I know people who insist on drinking only the best wines from any category, the wines with pedigree and reputation. After all, there is a reason why “the best” have earned their reputation. Although reputation isn’t a guarantee of quality and surely no guarantee that the wine will fit your personal taste, more often than not wines that have impressed critics over many vintages will have something to offer most wine lovers. But that is nevertheless a bad strategy for choosing what to drink.
Earlier this week we were in Philadelphia strolling through the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They have an extensive collection but we had only a few hours before heading out to dinner and couldn’t see it all. The visitors guide has a helpful list of highlights—the most famous works in the collection—and maps you to them so you can skip the lesser lights and visit the stars.
But we never take that option because you lose out on the thrill of making new discoveries. I would rather just stroll through the rooms without a plan looking for something that catches my eye. Instead of another bowl of fruit from Cezanne or sparkling, dappled lilies from Monet, I discovered the contemporary, Italian artist Marisa Merz who manages to be simultaneously charming and menacing. Had I toured the stars, I would have missed lesser works by famous figures like this peculiar work by Dali called Agnostic Symbol that I never knew existed.
Similarly, if you drink only signature wines from well-known producers you won’t discover the seemingly infinite variety of equally compelling wines that fly under the radar. These lesser known wines will likely show far more originality and distinctiveness than what you find among the stars since it’s the stars that define what conventionality and orthodoxy mean at any point in time.
Both in the art world and in wine, what gets famous has a lot to do with effective PR, cash, and the celebrity that comes with being a celebrity. The star system may sometimes stumble upon quality but it discovers only a small part of a larger universe of quality and seldom uncovers what is genuinely original.
A tweet over the holidays unearthed some residual controversy over wine writer Jon Bonné’s article from last summer on the occasion of Anthony Bourdain’s death. Essentially, Jon Bonné’s point was that wine writing is in danger of becoming “fanboy literature”, ignoring the seamy side of the wine industry, and we need more Bourdain-type journalists who expose the truth.
Amber Lebeau at Spitbucket has a nice summary of the recent tweetstorm controversy which pitted Bonné against one Maureen Downey who was insisting wine and politics should seldom mix.
My initial reaction when the piece on Bourdain was published was supportive but conflicted. There should be more investigation of the political dimensions of wine but I hesitated over Bonne’s claim that we should judge the “moral condition” of the winemakers whose product we consume, if only because in most cases I know little about a winemaker’s “moral condition”.
But the original article implicitly raises a general question that is nicely framed by Amber—”are wine and politics strange bedfellows or drinking buddies?”
It’s important to emphasize that it’s beyond ridiculous to assert that wine writers shouldn’t write about political issues germane to the wine industry. That includes diversity in the wine business, the status of immigration and the treatment of immigrant labor, labor abuses including sexual harassment, climate change, the use of chemicals in the vineyard, and the closeting of great wines available only to the super rich. It goes without saying that writers who discuss politically –charged issues should be competent and well informed.
But I want to focus on the contrary argument alluded to in Bonné’s original article
It is an industry that, because it’s viewed by outsiders as a nice little escapist haven from the real world, has a nearly pathological aversion to its less-than-perfect side.
Many of the tweets, as well as Amber’s post, expressed a desire for wine to be that safe haven that Bonne dismisses as escapist.
Is wine a safe space, an arena of aesthetic pleasure and conviviality which will be inevitably compromised by the conflicts and tensions of politics?
There is no doubt that the wine industry is selling romance. Wine is a symbol of the sweet life, a life of ease, pleasure and conviviality. I don’t think we can fault the industry for selling that because wine quite naturally lends itself to that image. (It is more than that as well, but I will leave that discussion for another day.)Thus, it isn’t surprising that many people see wine as a safe space, a place where the tribulations of the world can be suspended if only for a moment, and we can put aside differences and rejoice in the pleasures of life.
But that portrayal of wine is inherently political.
The enjoyment of wine (and food when enjoyment is the point of consumption) puts our lives outside the time frame of our obsession with the hamster wheel of production and consumption that drives the frantic pace of modern life. Wine prescribes a different use of our time—the time to savor the tissue of moment to moment satisfactions that sustain life’s meaning. With its emphasis on conviviality and good cheer, the wine life puts out of joint the authoritarian production paradigm that pits one person against another in a competitive space with a strict hierarchy in which sharing goes in one direction, toward the top of the organization. By contrast, wine and food occupy the space of hospitality where there is a hierarchy, the carer and the cared for, but relations of reciprocity and interchange are at its essence
The enjoyment of wine is not merely of the sensory properties of wine but the idealized meaning of a way of life. The mythology, the romance, is precisely the point.
