Consciousness and Wine

In a wine tasting famously dubbed "The Judgement of Paris" conducted on 24 May 1976 a  jury of 9 French wine judges rated white California Chardonnays vs. Burgundy Chardonnays and red California Cabernet Sauvignon vs. French Bordeaux. All twenty wines in the tasting had been selected by a British wine merchant who sold only French wine and believed that the California wines would not win. But a California wine won both the white and red wine categories and the California wine industry was off and running.

Consciousness of taste is notoriously poor in its perception of the sensation of taste. Indeed, the same kind of results have been produced for any number of foods and beverages, including especially coffee. When it comes to taste, awareness of other serve as a bias in creating the consciousness of taste experienced. Without the generally accepted bias that French wines were better than California wines, the California wines won the "The Judgement of Paris".  One of the judges ( the editor of  "La Revue du vin de France")  demanded her ballot back The tasting was not covered by the French press. The wine merchant was banned from submitting wines for future tastings. 

Indeed, the consciousness of the judgement of the brain that produces the sensations of of qualia (pleasantness or disgust of taste, smell, feel, etc) in the mind as memory. We do not perceive the taste the wine itself in consciousness but rather the sensations of qualia associated with the wine. Indeed, in a blind test in which the quale of color is prevent by blindfolding the taster, most cannot even distinguish between red and white wines. 

It is the ancient cerebellum that sits on top of our brain stem that receives and processes all the sensory inputs and distributes the results to regions of the cerebral cortex brain that, systematically connected together, results in what we ultimately experience as an awareness of consciousness. That is, the consciousness is an awareness in the cerebral cortex of the awareness in the cerebellum of something in the world outside the brain. 

The brain itself has no sensory cells and has no consciousness of its physical self. It is only when we break open the skull and see the physical brain do we have consciousness of its existence.