The question is fundamental to the whole concept of blind tastings. There are many arguments for saying that it is virtually impossible to give a fair judgement about a wine if you taste it totally blind, without having the least bit of information about it.
At the same time there are as many arguments for saying that you cannot possibly be unbiased in your evaluation if you know what the wine is.
Read more on blind tastings, “experts”, wine competitions etc – and not least about honesty and ethics of wine writers – in our article Do you have to “know” about a wine to be able to judge it fairly?
