15:57:16 Wednesday July 04 2007 So I have had this suspicion that people who claim to prefer the 1978 Chateau Lafite-Rothschildto the 1979 are making what amounts to a nearly paranormal claim. My taste buds and olfactory receptor neurons are certainly not that finely tuned. I have even won small proposition bets in the past by betting on the limits of human perception. But what about a much more limited test? Can people pick out entirely different varietals? We thought it would be fun to host a party and find out. We stared by seeking out good exemplars of each of six varietals. We had some problems as some of the wines we had originally hoped for were not available in the store. None the less this was the list at tasting time. Cabernet Sauvignon - Beaulieu Vineyard, Napa Valley CA USA, 2004 Merlot - Wild Horse Vineyard, Paso Robles CA USA, 2002 Nebbiolo - Enotria, Mandocino CA USA, 1999 Pinot Noir - Bogle Vineyards, Russian River CA USA, 2004 (N.B. This was deemed a bad example of a Pinot Noir after the test) Shiraz - Penfolds, Coonawarra SA Australia, 2000, Bin 128 Zinfandel - Ravenswood Vineyards, Sonoma County CA USA, 2004 The test was not properly blinded, because who wants to miss the fun of tasting. I don't think there was any cheating otherwise one would expect the scores to be higher. Here are the results. It appears that it is very difficult. The scores were quite low, but the party was a lot of fun so we are likely to host another and attempt to identify some white varietals.   Score   A B C D E F Oracle 6   Merlot Zin Neb Cab Pinot Shiraz Dan 0   Zin Neb Pinot Merlot Shiraz Cab Sara 2   Shiraz Zin Pinot Cab Neb Merlot Chris N. 1   Zin Shiraz Cab Merlot Pinot Neb Chrissy 0   Neb Cab Merlot Shiraz Zin Pinot Brad 1   Merlot Cab Pinot Merlot Shiraz Cab Liz 1   Merlot Pinot Zin Shiraz Cab Neb Chris C. 1   Pinot Zin Merlot Shiraz Cab Neb Ali 0   Pinot Merlot Cab Zin Shiraz Neb Number of Times Identified Correctly =   2 2 0 1 1 0