But there is a political point to this that cannot be wished away in our zeal to preserve inner peace.
As French philosopher Jacques Rancière writes: “Politics is primarily conflict over the existence of a common stage and over the existence and status of those present on it.” And Rancière thinks aesthetic objects, such as art but I would guess also wine, play a crucial role in politics so defined. Art defines ways of being together or being apart and changes our assumptions about who or what belongs in the same space. (Think of paintings or films that put people or objects in a shared space quite different from their juxtaposition in ordinary life.)
Rancière calls this the “partition of the sensible”. Aesthetic practice takes part in the “partition of the sensible” insofar as it suspends the ordinary coordinates of sensory experience and reframes the network of relationships we engage in by situating them in a different space and time, and by revising our perceptions of what is common and what is singular.
Wine defines a common stage, a particular way of being together outside the time and space of the production paradigm. But as such it then cannot turn around and ignore questions about who gets to be on the stage and what their relationships are. Or to put the point differently, the romance of wine precludes judgments like “I don’t have time for you” or “my pleasure depends on your pain”.
If wine is about pleasure and hospitality, we can’t forget about the hospitality side of the equation—the question of whose pleasure and how it is being served is just part of the territory.
Following up on my Monday post on brand conscious consumers, I found Decanter’s Andrew Jefford gets to the heart of the problem. Using, as a case in point, reports that soccer star Ronaldo spent thousands on a bottle of Richebourg grand cru and a Petrus to share with teammates in a bar, Jeffords writes:
Meaningless label drinking, Ronaldo-style, is the consequence of the over-emphasis in the wine world on ‘the best’ rather than ‘the different’. The more we pile tasting on competitive tasting, and the larger our mountain of notes and scores, then the more ‘best-obsessed’ we become – and the further we move away from that kind of understanding and enjoyment which makes for the profound pleasure of wine.
This is exactly right. There is no such thing as “the best” wine just as it is absurd to claim a Monet is better than a Van Gogh. What makes both Monet and Van Gogh great is that they were distinctive and original.
Obviously, in wine as in painting, there are distinctions between quality levels—there are flat,uninspiring, amateurish paintings just as their are flat, uninspiring, amateurish wines. And there are competently rendered paintings that produce much pleasure just as there are competently made wines that are delicious.
But once we reach the level of masterful painting or winemaking what we look for is distinctiveness, meaningful difference. All aesthetic appreciation is really in the business of discovering that. This is something that neither a score nor a competition could capture. Neither cardinal nor ordinal rankings accurately measure individuality or distinctiveness.
Of course, high status wines are often distinctive. But drinking them for their status is the wrong reason.
One of the most pervasive ideas in modern aesthetics, including wine aesthetics, is the idea that when I claim an object is beautiful (stunning, elegant, or whatever genuine aesthetic term one might use) I think others should agree with me. (Most books on the philosophy of wine, e.g. Scruton’s I Drink Therefore I Am, or Skilleas and Burnham’s The Aesthetics of Wine endorse this idea)
Unlike judgments of personal preference, aesthetic judgments claim a kind of universality, according to this view. I’m not just expressing my personal feelings about a work of art or glass of wine; I’m making a normative claim that the work or wine should be liked by everyone even though I know such agreement is unlikely. Any evaluation of a work is complete only when critic and audience reach a shared assessment of aesthetic value. It’s that shared assessment that we aim at as an ideal.
We don’t have such an expectation with regard to ice cream or the color blue. If someone doesn’t like ice cream we just shrug our shoulders and say to each his own. Not so with genuine aesthetic objects.
This idea comes from Kant, the 18th Century philosopher who still dominates most discussions of philosophy. I will spare you the gory details; essentially his reasons for thinking aesthetic judgments aspire to be universal is that we share basic psychological capacities and if we try hard enough we can bracket idiosyncratic personal desires and judge the object for what it is, independently of our interests.
I think this idea is nonsense, not because wine tasting or art evaluation is subjective, but because aesthetic judgments are not evaluations of the properties of objects but a guess about what further interaction of the object will reveal. I judge an object beautiful when I sense it contains something mysterious that only further interaction with it can uncover.
Or to put it differently, aesthetic pleasure is about mystery. And that is something particular to each work. Aesthetic judgment is about what makes something distinctive—the more you learn about the object the more you see how it is different from everything else.
