Are�wine's pleasures�all in your head? What motivates the wine shopper?, by Eric Asimov in the NYT, who notes:
In press accounts of two studies on wine psychology, consumers have been portrayed as dupes and twits, subject to the manipulations of marketers, critics and charlatan producers who have cloaked wine in mystique and sham sophistication in hopes of better separating the public from its money.
Is�that true? I have tasted some undrinkable wines in my time,�very many entirely OK table wines,�and some sublime ones.�Tasting a wine is�like meeting a new person: put your preconceptions away and see who they are. Turning wine into an effete exercise is pure silliness.
h/t, a post on the subject at Neuroanthropology.
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