What characteristics are the least subjective?

[stevebody]

Tyrell,

In my cooking classes, my students frequently don't even agree on what tastes sweet and salty. Taste is an abyss of individual perception and I'm talking about nthe taste registered on your tongue, not your powers of discernment, which is even more slippery.

The area of alcohol, as mentioned, is probably the easies to to nail down, which brings us to (pardon me) Body. Body is one of the least subjective things about wine. Almost anyone can blind taste four or five wines and tell which is the fullest and which is the lightest, if you explain the concept. As it happens, my first assignment for a newspaper back in Carolina which recently hired me to write a wine column was that very thing: individual taste. Working on that column, I've asked a lot of knowledgeable wine people, and a few people who know very little about it, your exact question. The answers are all over the board. As high as is the level of wine acumen on this forum, we can't all agree on much of anything and frequently get pretty exercised about our opinions. Great question but it probably doesn't have a satisfying answer.