This search for novelty and individuality is no doubt shareable. It is certainly not a solitary pursuit since it is enhanced by sharing it with others. But it is deeply related to my own interests and form of life and the interests and form of life of others who are like me in sharing the same sense of mystery. What I seek in making aesthetic judgments is at best community among the like-minded, not universal agreement, and maybe not even community. For what I discover in unpeeling layer upon layer of individuality in a work is layer upon layer of my own individuality.
And at the point where everything is revealed, where there is nothing mysterious left to uncover about an object, it can no longer sustain its beauty and the community formed around it collapses.
It’s not agreement we’re after in aesthetic judgment but a quest for distinctiveness. That doesn’t make aesthetic evaluation subjective since you can’t find distinctiveness without communication but agreement won’t get you there either.
The day we all agree about aesthetics will be the death of aesthetics.
Last week in response to my commentary on Jon Bonne’s article, which had a brief discussion of wine flaws, commenter Eric, who is apparently a winemaker, took issue with the notion that wine is an art. His comment was interesting enough that, instead of a quick comment, I decided to respond via a more extended post.
Here is Eric’s comment:
Wine flaws are like a box of chocolates. If you’re sensitive to bitter compounds then an 80% cacao chocolate is going to taste flawed. Someone who tolerates high bitterness might claim that the 80% cacao is more authentic and true and therefore the chocolate maker and the chocolate are more artistic. (Apply your own wine analogy.) Making a chocolate more bitter, like making a wine flavored with Bourbon barrels, does not make its creator artistic. The chocolatier or winemaker is just adjusting the character of their product to fill a consumer niche. It’s marketing, sales and hopefully profiteering and fame. We made wine in the 1980s using Bourbon barrels because they were easy to obtain. We determined they made inferior wine. Returning to whiskey barrels is not a brilliant, artistic notion but a retread on a discarded idea in an effort to distinguish a product and create media in an oversaturated wine market. To survive in the wine industry, even if you are a yeast salesman, there seems to be a hyped-up requirement to focus on art. We’re constantly trying to tag wine as art and the mere fact that we debate this (no one ever asks if music is art) tells me that if wine is an art and not a craft then it’s a very low and base form of art. Though wine may taste great and make you feel good and gladden your heart, it is still a trifle when compared to a Van Gough. This lightness is a truth and a disappointment and why the industry, especially wine writers and those of us who’ve invested so much of our lives in wine, are continuously searching to prove and sell the concept that there is fine art in wine. This hubristic fixation to perpetuate a highbrow illusion keeps us away from many realities that surround wine.
Let me start by thanking Eric for the comment; it raises several interesting points worth discussing.
Eric is right that the perception of flaws in wine is sometimes dependent on sensitivity to compounds. If you’re really sensitive to brett or volatile acidity so it overwhelms other dimensions of the wine, you will think the wine flawed. Someone less sensitive won’t have that response. The same is true of chocolate with 80% cacao if you’re very sensitive to bitterness, although I think it is still not known to what degree we can adjust these sensitivities via learning.
I also agree that the choice to make a chocolate of 80% cacao does not make that batch of chocolate “more artistic”. If the choice to make 80% chocolate was a decision about a particular batch of raw materials to bring out certain features of the chocolate that would produce an aesthetic experience, and if the decision exhibited the kind of creativity and originality we associate with art, then perhaps that might be “more artistic”. I don’t know enough about making chocolate to have a view on it. But 80% is so routine, I’m not sure I see the originality there.
The same is true of the use of bourbon barrels in winemaking. But not because it is an old idea. Painters and musicians employ old ideas and techniques routinely. If bourbon barrels do not contribute anything to the positive aesthetic character of the wine then it’s just a failed experiment. And if it was done with the motive solely to “distinguish a product and create media” with no other intention then it’s claim to be art is suspect. Of course artists and musicians often take steps to distinguish their product and create media. But if that is all they do, if they have no other over-riding intention, then their claim to be artists cannot be taken seriously. They lack the intention to create art.
However, if the dominant intention of a winemaker is to produce an aesthetic experience for people who drink their wine, and if their winemaking displays the degree of creativity we associate with the arts, then I see no reason why wine cannot be art. By “aesthetic experience” I mean an experience in which the aim is to seek out and be open to the widest range of aesthetic properties such as elegance, finesse, beauty, power, intensity, etc. The question of “degree of creativity” is of course difficult. It is a threshold, a matter of degree, but involves the intention to recognize when their wine is developing something unique and distinctive and act on that recognition. It is obviously a collaboration between the winemaking team and nature, a form of environmental art.
