, is not a natural product. To people raised on more natural diets, sugar will seem unnatural, and inferior to other sweeteners, such as honey, or maple syrup. There are other sweeteners that are much better for you, than the bleached, processed granular sugar that we all know in the modern day US.
Sugar is an acquired taste, of that I'm quite sure.
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For the vast majority of humanitys existence, sweet meant that the food was good for you - this has calories, it'll extend the time before you die from starvation! Eat it, eat it now, eat as much as you can!
"Too many calories" is a very recent problem. Too recent for human genetics to adapt to.
Re:Many fine australian table wines (Score:5, Insightful)
Go and have a look at the metabolic pathways that yeast use to glean energy from sugars in wine/beer. It is truly staggering, and temperature, PH, timing and yeast variety can all play a part in preferentially modifying those pathways. As a result, there are a bunch of fermentation by-products, including different alcohol groups and esters. For example, I'm a beer brewer, and belgian yeasts are noted for producing "lolly banana" esters.
There is also a legitimate difference between cheap and expensive wine techniques - time spent cellaring, new versus second hand barrels, preservatives etc.
At the end of the day though that doesnt make a lot of difference - peoples tastes vary wildly and If you personally like the way it tastes then that's great, go buy it again. Whilst there is no such thing as a "cheap" or "expensive" flavour, if lots of poeple like the way it tastes, then you can call it "good" wine. If lots of poeple say it tastes like arse, then it's "bad" wine.
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You drink wine with added sugar? And sweeten your tea? Jeez. Maybe you think Jamie Oliver is a good cook, too? Again, for your benefit, double blind tests [theatlantic.com] prove that people can't even tell white wine from red wine if they look the same. Yes, that includes you, too.
Wine can be sweet without ADDED sugar, just from natural sugar residues. So much for you knowledge regarding wine.
On the other hand. a blind test between red and white whine should be easy as pie as white wine is served chilled. :-P
But seriously, the results of this experiment of course varies with the wines you use. I know of at least one red wine (Trollinger) that is supposed to taste almost like a white wine (and should also be served a bit chilled). But if you have a little bit of practice, it shouldn't
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Really opens up the sluice gates at both ends.
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Strange, it's getting hard to find a bottle of Australian wine in Australia for $7 (retail) that you'd actually want to drink!
Some either we locals are getting ripped off at the checkout, or Yanks have less discerning palates.
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Some either we locals are getting ripped off at the checkout, or Yanks have less discerning palates.
Or?
Both statements are true.
Any word on the technique? (Score:2)
So, any word on what they do?
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No idea what they do but I did exactly this for a university project using neural networks. It was some years ago so I can't really remember the details of what exact data we had, I just remember having a dataset of chemical composition data for a good number of wines as a training set.
At the end of the day this is just a straightforward classification problem so any number of statistical classification methods should work just fine.
Bum Wine (Score:4, Insightful)
BumWine.com [bumwine.com] lists the only wines you'll ever need.
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"Tales of Cisco-induced semi-psychotic fits are common. Often, people on a Cisco binge end up curled into a fetal ball, shuddering and muttering paranoid rants. Nudity and violence may well be involved too."
Truer words were never spoken.
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Tales of Cisco-induced semi-psychotic fits are common. Often, people on a Cisco binge end up curled into a fetal ball, shuddering and muttering paranoid rants. Nudity and violence may well be involved too.
Wait a sec, Cisco wine does that, too?
not about taste (Score:2)
That is not to say that expensive wine does not provide value. You are paying for vintage grapes and expert winemakers, which all cos
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Here's what I'm hoping for... (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to Wine Cue!
INPUT: Chateau Petrus, 1998 vintage, Pomerol primarily of Merlot grapes, estimated retail 3500USD
RECOMMENDATION: Charles Shaw, 2010 vintage, Merlot, estimated retail 2USD
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From testing and experience, the $3 wines are undrinkable unless ice cold and nasty then.
$6-$12 is fine for drinking with food or getting tipsy but thin.
At $13 + you start getting decent wines.
Most folks taste buds seem to top out at $25 bucks a bottle.
And you shouldn't be wasting a $60+ bottle of wine to get tipsy or if you can't tell the difference or you just don't like it. I can tell the difference a bit but don't interpret it as better.
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You can often find some place near you that has cheap wine, too. The guy who owns our local Grocery Outlet also bought out a liquor distributor. He sells good wines cheap in the Grocery Outlet. Too bad about the beer selection, which is mostly fake craft beers, but I do enjoy buying amaretto and schnapps for six bucks a bottle. I don't drink it — that's what beer is for — but it's awesome for cooking. You could spend five bucks for a tiny bottle of extract...
