If these wine enthusiasts trained to drink all wine at the same temperature they would eventually learn to pick up the differences between red and white wines. But they did not train, so their classification error is high.
I didn't serve any spritzig white wines though. Then it would have been very obvious.
That's not that surprising though! I enjoy drinking wine but I am really terrible at blind tasting. However, I have done blind tastings with people who _are_ trained sommeliers and it's very humbling to watch them taste and then methodically eliminate incorrect results until they eventually come up with the correct answer. Now, they are not always perfect, but for the most part they always at least get within the ballpark, whereas I am all over the map.
So, from my experience at least, I do believe that identifying wine in a blind tasting is a trainable skill, and it's not just hocus pocus.