Ice cream tastes good and makes me feel good. It isn’t art. It doesn’t produce a wide range of aesthetic properties and it usually is not original although I suppose it could be in the right hands.
As to the comparison with Van Gogh, I’m not sure why wine would be a trifle in comparison. Perhaps Eric has in mind that paintings by talents such as Van Gogh tell stories and have a rich set of meanings to be interpreted. But great wines do tell stories albeit not about war and peace. A wine is an interpretation of a vineyard and the winemaker’s materials. It is also an interpretation and extension of the narrative of the winemaking tradition in which the winemaker is working. What some paintings do have that wine perhaps lacks is semantic richness. They can be about a wide variety of subjects—war, loneliness, love, evil, God, etc. But much art has no great thematic character. Abstract art and instrumental music are not about any of those themes except in a highly metaphorical sense. But wine can function as metaphor as well.
As to people in the industry seeking “to prove and sell the concept” that wine is art, I really haven’t seen it that much. Some winemakers think it’s art, some do not. Few have a well-developed notion of what art is. (which is my job to figure out in any case)
Surely most wines are not art. Most wine is an industrial product designed to serve a market niche and make a profit. And for most wine drinkers it’s just an alcohol delivery system or a boost to conviviality. That’s fine. Nothing wrong with that. But there are many, many winemakers who are more concerned to do something aesthetically interesting and create something distinctive whether that distinction comes from their vineyards or their imagination. And there are many wine lovers who get a rich, aesthetic experience from drinking wine and appreciate originality when they find it.
There is great danger in treating wine as nothing but a commodity. If it is a commodity like orange juice then we only need three or four companies making wine. That won’t support the well over 9000 wineries in the U.S. alone that struggle to stay afloat.
It’s the search for distinction that is the beating heart of the wine industry and when it’s achieved I see no reason why it is not art.
Although the general wine drinking public seems to prefer lush, powerful wines, in recent years wine experts and somms seem to prefer wines with lower alcohol and more elegance. Is there reason to prefer one style over the other as the mark of a fine wine?
We might take a page from the art world to help sort out this issue. The distinction between fine art and craft is usually drawn as follows. A piece of craftwork has a job to do, a function that the craftsperson well understands. The craftsperson thus skillfully creates a work that does its job exceedingly well, without flaws, and achieves technical excellence in how it performs. Style matters but is subordinate to function.
By contrast, a work of fine art commands our attention, not because of the function it performs or because the technique was excellent, but because it is a personal expression of the artist’s viewpoint and because it stimulates the imagination and intellect. Great works of art have a sense of mystery about them; there is something to be understood that requires focused attention on the part of the viewer or listener.
Wines that exhibit power require great technique in the vineyard and in the winery ( and good luck with the weather) in order to extract maximum flavor and texture. Modern technology has made this more readily achievable. And the virtues of such wines strike you right in the palate—without ambiguity. They are well-crafted. But all that power can obliterate any sense of mystery or sense of place. And because elegance is in part a matter subtlety and nuance, elegance may be hard to detect in highly extracted, powerful wines. It is this sense of mystery, place, and the tracking of elegance that stimulates the intellect and the imagination.
Perhaps then we should prefer wines of elegance since they are more than well crafted but express individuality and have a viewpoint that influences the mind as well as the body.
But it is important to note that power does not preclude elegance. Like Beethoven, Michelangelo or Pink Floyd, the mark of the finest winemakers is their ability to achieve both power and elegance.
In my conversation with Tyler Thomas, winemaker for Dierberg and Star Lane Vineyards, part of which I posted last week, he said that he didn’t think winemaking was an art because wine is incapable of expressing emotions such as melancholy.
The purpose of wine is to bring pleasure. It’s not art because it’s limited in expression. It’s not supposed to express melancholy. It’s about pleasure and about the property. If you don’t like the wine you won’t ask where it came from.
At the time I didn’t raise objections to his comment since I was more interested in discovering his views on a variety of other issues. But I found the comment curious because, it seems to me, melancholy is one of the more salient emotions expressed by some wines—in particular aged wines that show considerable development but still have some vitality to them. So I want to explore this question of how such wines can express melancholy.
