We wine lovers are constantly accused of snobbery, pretension, and arrogance, some of it deserved but most of it misplaced. All of this sniping, often
Category: Philosophy of Food and Wine
Balance and Harmony: They Aren’t the Same
Recently in a post complaining about how the term “balance” has been abused in the wine world, I defined it as “the relative prominence of
The Pursuit of Balance Isn’t What it Seems
I’ve been thinking about harmony as it applies to wine this week but got distracted by the idea of balance, a related but dissimilar concept.
Wine Tasting and Aesthetic Competence
I described basic wine tasting competence recently as the ability to organize taste perceptions into a 4-dimensional field—time, spatial dimensions plus force (assessing the weight
In Defense of (some) Wine Flaws
Matt Kramer’s article articulating 5 fundamental rules of wine continues to bother me. Recently, I took issue with his claim that expression of place is
Basic Wine Tasting Competence
Wine tasting is difficult, especially for beginners, because the basic components of wine are a jumble that seemingly have no structure. To appreciate wine you