Point is, I don't even drink wine (re
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Try holding some blind tastings. I have. Among casual wine drinkers, there's no correlation between the price of the bottle and the prefernce for what's inside. At my own tasting parties (where I do blind taste testings), the Trader Joes Coastal Zinfandel continues to crush the competition for $6/bottle. Despite what people claim to like, clean, fruity zinfandels are reliable winners.
I've started growing grapes and making my own wines, so I'm looking forward to see how my own vintage fares at my next wi
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We (me and my fiancee) actually really, really like the Fresh & Easy brand 2 dollar wines, especially the white (which is actually two dollars. When Trader Joe's upped the prices on their 2 dollar wine last year, our local F&E actually put up a slightly snarky sign that explicitly was not naming any names, but you knew who they were referring to, saying hey, our wine is still 2 dollars.)
Here's the one recommendation you need (Score:3)
Target house brand box red wine. That's right, you buy it at Target (at locations where they're allowed to sell wine).
The three varieties, Merlot, Shiraz, and blend are all good. It's like the best $12 bottle you've ever had -- not a typical $12 bottle, the best. The box is $16 and contains the equivalent of four bottles, of course with the self-sealing spigot and collapsing plastic bladder to prevent oxidation. Stays fresh for weeks or even months after opening -- provides a glass a day for three weeks.
Ignore the ratings, trust your buds (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had some spectacular wines. No, no, not the wines that cost hundreds of euros per bottle. but wines that could be described as "WOW. I didn't know wine could do that". It would be nice to have an app that would suggest similar wines, based on a chemical spectrum instead of "that estate had a truly extraordinary summer, and more recent vintages have not faired as well."
If a particular chemical is playing around with my brain,I want to know about it and be able to invite it around again sometime.
All that glittters is not gold (Score:2)
I predict this will be technically correct but completely useless, as seen in that classic joke about mathematicians:
Two Physicists were riding in a hot air balloon and were blown off course sailing over a mountain trail, and were completely lost.
They spotted a jogger running on the trail and they shouted "Can you tell us where we are?" After a few minutes, the jogger yelled
This is the stupidest use of chemistry. (Score:2)
Of course you cannot tell how good a wine tastes by some chemical analysis.
possibly not, but maybe identify "similar" wines (Score:2)
There's a researcher (who is also a trained sommelier) who is using chemistry to produce unconventional wine/food pairings based on underlying shared aromatic compounds. Seems to be working well for him.
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Can you recommend a suitable alternative for "didn't bother to read the first sentence of TFS"?
I recommend that they just have people rate a bunch of wines and then calculate the tastes of people who have similar interests to you. You know, like Amazon, or Netflix.
price != quality with wine. (Score:2)
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I haven't had the Grange Hermitage, but I have had a couple of bottles of the 1996 Penfolds 707, and even in 2010 it still tasted really young. I suspect the Grange may just need to be cellared for a *really* long time.
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I think in general you would expect a difference. Obviously at the $10 stage you are cutting corners. But when you go over $100 or thereabout it is just about brand image.
You do not need a study using fallible people to tell that.
Do people buy wine for its taste? (Score:2)
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I am asking because beer companies discovered that their most avid customers couldn't taste the difference between their products and their competitors products.
Crap beer tastes similar to other crap beer?
I'm shocked at that revelation. Truly shocked.
Here's another grand revelation for you... People who buy mainstream beer buy it because it's cheap, not because it tastes good.
I'm willing to bet the beers in that test were 1. US mainstream beers. 2. Lagers. First off, the rest of the beer drinking world refers to #1 as "sex in a canoe" because it tastes "fucking close to water"* and as for #2 Lagers are designed to have no taste. Now comparing a semi-decent
Ultimate example of a 1st world problem? (Score:2)
Fuck me. Truly a first world problem.
Cooking for Geeks (Score:2)
This guy says the four main variables in wine pairings are :
And I think it's refreshing, and also very sensible to think about wine in such "basic" terms. Even if you can detect all kinds of interesting flavours in wine, like world-class sommeliers do, I think those four variables are definitely going to influence your experience a l
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Wouldn't it be nice if, in addition to alcoholic content, the labels on wine bottles clearly displayed the amount of sweetness, acidity, and astringency ? I'm talking about real numbers with some kind of scale.
Yes, but misleading.
