Yes, but even subjective judgements are invalid if they're not based on objective differences.

If you reliably prefer white wines in blind tastings and I reliably prefer reds, that's valid. But if we both claim a preference but can't actually identify which is which, our preferences themselves are invalid.

Or at least, we've learned that our true preference is "I like the experience of tasting a wine that I have seen is X color."

Perhaps the truth is sometimes "I enjoy consuming something that I have been told is expensive." It would at least be enlightening to know that about ourselves.

I disagree here... subjectivity is intrinsically at odds with objectivity. They may sometimes work together (mostly in "I agree with you about this opinion for this reason that both of us can clearly observe"), but calling something subjective "invalid" is calling an opinion invalid. It can't be unless you've decided to have an opinion about a fact (e.g. "I have decided that this spoon, which is clearly silver, is actually copper").

Maybe I wasn't clear? Suppose your opinion is "wines which are red (objective) are tastier (subjective)." If you cannot even identify red wines by taste, you clearly, provably, do not prefer the taste of red wines.

There may be something else about the visual experience, social prestige, etc that you like about drinking red wine, but as far as taste, you are fooling yourself. Your opinion about the taste is invalid in the sense that it isn't about what you claim it is.

What's more interesting is determining which domains are highly correlated (human beauty in current western culture), and which are poorly so (blind wine taste). And that assessment can be backed by much more than uninformed personal opinion.

There's a sort of masochism in many of us that results in things that are slightly painful -- e.g. consuming capsaicin -- being pleasurable. Many people are also drawn to abnormalities in human and other physiques and other statistical oddities in nature for various reasons.

Then there are people who perceive the world differently (e.g. the colorblind, the blind, the deaf) who perceive the same things very differently and will thus have differently-formed subjective experiences of the same things as 'standard' humans.

Yes, subjective ratings can correlate. However, that does not mean they're any closer to objective, or any closer to validity or invalidity.

Pure subjectivity means nobody else agrees. Pure objectivity means everybody else agrees.

Not one single beer enthusiast is going to confuse a Rochefort with a Dogfish Head IPA. Doesn't matter what bottle it comes in, or if you are blindfolded or what. Same thing with Laphroaig and Dewers. There are simply different drinks.

Now it is entirely possible, probable even, that marketing, labeling and price has an effect on which beers or scotches you identify as good, but that's different from treating things that are indistinguishable as distinguishable.

Every culture has rules about how you wave your banner and show people how into that culture you are. With wine culture, it seems a lot of that is through price and rarity. With beer, that sometimes comes into play, but it's equally likely to be with IBU, darkness, or local expertise.

I'm not a fan of the hops-gamesmanship that goes on, but I do like that beer culture celebrates variety and small breweries as much as it does "famous", exclusive beers. For every Rochefort, there are ten Abitas, Lagunitases, etc. that are just as well loved.