Actually, there have been studies where they put red food coloring in white wine and given it to self-styled experts who could not tell that what they were drinking was not red wine.
I'm sure you could find just as many studies proving the opposite. The human nose is not as bad as many people think. I've conducted a little experiments myself together with four or five roommates. We first sampled four different red wines, then going at them 'blind' (not knowing the label) again. Me and a colleague got all four right, the others had two of them mixed up (always the same as I remember). All of us were completely untrained in wine testing. At least we could find good evidence that we were better than random agents, even though to do it conclusively the sample size would have to be larger.
I think when you try to trick somebody into thinking a wine is something different from what it is, that's very much different from saying we can't tell apart wines at all.
There's no question that people can tell one wine from another. But the point is that people's perceptions of wine are as much a function of their expectations as the actual chemistry of the wine. The same thing can be said about insects or veggie-burgers. Yes, veggie burgers don't taste like real burgers. But if people claim that veggie burgers taste worse (or better) than real burgers, that could be as much a function of their expectations as it is the actual flavor.
I went back and looked up the details. It turns out that the protocol was that they were served two glasses of wine, one red, one white. They were actually the same (white) wine. The red wine had (flavorless) food coloring added. Yes, it's deceptive, but this sort of deception is common is psychological studies. I'd say it's fair game in this case.
Expecting to taste a red wine and getting a disguised white wine means you're not ready to appreciate a white wine. It's a whole different world so no wonder they found it off.
It would have actually been a better call to stick to white wine, no coloring added, and differentiate only with the label.
