The science of wine tasting . . . Huh?

There is no way in the world that the authors of this particular press release weren’t intending to be serious about the subject.
    They were touting a new study that combines the tradition and science to test the quality of wine.
    There’s also no way to look at the information with a straight face and believe that someone could be paying for this.
    But that’s a digression.
    Big time.
    One panel would be assigned to detect specific ranges of concentrations of nine aroma chemicals of common wine faults. This group would draw the “task” of sniffing  – sadly, not tasting – the wine and deducting points for fault aromas.
    The second panel would have the job of sniffing and tasting based on more commonly known methods and evaluate on a 20-point scale (flavor, appearance, color, aroma and mouth feel).
    The combined scores become a composite score in the hopes of “finding conformity between the traditional and scientific methods,” said the press release.
    For the connoisseurs (or kuh-nees-iers), wine tasting is serious stuff.
    Obviously.
    For the rest of us who qualify as armchair wine tasters – or in some cases wine virgins – there really isn’t much of a science. The preference is – perhaps – to ask what wine goes with what dish. Or, even more simply, to say, “Hmm. That wine looks good. Let’s try it.”
    Most of us have done our own wine samples that aren’t quite as involved as this. It’s as simple as “pour the wine into a glass (or a plastic cup), drink, repeat as necessary.”
    Not everyone follows that line of logic. So we say “to each connoisseur his own (wine snifter).”
    There is also no way in the world to let this pass without a mandatory question.
    “Where can we sign up?”
    Reporters would be happy to have some samples before a contentious discussion at a city council meeting.
    We could go to the hearing impaired.