For me blind tasting is key. The vast majority of things aren't appreciated in a blind test setting (even professional wine critics don't!), so extremely subject to other notions in particular fame and price.
With a group of friends, we sample 2 or 3 wines at the same time, blind. It's very humbling. I highly recommend it for a more accurate evaluation...
I saw a funny article awhile back that did literal blind tasting, and when told they would be tasting red wines, none of the critics and "experts" detected they had also sampled white wines.
That test is pretty misleading, it's similar to the famous French study which used white wine dyed red and counted whether people used "red" words or "white" words. One obvious conclusion consistent with other studies is that people believe what they're told.
I hesitate to call this type of uncontrolled testing junk science, but it definitely doesn't demonstrate what it claims to, imho. Super popular with the "well actually" crowd, however.
Addendum: I have personally, on several occasions, failed to replicate this result in a study where the subjects are not tainted with false knowledge. Blindfolded drinkers who are given a glass of red and told nothing about it usually know it's red.
I used to be big on challenging my assumptions with blind tasting. Then I realized I do 99% of my drinking with the label visible.
For better or worse the marketing and tasting notes impact my enjoyment of the spirit. Any results I learn tasting "blind" don't generalize to my day to day experience. As a result I've mostly stopped doing blind tasting.
If you don't mind me asking, how do you do blind tastings? Doesn't someone have to pour the glasses and therefore knows which is which? Also how do you figure out at the end, which was which? I imagine, one person pours, another rearranges, and then the glasses have a labeled underneath
You pretty much nailed it. It is easier if you have an impartial helper though; a professor I knew back in school would, after finals, invite his students to a wine tasting at this house. His wife would pour and label the glasses, but never took part, removing the chance for subtle cues at the tastings occurred. After we'd all tasted and jotted down our notes, and shared our thoughts, they'd be revealed.
He (the prof) always took joy in how much variation there was in the wines students deemed "best", given our relatively inexperienced pallets. One's favorite was as likely to be pulled from a $150 bottle as an $8 box.
