It is an interesting debate to determine how much context is appropriate when tasting wines.

Wine Spectator rejects double-blind tastings, since part of a wine’s quality and character should reflect its vintage and origin. On the other hand, we reject non-blind tastings, since so much evidence shows how inescapable various kinds of external bias are (price, label prestige, etc.). Therefore, the question becomes: how blind?

I think the amount of information will vary depending on the goal of the tasting. For new-release wines being officially reviewed, the most important thing is to blind the producer and the price, since many studies have determined that they almost inevitably bias judgment. On the other hand, as I’ve said, since wine is supposed to reflect growing season and vineyard origin, vintage and appellation seem necessary for appropriate assessment of quality and character.

Here’s what our tasters know when they sit down to a flight of wines: vintage, appellation, and varietal if it’s a formal part of the wine name.

Our tastings are set up by tasting coordinators; tasters do not know what specific wines are in any flight. The flights aim for some level of coherence without becoming predictable; that is, classified growths are mixed with non-classified chateaux, or $15 wines are mixed with $150 wines. It’s an art form, not a formula.

Our goal is to give every wine a fair and equal chance to show its best. Our methodology may not be perfect, but we think we have arrived at a procedure that avoids bias while giving enough context for informed assessment of quality, character and typicity. We hope readers will find our reviews credible and reliable.

Thomas Matthews
Executive editor
Wine Spectator

Assuming that we agree, that certain context is necessary in order to work within a standard, are the standards within which you work codified anywhere, written down so that everyone at the evaluation (or across all evaluations) works from the same set of standards?

If so, where are they, who developed these standards, and how?

If not, of what value are your newsletter’s standards in relation to the standards at WE, WS or even WA? And why should there be a separate set of evaluation standards at each separate point of evaluation?

What if without context, a Russian River wine is evaluated as if it were a Burgundy, or the other way around? With context, can there ever be that kind of result? Without context, does that kind of result rear its head?

Finally, how does context avoid producing a biased result?

By context in wine criticism, I refer only to the amount of knowledge one has about a group of wines being tasted.

I see useful purpose in doing double blind tastings of sample that vary by place, grape and vintage. Basically, I am arguing for single blind tastings in which one knows enough basic info to bring a standard of expectations to bear on the tasting.

For example, tasting Red Burgs simply has to be judged by a different standard than tasting West Coast Pinot Noir. I dont want to know who is in the tasting. I don’t want to know where across the West Coast or Burgundy or New Zealand the wines came from.

I expect CA bubblies to be very good but not to taste precisely like Champagne. I do expect them to share similar structural elements in general.

That is what I mean by context. And I would argue that both wine criticism and wine enjoyment have those kinds of elements in their makeups.

So, while these seem lilke a lot of quibbles, I do think that we agree in very large measure.

Charlie