An article in Slate.com (www.slate.com/id/2177629) by Mike Steinberger calls into question the importance of judging wines only by a blind tasting. Does this make for the best wine criticism?
"Blind tastings are wonderfully democratic, but there is a tendency to overlook the fact that wines and palates are fickle and to read more into the results than is justified," he says, citing a tasting in which American wines beat some of the top rated Burgundies and Bordeaux, and saying that the tasting didn't prove their superiority.
"If you don't know the wine's name, you also don't know its back story—how it was made and how it has tended to evolve in prior vintages. These are important considerations, particularly when appraising younger wines (a point made very persuasively by New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov in a recent post on his blog)."

So maybe the trick is to give the backstory of the wines being tasted (and their names and vintages), but not to say which is which before you do the tasting. I have found that blind tastings of similar wines make me think more about what I am drinking, or make me taste more, so it's a valuable discipline if you are trying to really get the flavors.

But this article is a valuable addition to conversations on this topic.