Originally Posted by
slawecki
let us presuming the wine is ready upon opening and decanting. i would really like to have a group of "distinguished" experts blind taste fresh opened and say 2 day old inert gas preserved.
i think bern's offers about 100 wines by the glass. only a couple get over $35 shelf price. i see no first or second bordeaux, few top CA cabs, and only 1 or 2 wines that would be hard to find. even those hard to find (the 70 pauillac) i could easily find a few acceptable substitutes in my cellar.
a few years back, i went to harry's bar in paris. they had opened a hermitage and cote roti. also had two firsts open. i think lafite and latour. they were sort of the high end wines of the day(it was lunch time)
Lovely examples, and I dont dispute that many places do this.... still, that does not mean that the practice is 'best practice'. And yes, I can assure you that someone with the right palate will tell the difference.
Someone with a very 'basic' palate and relatively little experience (ie. my own) can tell this more often than not (yes, Ive been know to miss a few)...
Not to brag, but I would never dare lead a tasting event using opened bottles... in my book, its a huge faux-pas to not have a new bottle opened for each new tasting, its a matter of proper etiquette. But... as the saying goes, to each his own... ^