We tried this at a wineyard. The guideline we were given was to stay away from anything but "dry" wine. The measurable amount of sugar left is used to distinguish between dry and sweet wines, but a good dry wine can have fruity aromas that will lead to a perceived sweetness, even though the fermentation has been completed. (and hardly any sugar is left)
I think good wine is a real phenomenon (Score:2)
I drink maybe a bottle of wine per year (a glass here, a glass there) plus maybe the equivalent of 2-3 bottles of sparkling wine (champagne, prosecco, or asti). Wine gives me awful hangovers, worse than overdrinking whisky or beer, and generally it doesn't appeal to me -- kind of bitter and unsatisfying.
Until about 2 years ago if you had asked me about wine, my instincts would have been that it's 95% bullshit and 5% reality (the difference between jug table wine and a $20 bottle of wine).
And then I got dra
Another Use (Score:2)
I'd buy one of these if it could tell me if what I'm buying is what I think I'm buying and not some counterfeit...
Would be nice if it worked for liquor as well given how much poison is out there on the market at this point.
There is more bullshit involved in marketing wine (Score:2)
than any other commodity, except maybe audio equipment. Anything that cuts through some of the bullshit is welcome.
Of course, those of you with sophisticated palates who enjoy fine wines will have no use for such a mechanistic means of judgment and will disregard it. However, this development should please you as it provides yet another reason to turn your noses up at the unwashed masses who would be so ignorant as to select a wine based on chemical composition.
Re:first post! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, exactly.
And this had better be an Android-only app.
The absolute last thing an IDevice owner wants to know is that his/her expensive purchase is objectively inferior to a cheaper alternative.
The horror! The horror!
Re:Technology can't replicate everything.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're clearly also not a chemist either.
>After decades of analysis, we still can't build a violin as good as a Stradivarius.
No, what we can't do is build a violin that self-proclaimed audiophiles say is as good as a Stradivarius during NON-BLIND TESTS in UNCONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTS. If you administer proper double-blind tests then you'll find that there's no difference.
>We still can't fully replicate Damascus Steel
Talk to a metallurgist. Modern steel actually performs better. I'm not sure how much effort has been given to duplication, but why try to duplicate something when you already have a better replacement?
Re:Technology can't replicate everything.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It always amuses the hell out of me when people think there were these amazing ancient technologies so much better than anything modern. It is like they think various videogames and novels are real and that we study the knowledge of the ancients to advance what we have, despite all evidence to the contrary.
As you say, all this stuff is bullshit. In terms of violins we can, if anything, build even better violins today because of better material selection and manufacturing techniques. The thing that makes Stradivarius sought after is its rarity. It is a special thing to own one, as there aren't many. That then of course leads to a mystique and to people making bullshit claims.
Same kind of thing with Damascus Steel. It has been claimed to be able to do things like cut through a gun barrel, which of course it can't do (gun barrels are amazingly tough objects). We can do better with modern metallurgy and processes (like an industrial hammer forge). The reason there's research to replicating Damascus Steel is because it is neat, it was very advanced for the time and it would be of historical interest to understand how it was done. We can do better, and indeed do all the time.
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It always amuses the hell out of me when people think there were these amazing ancient technologies so much better than anything modern. It is like they think various videogames and novels are real and that we study the knowledge of the ancients to advance what we have, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Truer words are seldom heard. The people claiming advanced knowledge of the ancients usually follow that claim up with "There is much that modern science doesn't know". Which, while true, does not mean that ancient science knew it either. So much embellished lore is taken as absolute truth, even by people who know they are passing down BS as a twisted form of self aggrandizement by proxy.
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It always amuses the hell out of me when people think there were these amazing ancient technologies so much better than anything modern.
There are. Concrete is one example. [berkeley.edu]
The ancients also did incredibly complex things with ceramics and glazes that we haven't been able to recreate yet.
The reason for their "amazing ancient technologies" is that was all they had.
Improvements in materials science were mostly the result of accidents or brute force experimentation.
Now imagine if the combined intellectual power of the modern world was focused on perfecting only one or two technologies over the course of centuries.
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What's hilarious is that modern technology is worse than ... modern technology. Medicine from 2000 years ago? Yeah, no thanks. Medicine from 20 years ago? It's well known that classical anti-depressants are much, much better than modern medication. So much so that doctors are starting to prescribe the old drugs because, shit, Zoloft and Xanax don't work nearly as well and have horrible side effects.
Similarly, we've been hit-and-miss with "natural" or "naturopathic" or "whateverthefuckingrootiscalled"
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No it wouldn't, it would just be politically untenable because having thousands of slaves is looked down upon nowadays, even if you do give them JCBs to make it easier.
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difficult, yes. But it was so thousand years ago. but it's not impossible, just really really expensive. and nowadays pretty useless.