Melancholy is a peculiar and complex emotion. Although often associated with sadness and depression, melancholy is a distinct emotion and mood. it lacks the resignation of depression and is reflective and contemplative, unlike sadness which tends to be an immediate, felt response to a perceived loss. Melancholy has negative and positive aspects; a bit of longing with a touch of sadness but also feelings of pleasure or inspiration which are a central element of the emotion. Often caused by particular memories or thoughts, melancholy involves taking some pleasure in what we love or hope for, so it is tinged with sweetness. For instance if melancholy is caused by the memory of a lost love from the past, melancholy might involve a tinge of sadness at the loss but will be accompanied by pleasurable thoughts of being with that person as well. Melancholy is not always, in fact perhaps not typically, experienced as a negative emotion. Sometimes we attempt to prolong melancholy by seeking a quiet place where the feeling can be indulged. As Victor Hugo said, “melancholy is the happiness of being sad.”
We often feel melancholy (or at least a weakened version of it) in response to works of art, literature or film. The fictional characters and events become the object of our experience of melancholy. But melancholy can be a mood as well as an emotion. Moods are feelings that do not have an object. They come over us, seemingly without reason and can affect our entire personality. The mood of melancholy can arise when in a desolate landscape or on a fog-shrouded lake. In the arts the experience of a melancholy mood (as opposed to the emotion) is most often found in music. From Elgar’s “Nimrod” from his Enigma Variations to Avro Pärt’s De Profundis to the ambient soundscapes of Bing and Ruth’s Tomorrow was the Golden Age, music of almost every genre is capable of expressing the contemplative, somber mood with moments of vitality that characterize melancholy.
How does wine express melancholy? The answer can be found in the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi.
Wabi which originally means “poverty” refers to the roughness of everyday things that have been in use for a long time. As an aesthetic it involves finding beauty in the asymmetry and imperfection of disintegration. Sabi typically means” loneliness” and in the aesthetic context refers to a state of contemplative solitude in persons, and spare simplicity in objects. Wabi-Sabi as an aesthetic principle is an affirmation of imperfection, austerity and melancholy. It’s the beauty of weathered, scarred, ephemeral objects which become more exquisite the closer them come to their non-existence. A broken, earthenware cup, a branch of autumn leaves, a weather-beaten door, if they exhibit a kind of grace, in a context that highlights their evocativeness are wabi-sabi. Melancholy, that peculiar mix of sadness and delight, is the primary mood or emotion evoked by wabi-sabi.
It should be obvious that aged wine, as it begins its downward trajectory while still maintaining elegance and vitality, can be an example of wabi-sabi and is properly attended to in the mood of melancholy. Given the ephemeral nature of wine, we are witnessing the loss of something valuable that exhibits its own unique “patina”. Since each bottle of wine ages differently, its flavors and textures reflect its unique nature and history as the wine responds to the conditions under which it was bottled and stored. With many aged wines, it is likely you may never taste that cuvee again as the bottles from a particular vintage are consumed over time. Thus, an aged wine expresses the passage of time, the quality of impermanence which is associated with the sadness, longing, and inspiration of melancholy. The appreciation of aged wine induces reflection on the lives of the people who made the wine who have left behind this fragment from their past. It invites both memory and imagination but also reflection on the impermanence of cultural achievements and their celebration–the ravages of time as both something to celebrate and fear.
The fact that wines must give pleasure in order for us to appreciate them is no obstacle to wine expressing melancholy since the experience of pleasure, albeit mixed with sadness, is an important element in melancholy. Aged wines, like the objects of wabi-sabi lack the bright, juicy, freshness and power of young wines. They are appreciated precisely because time has exposed some hidden dimension of the wine in which we take pleasure.
Thus, it seems to me wine can express melancholy. If we decline to experience it as we consume the wine that may be testimony to our shallowness or inattention, not any inherent limitation on wines’ expressive potential.
I defend the view that wines can be works of art. But certainly not all wines. Most wines in fact are just commodities. So which ones count as works of art? One might naturally suppose that Bordeaux Premier Crus or Napa cult cabernets might be prime candidates for vinous works of art. But I think not, for reasons that Matt Kramer captures in an old issue of the Wine Spectator. (Behind a paywall)
Expensive wines, I wrote, rarely surprise. They are known quantities, from known places and producers. Not least, the vast majority are made within relatively narrow taste parameters. Typically that means oak (a little or a lot) and reliance on a relative handful of well-known and much-pursued grape varieties (you know which ones) from equally well-known and much pursued locations (ditto). These wines are in a word predictable.
The most expensive wines are predictable because their producers have a long list of customers who want to know what they are buying when they fork out hundreds if not thousands of dollars for a bottle. What they want least is experimentation. Thus, such winemakers strive for consistency from year to year.
