Blind Tasting: Systematic Deduction

Blind tasting is the assessment of a wine without knowing its identity. The Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) advises that the identity of the wines should not be known to the tasters, and that wines should be presented in a randomised order with no clues as to their identity, so that the biases of all tasters are minimised. The OIV's 2015 review of sensory analysis sets the same rule for panels: samples are presented blind and coded, and the three groups of attributes to assess are the appearance, the odour and the flavour. Wine education builds on this. WSET students learn to taste with the WSET Systematic Approach to Tasting (SAT), which WSET designed to build skills progressively through its qualification levels, while Court of Master Sommeliers candidates learn a deductive tasting format that sommeliers call the grid.

• OIV (2015): samples go to the panel blind and coded, assessors evaluate appearance, odour and flavour, and an overall verdict can also be given
• WSET: the SAT is used across its wine qualifications; the detail changes as students progress through the levels, but the technique stays the same
• Court of Master Sommeliers: a GuildSomm study guide by Martin Beally describes the grid as the shorthand for the deductive tasting format that guides a taster through blind tasting
• Removing the label: writing in Decanter, Matt Stamp MS says blind tasting lets you view a wine as it is, unencumbered by the noise of scores, labels, history and perceived value

In an exam, blind tasting removes any bias a taster might have toward a wine and lets candidates show they can evaluate it accurately and objectively, as Mary Margaret McCamic MW writes for GuildSomm. Matt Stamp MS, writing in Decanter, calls it a skill that requires practice rather than innate ability, and says practising it sharpens the ability to communicate a wine's character in an objective and meaningful way. The same discipline runs through the trade: McCamic describes tasting for quality-to-price ratio, typicity and style at every level of the supply chain.

• Credentials: Decanter reported in 2013 that proficiency in blind tasting is required in all three Court of Master Sommeliers exams (Certified Sommelier, Advanced Sommelier and Master Sommelier)
• WSET Level 3: Unit 2 of the Award in Wines is assessed by a blind tasting of two wines
• Producers: according to Nigel Sneyd MW, quoted by GuildSomm, Gallo blind tastes all winemaking trials and also blind tastes for blending
• Buyers: McCamic recalls blind tastings at Balthazar in New York that mostly determined whether a wine's quality and style matched its price point

The WSET Level 3 SAT (2022, Issue 2) sets out four headings: Appearance, Nose, Palate and Conclusions. Appearance covers clarity (clear or hazy), intensity (pale, medium or deep) and colour: lemon-green, lemon, gold, amber or brown for whites; pink, salmon or orange for rosés; purple, ruby, garnet, tawny or brown for reds. The nose covers condition, intensity from light to pronounced, aroma characteristics, and development, from youthful to tired or past its best. The palate covers sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, mousse, flavour intensity, flavour characteristics and finish. Conclusions assess the quality level, from faulty through poor, acceptable, good and very good to outstanding, and the level of readiness for drinking. Where a line offers a scale, the SAT tells students to select one and only one option.

• Aroma characteristics: the WSET Level 3 Wine-Lexicon groups them as primary (the grape and alcoholic fermentation), secondary (post-fermentation winemaking: yeast, malolactic conversion and oak) and tertiary (maturation)
• Tertiary examples in the Wine-Lexicon: for reds, bottle age can bring leather, forest floor, earth, mushroom and tobacco; for whites, petrol, kerosene, honey and hay
• Scales: alcohol is judged as low, medium or high, while acidity, tannin, body and finish each use five levels; WSET lists writing medium(+) or medium(-) for alcohol or colour intensity as a common exam error
• Structure as evidence: WSET notes that acidity makes your mouth water while tannins have a mouth-drying effect

The blind tasting that became known as the Judgment of Paris took place in Paris on May 24, 1976. Steven Spurrier, who ran a Paris wine shop and the wine school L'Académie du Vin, hosted it with his American co-worker Patricia Gallagher, timed to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial. A panel of French experts compared Napa Valley Chardonnays with white Burgundies and Napa Cabernet Sauvignons with red Bordeaux, and the Californians won both flights: a 1973 Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena led the whites and a 1973 Napa Valley Cabernet from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars led the reds (Wine Spectator). George Taber, Time's Paris bureau chief, was the only invited journalist who attended, and he reported the result under the headline "Judgment of Paris".

