Whining & Dining: Perception Is Reality

I enjoy a nice glass of wine once in a while. Although I am the first to admit I am no expert. Not by a long shot. I still can't tell you which wines go best with lamb or which you should avoid with seafood.

Nope. I'm not into that. I just enjoy the taste of wine every now and again.

A wine snob, I am not.

But many people are. We all have seen them. Some of us know them. Some might even live with one.

If my life depended on it, I couldn't tell you the difference between a cranberry aftertaste and a nuclear aftermath. Tannins, shmannins. It either tastes good to me or it doesn't.

But it looks like many of these so called experts might be full of more than just wine and cheese. Some of them flat out don't know what they are talking about.

A few years back a researcher from the University of Bordeaux conducted a couple of experiments that concluded many wine experts are just overrated egomaniacs.

The first experiment gave them the EXACT SAME white wine, but one of the samples was colored red with dye. NOTHING ELSE changed.

The critics were ALL fooled and described the white wine as if they had just sipped the smoothest red they had ever tasted.

WRONG!! It's WHITE WINE, you phonies!!

Experiment #2 involved putting a cheap wine on an expensive label and the expensive wine on a cheap label. The verdict? The cheapo wine was the best ever! Four stars! And the expensive wine? It was described as "weak, flat, and faulty" by the "experts".

Perception really is reality. I have played such mind games with my own children. I will swap out a generic cereal or pop tart for their favorite name brand kinds and they never can taste the difference. Kind of a different result than the above experiment.

But it reminds me of the recent study that found that kids like even vegetables if they come in a McDonald's wrapper.

Perception really is reality. That's why I am glad my listeners always picture me as tall, dark, and handsome. Even though in reality I am a dry red with a slight hint of blackberry.

Or is that raspberry? I can't tell the difference sometimes.

So just quite the whining and let's make a toast to a nice glass of wine. Regardless of whether or not it goes with the lamb.