But art, at least as we have conceived it for the past 150 years, thrives on experimentation and innovation. Artists solve problems in their medium, challenge conventions, and pose new questions. We expect a work of art to be original, an expression of an artist’s imagination that helps us see something in a new way. Thus, works of art that are excessively bound to conventions or designed to cater only to existing taste will fail as works or art regardless of how pleasing they may be to the eye. Similarly a rock band that repeatedly makes roughly the same album will be dismissed by critics regardless of their sales figures.
If a wine is to qualify as art it therefore cannot be excessively predictable or merely a “crowd pleaser” regardless of how exclusive or well-heeled the crowd. And thus the most expensive wines may fall short as works of art.
This is not to say that genuine art must eschew all conventions or ignore existing standards of taste. If a work is to be understood it must make some concession to the past and to existing standards. And this leaves some wiggle room for artists and winemakers to innovate within the constraints imposed by the need for their audience to grasp their point. The mere fact that a work is popular does not efface its artistic merit. But if the “taste parameters” are too narrow we have a Kinkade not a Van Gogh.
Wines with an established reputation, if they are to be works of art, must find a middle way between predictability and innovation. It is achievable but not easily so.
Wines with a less established reputation and devoted to innovation might more readily achieve the status of an art, and that is a good thing for wine lovers of modest means.
As dedicated readers of this blog are likely aware, I’ve been arguing that we respond to wines not just with our senses but with emotions as well. (See articles here and here for example) In some cases a particular wine may directly induce an emotional response in us. In other cases, we make metaphorical associations with a wine that has emotional connotations.
Thus far I’ve been relying primarily on my own experiences and the experiences of others who report such experiences. My thesis is not that associating wine with emotions is a common activity. I don’t know how widespread it is. Rather I claim that such associations are available to us if we pay attention to them and that they enhance the aesthetic experience of wine in just the way paying attention to emotional expression in music enhances the experience of music.
Now there is some empirical data to support my thesis. The Academic Wino is reporting on a study, apparently the first of its kind, to be published in the journal Food Quality and Preference entitled “The Relationship Between Sensory Characteristics and Emotion in Wine Preferences”. The study shows that consumers do in fact make these associations between wine and emotions. Unfortunately, the study is behind a paywall and I don’t yet have access to it. But The Academic Wino helpfully summarizes it for us.
This study had two parts: a sensory evaluation of the wines by a trained panel (11 total: 5 women, 6 men; faculty and researchers from the School of Agricultural, Food and Biosystems Engineering at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in Spain), and a consumer evaluation of the wines with an additional emotional response analysis…
The sensory evaluation by the trained panel used standard tasting methodology. The consumer evaluation is the interesting part.
For the consumer evaluation, participants were first asked to complete questionnaires on demographics and wine consumption habits. Next, they participated in a “warm-up” or “practice” tasting session with 7 wines presented [blind] at the same time. Finally, after the warm-up, they were presented with the sample of 6 test wines briefly mentioned above.
After tasting the wines (which were presented in random order), participants were asked to rate their liking of each wine (using a 9-point hedonic scale), and what emotions were elicited by each wine (using the EsSense 25 software). Emotions were rated using a 10-cm line scale with the labels “very low” and “very high” at the ends (and everything in between).
The 208 participants were recruited from the School of Agricultural, Food and Biosystems Engineering at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, consumed wine at least once a month, and included young adults, middle aged adults and older adults. Here are some of the results:
“Most of the emotion terms evaluated were found to be significantly different between the wines.
Only 4 out of 26 terms did not show significant association with the wines (“adventurous”, “free”, “wild”, and “worried”).
The emotion terms “good”, “happy”, “joyful”, “mild”, and “pleasant”, were positively associated with fruity and floral aromas/flavors in the wines.
The emotion terms “aggressive” and “guilty” were associated with the aromas/flavors of vanilla, clove, and licorice.
“Aggressive” was also found to be associated with astringent characteristics.
Using cluster analysis, wines were found to be grouped differently when looking at sensory characteristics alone versus when looking at emotional variables alone. (NOTE: cluster analysis shows which wines are most similar to each other.)
Sensory analysis grouped the winesas: 1) the verdejo white in one group; 2) the chardonnay and rosé wine in another group; 3) a Rioja Tempranillo (2012) and a Ribera del Duero Tempranillo in another group; and 4) a different Rioja Tempranillo (2013) in the last group.
Emotion analysis grouped the winesas: 1) the verdejo and chardonnay wines in one group; 2) the rose wine in another group; 3) the two Rioja Tempranillos (2012, 2013) in another group; and 4) the Ribera del Duero Tempranillo in the last group.”
There were some differences depending on gender and age which I will ignore for now.