• Blind by design: Wine Spectator reports the tasting was blind, to avoid inherent bias
• Scoring: judges rated the wines on a 20-point scale and Spurrier averaged the scores afterward, which Wine Spectator says obscured the wildly different rankings from each judge
• A lesson for deduction: Spurrier did not tell the judges there would be French wines until the tasting was about to begin, and Wine Spectator says they spent much of the tasting debating the wines' origins rather than their quality

The WSET Level 3 Award in Wines has a Total Qualification Time of 84 hours, made up of 32.5 guided learning hours (including the 2.5-hour examination) and 51.5 hours of private study (WSET specification, 2022). WSET suggests starting by comparing a few wines of different styles and qualities side by side, keeping notes of the wines you taste, and tasting with people who have more experience; later comparisons can set the same grape from different places against each other, such as a Chablis and a Napa Valley Chardonnay. For Court of Master Sommeliers candidates, Martin Beally's GuildSomm guide advises knowing the grid so well it can be recited without thinking, and spending most practice time on comparative tastings rather than six-wine flights.

• Calibrate: WSET students taste with tutors who guide them in calibrating their palate and describing levels of sweetness, acidity and tannin
• Evaluate, don't guess: for the WSET Level 3 tasting exam, WSET advises not trying to identify the wine but evaluating what is in front of you
• Double blind, single blind: Beally recommends re-bagging and re-tasting the wines a group found hardest, so the problem areas are worked on while sense memories are fresh
• Hydrate: WSET notes that dehydration suppresses salivation, which can lead a taster to underestimate acidity
• Pace the flight: the AWRI recommends a maximum of six to seven wines per session to reduce fatigue and adaptation

Deduction builds a case from several clues rather than one. In Beally's example, a banana aroma in a red is linked with whole-cluster fermentation, which keeps Pinot Noir, Grenache and Syrah in play alongside Gamay Noir; low visual intensity, a garnet colour and herbal notes of cola and sassafras then narrow the wine to Pinot Noir. WSET calls climate the single biggest influence on a wine's acidity, and notes that wines from cooler climates tend to retain more of their natural acidity, naming Chablis and the Mosel as classic examples, while warmer climates, and warmer vintages, often produce lower acidity. Aroma can point to a grape as well: in Decanter, Matt Stamp MS links green bell pepper or grass aromas with pyrazine compounds in Sauvignon Blanc.

• Same grape, two climates: WSET contrasts a cool-climate Chablis, with pronounced acidity and a long, mouth-watering finish, against a warm-climate, oak-aged Chardonnay that feels rounder, softer and more buttery
• Acidity clues: WSET links lemon, lime, grapefruit or green apple notes in whites, and bright red fruit such as cherries and cranberries in reds, with higher acidity
• Tannin: WSET notes that a Cabernet Sauvignon may have quite a high level of tannin, whereas a Pinot Noir generally has less and may feel softer and more delicate
• Sweetness and acid: WSET notes that a Mosel Spätlese could have acidity similar to a dry Trocken Riesling from the same region, but its residual sugar changes how that acidity is perceived

Primary sources (WSET, the OIV and the Australian Wine Research Institute): https://www.wsetglobal.com/media/11766/wset_l3wines_sat_en_may2022_issue2.pdf, https://www.wsetglobal.com/media/11731/wset_l3wines_specification_en_highres_may2022_issue2.pdf, https://www.wsetglobal.com/qualifications/wset-level-3-award-in-wines, https://www.wsetglobal.com/knowledge-centre/blog/2024/how-to-ace-the-wset-level-3-award-in-wines-tasting-exam, https://www.wsetglobal.com/knowledge-centre/blog/2019/november/how-to-build-your-wine-tasting-skills/, https://www.wsetglobal.com/knowledge-centre/blog/2026/understanding-acidity-in-wine, https://www.wsetglobal.com/knowledge-centre/blog/2023/december/19/how-to-taste-wine, https://www.wsetglobal.com/knowledge-centre/wset-systematic-approach-to-tasting-sat, https://www.oiv.int/public/medias/3307/review-on-sensory-analysis-of-wine.pdf, https://www.awri.com.au/industry_support/winemaking_resources/sensory_assessment/considerations/. Secondary: https://www.guildsomm.com/public_content/features/articles/b/mary-margaret-mccamic/posts/blind-tasting-applications, https://www.guildsomm.com/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-components-userfiles/00-00-00-66-84/preparing-for-deductive-tasting-exams-at-high-levels.pdf, https://www.decanter.com/premium/what-does-it-take-to-become-a-master-sommelier-246020/, https://www.winespectator.com/articles/the-judgment-of-paris-turns-fifty, https://www.winespectator.com/articles/the-sip-heard-round-the-world-2706. Last verified 2026-09-29