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Actually Damascus steel is superior to most modern steel for a subset of specific applications. It takes one hell of an edge. Excessively hard steels tend to chip, and soft steels don't hold the edge; Damascus is some kind of black magic that easily takes a sharp edge and holds it for unusually long. Now, as structural steel? Hell no.
There's also an iron-making process that causes the iron to not rust, despite not being a rust-resistant iron. It's unknown currently, but the mechanism of action from st
Re:Technology can't replicate everything.... (Score:5, Informative)
Strad's aren't any better sounding [npr.org] than brand new violins.
Re:Technology can't replicate everything.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Very interesting.
In a blind test, professional musicians:
In fact, the only statistically obvious trend in the choices was that one of the Stradivarius violins was the least favorite, and one of the modern instruments was slightly favored.
the 17 players who were asked to choose which were old Italians, "Seven said they couldn't, seven got it wrong, and only three got it right.
Re:Technology can't replicate everything.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a wine snob, but I know there are certain things that sometimes you *can't* replicate. [...] I'd argue that fine liquors -- wines, whiskeys, etc... fall into that category. I'd say it's almost an art form.
Detailed studies [wsj.com] of professional wine judges in blind tastings have shown that prizes from contest to contest are so random that they might as well be picked from a hat. And the average professional judge, tasting the same wine on consecutive days, would on average only be able to narrow the rating to within 8 points on a 20-point scale.
Other studies have even shown that professional tasters often fare pretty poorly even in tests like, "Taste 3 wines, tell me which 2 are identical," or that when given white wines dyed with red food coloring, they start spouting out the nonsense about "flavor notes" and "nose" that would be appropriate for red wines rather than whites.
Given this information, it's pretty clear that even the so-called "expert palettes" don't know what the hell they're talking about.
So, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's pretty likely chemists could master the subtle art of getting a wine result that could satisfy even most professional judges in a blind test.
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By the way, I say all of this as someone who actually appreciates liquor of various sorts. I'm not at all trying to claim that all wines (or all whiskies or whatever) taste the same -- obviously they don't. And there are plenty of cases where I've paid a premium price for a liquor whose taste I like because of previous experiences.
But in the realm of wine, I don't think there's good evidence that expensive wines are actually "better" on an objective scale; in fact, many studies suggest the contrary. Pe
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True, but knowing the price of a wine affects the rating rather dramatically. Simply knowing the relative price while tasting makes professional tasters as well as novices assign higher quality to more expensive wines.
http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP35.pdf [wine-economics.org]
http://thinktraffic.net/cheap-vs-expensive-wine-can-you-taste-the-difference [thinktraffic.net]
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Absolutely. I'm aware of all of this. I still don't think that makes any of what I said false or wrong. Just because tasters think a $5 wine tastes better when it's described as a $100 bottle doesn't affect the proportion of bad cheap wines vs. bad expensive wines. I can only remember one or two occasions where I've been served a moderate or expensive wine without knowing the price ahead of time and thought, "This is TERRIBLE!" I can remember dozens of occasions where I've been served a cheap wine with
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Other studies have even shown that professional tasters often fare pretty poorly even in tests like, "Taste 3 wines, tell me which 2 are identical," or that when given white wines dyed with red food coloring, they start spouting out the nonsense about "flavor notes" and "nose" that would be appropriate for red wines rather than whites.
I doubt that one. (at least within a neutral setting and no tampering with the subjects expectations like telling him about 2 identical wines when in fact all are the same or using food coloring.) Humans rely on ALL senses and ALL KIND of prior knowledge when they have to do a certain task. So the result of the experiment is NOT that professional tasters are quacks (at least most of them) but rather that the visual sense and the power of suggestion trumps the rather weak senses of taste and smell.
Do that te
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So the result of the experiment is NOT that professional tasters are quacks (at least most of them) but rather that the visual sense and the power of suggestion trumps the rather weak senses of taste and smell.
I don't think that professional tasters are "quacks" necessarily, but I do think that numerous experiments seem to indicate that their palettes are nowhere near as discriminating as they claim.
I completely agree that various other things can trump your sense of taste -- change the coloring, put a cheap wine in an expensive bottle, tell people a wine is made from grape X when it's actually grape Y, etc. Experiments have shown that these things seem to make it difficult for tasters to come up with rational
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Um
Modern monosteel performs just as well as folded or damascus steel. Japanese sword makers are still in business (and a lot of Japanese kitchen knife makers who come from the same families/cities) and I'd pit that against Damascus steel as well.
I'd say a lot of t
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I'm not a wine snob, but I know there are certain things that sometimes you *can't* replicate.