The conclusions however are a bit puzzling. I’m not sure if these are conclusions drawn by the authors of the study or by The Academic Wino. She writes:
Out of 26 different emotions of focus in this study, only 4 were found to be insignificant (“adventurous”, “free”, “wild”, and “worried”), providing evidence that emotions are important in the overall enjoyment of a wine and thus preference.
It is certainly evidence that such associations are intelligible and meaningful to consumers. However, it’s not clear to me how emotional response figured into overall enjoyment. Participants were asked to rate their liking of each wine so perhaps the study correlated preferences with various emotional responses. But the conclusion has some odd implications.
If a wine conjures up negative emotions for an individual, that person is probably not going to buy that bottle of wine in the future.
This doesn’t sound right to me. The summary states that emotion terms “aggressive” and “guilty” were associated with the aromas/flavors of vanilla, clove, and licorice. And that “aggressive” was associated with astringency, meaning the coarseness of the tannins. These are all descriptors associated with big, red wines such as at least some Tempranillo. But surely we can’t conclude from this that tannic, red wines with vanilla and clove notes are unpopular because they evoke negative emotions.
In terms of relationships between emotions and specific wine styles, the study found that white wine characteristics were often associated with more positive emotions, while aged wine characteristics were associated more often with negative emotions.
It is true that aged wines are not to everyone’s taste. But among wine lovers, connoisseurs, etc. aged wines are esteemed. And in the general wine drinking public big red wines, dubbed aggressive in this study, are also much admired. So I’m a bit suspicious of the claim that wines associated with negative emotions are therefore not enjoyable. Again, as I’ve been arguing, the association is often metaphorical. We associate astringent wines with aggressive emotions but they don’t make us feel angry or afraid. It’s an association, not a direct causal relationship between the wine and an emotion. Similarly, a piece of music may express anger or fear, but we don’t feel angry or afraid when listening, and it’s that expression that we find enjoyable despite the fact the emotion may be classified as “negative”.
So we need more studies that can tease out this relationship between what is expressed, what is felt, and how these factors influence preferences.
At any rate, this is a fascinating area of research and thanks to the Academic Wino for summarizing it.
Since the birth of modern art, artists and art theory have had a symbiotic though troubled relationship. The conceptual nature of modern art and its “difficulty” for the ordinary patron meant that art had to be explained, and so the theorist acts as a critical interpreter and translator providing context and meaning for what might otherwise seem obscure. (Yes, there is irony in the jargon-laced abstractions of art theory serving as clarifying explanations).
In the wine world, by contrast, aesthetic theory plays almost no role. Although there have been articulate winemakers such as Paul Draper or Randle Grahm who can put wine in a larger context, and wine writers occasionally wax philosophical, “theory” in the wine world usually means science and there is little discussion of the aesthetic aims or the larger meanings of that science.Clark Smith, proprietor and winemaker at Winesmith is a prominent exception. With Clark you not only get delicious, intriguing wines. You get chapter and verse on the science and aesthetics of wine found in his book, Postmodern Winemaking and his website which is brimming with information.
Clark defines postmodern winemaking as “the practical art of connecting the human soul to the soul of a place by rendering its grapes into liquid music.” That sounds like you might expect a discussion of auras and energy fields, but that definition rests on rigorous science and many years of experimentation seeking that elusive quality that makes a wine great. Clark invented the filtering technology that enables winemakers to remove alcohol through reverse osmosis and is equally at home talking about beauty or vicinal diphenol oxidation.So what is “soulfulness” in a wine? In a phrase, “aroma integration”:
“Aromatic integration is the source of soulfullness in food be it a bearnaise, a bisque or a Bordeaux. When aromas are integrated into a single voice the food speaks to the soul in the way a symphony does when the orchestra plays as one.
A sense of unity and harmony is the goal. But contrary to much of what you hear about winemaking that treats oxygen exposure as the enemy, it’s the absorption of oxygen that is the key to both flavor integration and age-worthiness.
…a young wine when challenged with oxygen behaves homeopathically, increasing its reductive strength….In effect the introduction of oxygen has made the wine hungrier for oxygen. Instead of oxidation we get increased reductive strength.
Oxygen introduced at the right time accelerates the bonding of color molecules and tannins, shortening the polymers, creating a more refined texture and more opportunities for the flavor molecules to bond to the colloids. The soulfullness of flavor integration is a product of refined structure. And these properly formed tannins will remain in suspension longer holding on to their aroma and flavor as the wine ages.
That’s the theory. In practice?
Every wine I’ve tasted from Winesmith has been its own unique child. Here are 4 of the siblings.
