Researchers Turn Mice Into Wine Snobs

Unsatisfied with the number of reasons people have to hate rodents already, scientists at Japan's Hiroshima University have taught mice to be wine snobs. After being trained to pick red wine over other kinds the mice were taught to distinguish between brands. From the article: "We examined performance of mice in discrimination of liquor odors by Y-maze behavioral assays. Thirsty mice were initially trained to choose the odor of a red wine in the Y-maze. After successful training (>70% concordance for each trained mouse), the individual mice were able to discriminate the learned red wine from other liquors, including white wine, rosé wine, sake, and plum liqueur."

Comments

Re:Editor thinks a wine snob...

[Mr. Slippery]

is someone who can differentiate white, rose, and red wine.

Right. Because in point of fact, wine snobs can't do so:

M Brochet carried out two studies. In the first, he invited 54 of Bordeaux's eminent wine experts to sample different bottles, including a white wine to which he had added a flavourless substance giving it a red colour. Not a single expert noticed. âoeIt is a well known psychological phenomonen â" you taste what you are expecting to taste,â M Brochet said. âoeThey were expecting to taste a red wine, and so they did.â Similar experiments elsewhere had come up with similar results.

âoeAbout 2 or 3 per cent of people detect the white wine flavour, but invariably they have little experience of wine culture. Connoisseurs tend to fail to do so. The more training they have, the more mistakes they make because they are influenced by the colour of the wine.â

You're better off with the trained mice.