In the new segment of No Sediment channel “Talk Under the VVine”, I sat down with Raimonds Tomsons (ASI Best Sommelier of the World 2023) and Ronalds Pētersons (2-time Baltic Sommelier Champion) to discuss whether we really need wine experts and can we trust them, and we end the discussion with a nice blind tasting to see if all three wine experts can come to a common conclusion.
You can also listen to the No Sediment Wine Podcast and Talk Under the Vine episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts and Castbox.
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*CONTENTS OF THIS VIDEO
0:00 Introduction
2:41 What is a wine expert?
7:12 Can we trust wine experts?
11:23 Do wine businesses need wine experts?
14:48 Can AI replace wine experts?
18:34 Can one wine be better than other?
25:27 Will wine become to technical?
27:31 How important is the knowledge of a wine consumer?
31:57 How to educate wine consumers?
39:10 Blind Tasting
49:49 Wine ratings
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35 Comments
To me, I welcome an expert’s view of a wine, so that I can drink it in a “context”. Wine drinking is an emotional as well as a physical experience.
I think wine experts or people with knowledge of wine is great. There's so many different wines, that I, as a wine drinker cannot tastes all the wines. I like being able to tell someone what I like and they can make suggestions based on the information I give them.
There are true experts who are nice, experienced, knowledgeable and willing to give suggestions and teach people. But there are also people who may or may not know about wine but vulgar, dishonest and greedy, pretending to be an expert, exaggerating some entry level wines, fooling beginners of wine, destroying the reputation and market of wine, selling those wines at unacceptable price like some critics and some wine retailers. That’s sad as it makes some people dislike wine if they taste some awful wine as their first wine
Everything is fashion. Look at your own high school pictures. If a respectable person repeatedly tells you Riesling is good, Riesling will become good.
A great video!
One thing that I like is they are extremely friendly about answering consumers questions. It's part of a sommelier's job, and we as consumers need to stop being afraid to ask questions. From what may be silly, to serious, they are there to help you. Yes some, not all, may come off as snobbish, but majority are not and will gladly help you. So don't be afraid to ask the questions!
Keep the videos coming!!
I like the idea of emotion taking the wine to another level. Einstein asserted that time is the fourth dimension. I alway felt then that emotion must be the fifth dimension.
Enjoyed your video very much. And your guests both seem to have one important quality, they are modest.
Wow, what a chilling discussion. Can we trust the opinions of wine experts? It seems the answer is absolutely not. It doesn't matter if the wine they tasted on their luxury trip to an over hyped vineyard was mediocre, grotesquely overpriced or downright bad, they will recommend it to us anyway with a fake 98/100 score because they are selling us "emotions". Oh, and they want to be invited back again and don't want to get a reputation for being difficult or critical.
Fun discussion!
I am totally on-board with Raimonds regarding PEOPLE should be the ones guiding wine enthusiasts, NOT A.I.
FYI, Raimonds resembles Beavis (from "Beavis and Butthead" cartoon), albeit a very sophisticated and knowledge one.😂🤣
Yes == what is interesting?
I met Raimonds when he was the president of the jury of the Portuguese national sommelier competition 2 years ago. He is a very nice guy and showed a mind-boggling knowledge.
Wow, this vid has triggered an interesting debate! WRT "emotion" in wine, as an enthusiastic wine amateur, I very often open 2 or 3 wines at the same time. I know what wines they are, but first taste them blind. Then after the "reveal" re-taste them, then drink them with supper. The "quality" of the wine does not get better, or worse, when I learn the "back story" or provenance of the wine – but my "enjoyment" is potentially enhanced! I guess rather like looking at a beautiful object (e.g. statue, painting etc) – its artistic merit is evident and factual, but knowing its history, enhances one's appreciation? I expect a wine expert to assess a wine's quality, and, if of interest, tell a story about it. And, to inform, if the wine's style could be viewed as "challenging". I remember a couple in my village, who on the first Christmas without the children, treated themselves to a very expensive bottle of red wine. They were very disappointed – what was the wine? Barolo. A wine expert, knowing the client, might well have recommended something more approachable?
I decided to drink up all my dry Chenins (all by Huet of different vintages and vineyards) because I am not seeing any development – the wines that spent over a decade in the cellar seemed the same to me as the wines from the most recent vintage. Perhaps they will eventually evolve after 50 years, but I certainly don't care about it. Currently, the acid levels overwhelm everything else and the wines can be enjoyed only with such hefty food as roasted fatty salmon or similar.
This was a wonderful, fascinating video!! It's so interesting listening to real wine experts.
Thank you for this video. I appreciate hearing from them. I think it is true that most consumers really don't care about all the details about the wine. they just want wine to enjoy. What I find is that in most places (stores, restaurants), it is really hard to find someone that has any knowledge about the wine. It is hard when I know more about wine than the server, when I ask for a recommendation, for example. I'm not a trained expert, but I love to explore and know enough about acidity, tannin, etc to ask questions
Hi Agnes
You're keeping dogging lovely and amazingly in your wine journey, and with that, we, as your listeners, are drinking so nicely your words and work
Great job
Cheers
🥂
I recently tasted a wine which was rated, by highly published wine judge and writer, at 96 points.
I was shocked as I would have maybe rated it 87 points. This wine was $50 plus.
Couldn’t understand it.
