Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Correlation Does Not Equal Causation

This is one of my favorite things to keep in mind. It reminds that things can happen for reasons that seem apparent but are actually different in reality. I always have trouble coming up with a good example but yesterday I came across one.

I left work early yesterday and hit Tarara Vineyard with a friend. We did the super secret tasting and, really, they actually have very good wine. Not sure where the dislike comes from. But anyway, the point is we were talking to the pourer (who turned out to be the wife of the winemaker) about buttery Chardonnay which I absolutely hate. I call them popcorn butter. Somehow the conversation of oak vs stainless steel came up. Here is the correlation part. When tasting Chardonnays and one is buttery as hell, it always seems to be aged in oak. When tasting a Chardonnay I can stomach it is in stainless steel. So it seemed that the buttery flavor was in part due to the oak. Turns out, it's actually caused when they ferment the wine with the leaves and they normally only do that in oak. Stainless steel is used for a lighter wine so they don't ferment with the leaves. Ta da.

So there you go. The correlation was that the Chardonnay was fermented in oak therefore it had the buttery taste. Turns out the oak wasn't the cause thus the saying: Correlation does not equal causation.

My office hours are 3 pm to 3:05 pm every other Tuesday if there are any questions. ;)

8 comments:

Kirsten said...

wow, cool to know! I had the same taste in chardonay that you do, so I learned something new today! Thanks for sharing!

CMS said...

5 minutes huh? You are putting in way too much time at the office. ;-)

EJ said...

Okay, that's just weird, I had an almost identical conversation with the wife of the owner at Barrel Oak on Sunday...
Except that I don't think we knew the causation aspect.

Shana said...

It gets even weirder, while I was at the grocery store yesterday (ironically about the time you made this post), I was looking at their new wine section and noticing how many chardonays there were. I thought of you and your 'buttery popcorn'... and then you go and post about it. Weeeeiiird.

Meredith Self said...

Okay. I was eating buttery popcorn at the movies. and my fingers got sticky. so i licked them. They were still sticky.
I was eating buttery popcorn at home and my fingers got sticky. so I licked them. They were not sticky.

So it seemed likely that movie buttery is not really butter. But then I realized.

Sticky was the seat and the floor at the movies, but not my house (nobody comment on that). And I was jumping at every little 'ah' in even the most G rated movie as my son teases me often and so maybe i was just nervous and so sticky hands.

I'm all mixed up now in variables now and who cares what caused the sticky. i'm still liking buttery. Even if I watch Army of Darkness which is whole other mess of sticky altogether.

SuperMel said...

You definitely need Chardonnay during Army of Darkness.

Meredith Self said...

a wine i don't like with a movie i don.......

Ryan said...

You know you like Army of Darkness. It's just fashionable to pretend you don't, but I know different.

Love it.