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<pre>Having not seen the offending article in Cuisine I feel reluctant to
comment but there seems to me room for both professional tasting and
personal opinions as long as it is clear that is what is being given. As I
see it from the comments posted the article purported to be a professional
tasting but was in fact a personal opinion.

The wine industry is a good example of high standard of professional
tasting but also demonstrates its rigidity. The great break through for NZ
wine came in the 1980's with the Sunday Times wine show in London which has
a popular voting system as well as professional judges. The NZ whites
(Sauvignon blanc in particular) swept the board in the popular vote while
the professional judges could not decide whether they were appropraite to
this class or that and rejected them totally in favour of other varieties
that were easier to classify when it came to awarding their medals. The
professional judges assesment has sunk without trace while the popular vote
has been the basis for an enormous expansion of NZ wine exports to the UK.

Cheers Brian Chatterton.
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