Agnese you're the only true wine 🍷 🍾 expert 🎉 oh yes you are ❤😊
Like most things… it depends. Mostly of our own personal background and experience and how deep we are into the experience. 25 year ago I didn't know much and had a lot of certainties… these days I have a wealth of knowledge and have very little certainties 😉
Having worked in wine retail and occasionally on the floor in restaurants I have to agree with Ronalds. This is a commercial transaction and a good salesman will always generate more sales than an expert who cannot close the sale. In my experience being able to qualify the customer and determine what they will probably enjoy is paramount. Most importantly I didn’t sell anyone wine that I thought they would not like, or was flawed in some way that is amoral.
Great episode! A little man-sandal heavy but other than the mandals, very entertaining
A lot of what's going on here is a kind of cognitive gymnastics that centres on a question we frequently bump into in this zeitgeist. It's to do with postmodernism and the claim that anyone's opinions and feelings about anything is just as valid to the collective as anyone else's. In short, 3 IRL examples: A signed urinal is just as good art as a Rembrandt, a different interpretation of a word is just as valid as the one in the dictionary, or what a MW thinks about a wine is not more important than what a beginner thinks.
To figure out if this is true or not can be challenging, especially as popular notion tells you one thing and real life experience tells you another. I believe the fundamental question is the following: If everything we experience is interpreted by a single subjective brain, how can anything rightfully mean the same to others? And more importantly: Why should it? If you can answer that, you don't have to torment yourself anymore with this mind worm.
And if it's not clear by my last words, for the sake of transparency: I reject postmodern relativism. This is essentially an authoritative stance.
I work for a large retailer.. I’ve found a majority of my customers are not interested in a story but interested in flavor..
A wine consultant is able to push some customers to expand the customer knowledge and thus, their palat/emotion. Ronaldo’s remarks were more applicable to my experience.
LOVE YOUR CONTENT 😎👍
Nice format. Bring the boys back !
I am self taught eg: "Over the years I have drunk myself into an educated state" 😉
Honestly, it depends which target drinkers are you catering to. With respect, most of these experts when they speak they address the audiance as if everyone has a degree in sommelier and can understand what they are speaking. For example, they tend to speak about the same terms but no hollistic comparison between wines. Its always ohh this wine is different then the 2000s. There is no way in the public market we can get to compare that. That is why i like your series and wine follies, u compare grapes to the styles. Sangiovese (brunello, rosso montalcino, chianti etc) thats what makes people attracted to it.
Like these whole james sucking what not, it doesnt reflect the true quality. Its just a bench mark.
So yes, wine experts commets means nothing to me because of the samples that they are talking
Interesting discussion with smart questions asked. Food for thought. Greetings from Lithuania/Sveicieni no Lietuvas ❤🍷.
it is somewhat delusional to think that involvement of AI will dehumanize wine when in reality, wine has been already dehumanized for decades and decades. any sort of large scale, formula driven, industrial winemaking is already a dehumanized, no question about it. global wine that had 8 styles and all the wine “professionals” that sell these 8 styles have been long dehumanized. hence why “natural wine” is a thing, people prefer flawed, unperfect but unique wines from actual humans. overall, excellent discussion though. love the three people format, love the blind tasting at the end.
Every wine drinker is a wine expert in my opinion. Which is exactly that. Everything is an opinion when it comes to things like food and drink.
All of you are frameworking/defining a certain phrasology which may succeed in the exam. Not necessary. Much of the best wine is drunk locally and those epithanies are achieved there. I feel you are going around in circles. See you in a bit
My humble opinion. I use the Vivino App quite a lot. I tend to prefer the ratings of the average people who drink the wine and enjoyed it or not. A wine expert is great I think in specific settings but a Wine app work quite well for everyday use.
Hmmm. Expert. Great question. There is the rule of 100 that says if you spend at least 100 hours a year on a specific topic you have more knowledge than 95% of the people in the world. Is that an expert? Well, I’ve spent hundreds of hours every year for the last 5 years on my certifications, reading dozens of books, I subscribe to and read multiple trade publications on the business of wine along with the ubiquitous tasting magazines, I enjoy studying for pleasure and I’ve tried over 375 different grapes that have been made into wine from across the world and I am part of a weekly tasting group. After all this, the only thing I am 100% sure of is, the more I know, I’ve learned how little I know. I never say to anyone that I’m an expert. Wine is a life long learning experience. Wine education is very personal, what are the persons goals? How can they get the information they want in the method they want. It’s up to them. Wine has only one purpose, to bring its drinker pleasure. Great topic.
I love an expert who can show me the funkiest and darkest most unknown corners of the wine world. I sometimes go to a wine shop and ask them that and they don’t know what to answer. So then I have to fall back on my bucket list or to search for my own for something I never drank before … 😂🤷♂️
Anyone can call themselves an expert. Advice might be good, biased to sell me something, or just wrong.
It difficult to recommend a $20 bottle I like better than a random $20 bottle, or a 92pt wine I like better than a random 92pt wine. To justify their salary, a wine expert at a store needs to recommend a $15 bottle I like better than a random $20 bottle, and I don't think that is possible.
Where I appreciate expertise, it is putting together tastings. Give me 5 $20 wines that have something in common (same place, producer, varietal, etc) and 5 courses that pair well with them. I'd pay for that. Even where I've seen this works well, it is a passionate business owner or employee trying to justify doing a tasting they really want to do. I am not convinced a business out to make money should do this.