After decades of analysis, we still can't build a violin as good as a Stradivarius. We still can't fully replicate Damascus Steel (OK, maybe the lack of a living slave in which to quench the blade is part of that :-P). I'd argue that fine liquors -- wines, whiskeys, etc... fall into that category. I'd say it's almost an art form.
I'll admit it, I have no evidence for that last assertion/argument. But I'm a romantic at heart,
As a fellow romantic, I must tell you, that's your problem. I thought the same thing until I read The Wine Trials [amazon.com], in which the authors ran blind taste tests, with cheaper wines often winning. For example, Domaine Ste. Michelle ($12) consistently outranked Dom Perignon ($150). In the 2007-08 experiment, the 507 tasters "represented many different segments of the wine-buying world. . . . Some were wine experts, others everyday wine drinkers. They included New York City sommeliers (wine stewards) and Harvard
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As for Stradivarius, "the many blind tests from 1817 to the present have never found any difference in sound between Stradivari's violins and high-quality violins in comparable style of other makers and periods, nor has acoustic analysis," so sayeth Wikipedia, but you can consult its citations at the bottom.
This is true, but at the same time, many people can identify a particular violinist playing a particular violin by hearing records or radio. It doesn't imply it's better, and the reason for the recognition might be mostly wetware, i.e. the player, but it still means there can be differences. Much like there are often differences in singers' voices which we recognize, even if spectral analysis has difficulties telling two singers apart.
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I've never believed that expensive liquors are worth that much in the first place, its a false luxury that people spend a lot of money on to prove that they can, and those that make it are happy to carry on the tradition.
And your point is? If someone feels more pleasure by drinking what he believes is superior, surely you won't begrudge him that added feeling of pleasure?
"Worth" is something no outsider can determine; it is always subjective. If I think a bottle of whisky is worth $70, that's its worth to me. And if I am willing to pay $200 for a concert ticket when I could go to a different concert for $50, that's because the worth to me is higher, and that's all that matters when I'm paying.
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It matters for whiskey...
But -- for my group Johnny Walker Blue was very smooth but not preferred over several whiskeys $210 per bottle cheaper. For some JWB was just too smokey.
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There's really not much difference between a 30 dollar bottle of vodka and a 300 dollar bottle (I've had both), but there's definitely a big difference between the 10 and the 30. On the other hand, there is *totally* a difference between 40 dollar single malts and 100 dollar single malts (though Costco has a Costco-rebranded 20 year single malt for 50 dollars that would generally be 100... it's pretty fantastic.)
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Vodka stills have horizontal plates perforated with many tiny holes in them. Each one amounts to an additional distillation. Been a long time sense p-chem.
You can drink reasonably cheap vodka. Vodka making is a science, it just doesn't get better after about $12/750ml. You just spend more and impress people with your chumpiness.
Bourbon making on the other hand is an art. Cheap bourbon isn't great, but then again, it's Bourbon, best water to make whiskey with. 'Old Grand Dad' isn't terrible. The worst B
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But there is a difference between potato vodka and wheat vodka if you are allergic to wheat.
Friend of mine would turn red and shed skin if she got wheat vodka plus get intestinal distress.
I've found it makes a difference in rums. (did a blind taste test and Bacardi did not do well). For dark rums- big variations in taste and ability to drink them neat.
But agree on vodka otherwise. All taste the same to me.
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I like Cane 21 and Diplomatico reserve.
For mixed drinks I use the cheapest white rum. They seem to all be the same and folks can't tell the difference.
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This just goes to show that you simply can't make good bourbon, no matter how much money you throw at it.
Re:insufficiently advanced technology (Score:5, Informative)
The way in which the microwave heats from the inside out...
What???? Granted:
* it's radiative heating, not contact heating
* the penetration depth of microwave in water is between 25-38 mm [wikipedia.org], I assume larger than the IR penetration depth.
but for the rest of the "inside", the heat transfer from those 25-38mm of "out" is not in any way different from cooking inside a gas oven. In other words, the stuffing inside your turkey will cook pretty much the same way in a microwave or classical oven, irrespective of spherical turkeys or placement in vacuum.
fudge (Score:2)
Fudge doesn't have much water in it, just a cup of creme. Butter, sugar, and cocoa aren't polar I don't think, so I would guess they let it pass. Making bread in the microwave doesn't work so well because the middle of the loaf turns to charcoal before the outside gets cooked.
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And yet you felt the need to - in fact, "had to" - participate on a discussion about a subject that presumably doesn't interest you at all, to throw in a comment with no substance beyond self-congratulation aimed at complete strangers. That's a peculiar definition of "working great".
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