Adam Ruins Everything - Why Wine Snobs Are Faking It

All right, ladies, would you like to see our wine list? That sounds perfect. Yes, let's talk about wine. There are so many. How am I supposed to choose? Have you ever noticed that when it's time to choose a wine, none of us feel like we know what we're doing? This one's fancy, I think. Since we can't taste the wines before we buy them, we're forced to pick just based on the label. This one has a frog wearing a hat, so I bet that tastes like mossy. This one's by Francis Ford Coppola. I like his movies, so I bet it tastes like the Godfather. This one says ketchup. Am I holding a bottle of ketchup? And even when we do taste them, we doubt our own opinions. This is dry. This one's full-bodied. Are you sure? No, what is a wine body? Yeah, this is clearly wet. So we defer to the opinions of so-called wine experts. Perhaps I can be of some assistance, ladies. Oh, thank God. Tell us what tastes good. I've been pretending this whole time. But the truth is, everyone is pretending. Because even though wine connoisseurs want us to believe that their ratings are objective... That one's fit to drink. That is cheap swill. And that is a bottle of ketchup. And they have supernatural powers of wine discernment. Hmm, a 1934. Tastes like it was a very cold summer that year. And the vintner's wife was pregnant. Hold on. With a girl. Here's the big secret. Wine experts can't tell the difference either. I beg to differ, sir. My palate is incredibly refined. Well, Frederic Brochet of the University of Bordeaux would say otherwise. He conducted a series of tests on unsuspecting wine experts. But for the sake of TV, let's call them wine pranks. Wine pranks! In the first test, 54 wine connoisseurs were asked to compare a red and a white wine. Should be pretty easy. The red is juicy and robust. The white, it's bright, with notes of vanilla and oak. Wrong! They're actually the same wine. Half of the bottles were just white wine dyed red, and none of the participants could tell. I never! Wine pranks! In another test, experts were asked to compare two different bottles. One, an expensive Grand Cru, and the other, a cheap table wine. The Grand Cru, complex. Very, very interesting. I shall be returning to the Grand Cru. Fin du table. It's light, it's flat. It's pretty much what you'd expect. Oh, that's interesting, because once again, they're the same wine! Brochet just put the same wine in two different bottles, and none of the so-called wine experts even noticed. Wine pranks, wine pranks! Ha ha, you got wine pranked! All right, you've convinced me. All wine is terrible, and it tastes the same. No, wine is wonderful, and of course wines taste different. It's just totally subjective, like all foods. We don't need sandwich experts, because we know what we like. Peanut butter and sardines. What, they're both healthy fats, and it's what I like. If you don't like it, it doesn't matter, because there's no objective truth to what tastes best. We think of wine as a high-class item, only accessible by high-class people, but it's just tasty fermented grapes. So, you know what, forget the snobs, take risks, and drink what tastes good to you. Wait, really? You mean I can drink whatever I want? Yeah. Freedom! Ha ha ha ha ha! Who wants to split a box of whites in? Yeah! Ah! I've missed this so much! I love it!