Faux Chablis Napa County 2005
California Chardonnay grapes inspired by the explosive minerality and stalwart ageability of Chablis. The nose is floral showing lemon blossom with a subtle background of dry hay. This florality is very unusual in a wine this old. As with many great wines, there is caprice and vacillation with occasional tropical notes hovering uncertainly between pineapple and ripe banana. Round but not weighty on the palate, the texture is supple, with a layered mouthfeel, angularity at the foundation and ethereality on top, a wine of duality like others in this lineup. The finish is generous and long, with no rough edges, and an endearing seam of pure mineral water, giving way to a subtle electrical charge at its final destination. Sunny and playful, yet exotic and mysterious like this gorgeous offering from Debashish Battacharya . This music brings out honey notes in the wine.
Roman Syrah California 2005
“Roman” refers to a series of wines made with no added sulfites, akin to “natural wine” although aficionados would blanch at the use of micro-oxygenation to build structure. Light garnet and transparent in the glass with some browning, this Syrah shows floral aromas blended with a hint of volatile acidity against a rich almond/milk chocolate background. The palate has an electric intensity, the mineral/acidity playing a top note against a wonderfully soft, ingratiating mouthfeel with good midpalate extension, gradually unfurling that electric minerality which reappears on a finish of fine-grained tannins. It’s good natured but quirky and other worldly, a wine of paradox, soft and pretty but with a core of bristling acidity, aging but refusing to go quietly. The grapes were sourced from Renaissance Vineyards in the North Yuba AVA.
Amon Tobin’s Kitchen Sink is as quirky and other worldly as this wine.
Syrah Suisun Valley Mangels’s Ranch 2005
This Syrah differs from the Roman in that it was sulfited and the grapes sourced from Suisun Valley, a relatively cool climate region adjacent to San Pablo Bay. It shows intense aromas of chocolate-covered berries, caramel, and newly turned earth with hints of dried flowers. The full bodied, lush palate has that same electric acidity. The tannins are soft, like velvet, yet persistent supporting a lengthy finish which I would describe as chalk without the grit, the minerality hanging on forever as the fruit fades. Tense mineral top notes contrast with the lush full foundation gradually fading to a powdery, yet enveloping texture. The wine caresses but has a provocative edge.
Erik Truffaz “Flamingos” pulls something earthy out of this wine.
Crucible Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2007
Straight from the cellars of Sauron, the nose shows intense cassis and sweet black cherry with fig undertones mingling with wet autumn leaves against a hazelnut background. It’s dense and full bodied in the mouth, the finely honed tannins giving plenty of quiet yet resolute structure. The midpalate is extraordinarily broad and dimensional with a seam of raucous dark fruit that owns the night forging its way to a finish that builds layers of character. This wine perhaps best illustrates the idea of flavor integration. The palate seems deep and broad yet the core of intense dark fruit belts out a single note like a massive chorus singing in unison. There is no fruit basket here; just exquisitely rendered force, a wine that shows why power and elegance are not contraries. This spent 60 months in old French oak with grapes sourced from the vineyards of Napa Valley Community College.
Disturbed’s incredible “Sounds of Silence” will match this wine’s countenance. You have not understood this song until you hear this version.
I hope it’s clear from the above that these are starkly original wines embodying paradox and depth, yet made with intention bringing together rigorous science and aesthetic sensibility. But as with all great art they give great pleasure as well; the soul is not satisfied until the endorphins flow.
I know people who insist on drinking only the best wines from any category, the wines with pedigree and reputation. After all, there is a reason why “the best” have earned their reputation. Although reputation isn’t a guarantee of quality and surely no guarantee that the wine will fit your personal taste, more often than not wines that have impressed critics over many vintages will have something to offer most wine lovers. But that is nevertheless a bad strategy for choosing what to drink.
Earlier this week we were in Philadelphia strolling through the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They have an extensive collection but we had only a few hours before heading out to dinner and couldn’t see it all. The visitors guide has a helpful list of highlights—the most famous works in the collection—and maps you to them so you can skip the lesser lights and visit the stars.
But we never take that option because you lose out on the thrill of making new discoveries. I would rather just stroll through the rooms without a plan looking for something that catches my eye. Instead of another bowl of fruit from Cezanne or sparkling, dappled lilies from Monet, I discovered the contemporary, Italian artist Marisa Merz who manages to be simultaneously charming and menacing. Had I toured the stars, I would have missed lesser works by famous figures like this peculiar work by Dali called Agnostic Symbol that I never knew existed.
