Jep,

Generally speaking, I strongly agree with you and disagree with Dave.
However, it depends on what the bartender or restaurant owner chooses!
I find that the better restaurants tend to have a wine list with
plenty of variation, but occasionally I come across a
middle-of-the-road restaurant where the list of reds has little
variation, and where there is (like a mixture of Shiraz, Cab Sauv,
etc) the wines chosen all have a lot of common qualities. It seems to
me in those cases that whomever is chosing the wines to put on the
list has a fairly narrow range of preference or experience. In such a
place I would bet my success would be in line with what Dave is
suggesting. But with what you described (even with "half-decent"
wines let alone "good" ones) I would confidently bet that I could pick
out which is which -- assuming that the wines chosen weren't
particularly atypical examples of the variety chosen especially to
foil such an experiment...

Cheers,
Richard

(JEP) wrote in message . com>...
> Dave > wrote in message >. ..
> >> By the way, for those who haven't tried this yet here is a great
> > experiment.
> > Go to a local restaurant with a good "by the glass" wine list. $7 to
> > $10 a glass. Tell the bartender to pour 4 glasses. 3 different
> > varitals, but duplicate one of them. So here you sit with 4 glasses of
> > wine. Try to find the 2 that are the same. It is REALLY hard because
> > they ALL taste the same.
> > What a shame.
> >
>
> No way. You set (for example) a good Pinot Noir, a good Cabernet and a
> good Syrah in front of me and I will be able to find the two that
> match. I'll even be able to tell you which is which (most of the time
> anyway).
>
> There is a lot of indistinct wine out there and a lot of those end up
> in your local restaurant for BtG pours, but the good wines keep their
> varietal characteristics even if reverse osmosis is used.
>
> Andy