Category Archives: Wine Culture

If You Don’t Like Our Wine Vocabulary, Suggest an Alternative

11 Wednesday Sep 2019

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wine descriptionsIf the wine critic’s job is to enable the reader to grasp the kinds of responses it is appropriate to have to a wine, then good wine writing must solve the problem of how to describe sensory experience. Thus, it is no accident that as wine grew in popularity and the culture of wine gained depth and maturity in the latter part of the 20th Century, wine writers began to expand the descriptive vocabulary they used in tasting notes. Finding a way to communicate about the flavors, aromas, and textures of a wine became essential to the health of the wine community. Robert Parker led the way with this trend toward a more expansive descriptive vocabulary. Some of his tasting notes have become legendary for their florid descriptions:

[T]he 2001 Batard-Montrachet offers a thick, dense aromatic profile of toasted white and yellow fruits. This rich, corpulent offering reveals lush layers of chewy buttered popcorn flavors. Medium-bodied and extroverted, this is a street-walker of a wine, making up for its lack of class and refinement with its well-rounded, sexually-charged assets. Projected maturity: now-2009

The reference to “street-walker” might strike one as over the top, although it seems to me its meaning is clear. However, this approach to wine writing has come under sharp attack. For example this essay by Richard Quandt seems to suggest that any use of metaphor to describe wine is “bullshit”.

Even the author of Cork Dork, Bianca Bosker, has reservations about the accuracy of such descriptors. After taking writers to task for using descriptors such as “sinewy” and “broad-shouldered” she writes: “It seems possible that what we “taste” in a fine wine isn’t so much its flavor as the qualities of good taste that we hope it will impart to us.” She seems to be suggesting that wine writers just make stuff up to sound impressive.

But what is the alternative? How can wine writers capture the uniqueness and individuality of wines without resorting to metaphor? When critics of our wine vocabulary complain about imaginative wine descriptions it would be nice if they suggested an alternative. But what we get is usually just crickets.

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A Revealing Glimpse of Screaming Eagle

09 Monday Sep 2019

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sceaming eagleScreaming Eagle is rare, hard to get a taste of without mortgaging the house, and not open to the public. It has no showy tasting room; doesn’t give lavish parties for wine club members; and its winemaker isn’t a public figure filling up your Twitter feed. For ordinary wine mortals its inaccessibility puts it off the wine map, outside the conversation, as if it is not part of the same wine world. But that makes Elaine Chukan Brown’s in depth report on her visit to Screaming Eagle fascinating—it’s a rare look behind the curtain to discover what makes Napa’s most famous wine tick.

The history is of course interesting, but what I came away with after reading the article is their obsession with particularity, the distinctiveness of each individual section of their vineyard:

The vineyard is divided into 50 distinct blocks. More than half is planted to Cabernet Sauvignon; the remainder is an even split between Cab Franc and Merlot. Each of the blocks is farmed according to the specific characteristics and needs of that section – and that complexity of soils yields a distinctive signature. At harvest, the individual blocks are picked and vinified separately. The method of vinification also varies, with the cellar housing tanks of stainless steel, oak and concrete, and the different vessels serving the unique characteristics of a particular block. ‘Concrete can be useful in more floral wines,’ Gislason says. ‘There is something about the interaction of the vessel with the fruit that brings out those characteristics. Oak seems to do well to help manage and round out the fruit tannin in some Cabernet. Stainless steel works well with many things; it’s very versatile.’ After fermentation, the wines are moved to barrel for ageing, with vineyard blocks remaining separate until blending. ‘It’s all about recognizing symbiotic relationships in a blend. How different blocks interact can be magic.’

All of this for an annual production under 1000 cases.  Recognizing those symbiotic relationships between elements is the essence of creativity—there are no rules for it, history often isn’t a guide, and it can’t be taught.

The result is a wine utterly unique among California Cabernets:

The ultimate goal of such rigour? ‘We want elegant space inside the wine,’ says Gislason. It’s a notion that runs counter to most people’s view of cult wines, where heft and density are de rigueur.

I’ve had the opportunity to taste Screaming Eagle twice. Each time I was struck by how ethereal and finely etched they were. These are not big, powerful wines. They defy all the stereotypes about California Cabs. Yet, they clearly show the influence of California sunshine—bright, glowing, perfumed, a ghostlike intensity more felt than tasted.

As usual when I taste a wine of such stature I feel regret that it is not more available. Wine and cuisine are the only arts in which the finest examples are largely inaccessible to devotees. That is a shame for which there is no solution.

The Wine Writer’s Dilemma

05 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by in Restaurant Reviews, Wine Culture

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wine writingIf you’ve been following this blog and my articles at 3 Quarks Daily, you know that I give an account of wine appreciation in which tracking distinctive variations, the surprise of unpredictability, and a provocative, affect-laden sensory experience are fundamental to what we love about wine.

However, describing this kind of aesthetic experience that wine makes available poses a daunting task for wine writing and wine criticism. Wine writing that purports to aid in wine appreciation must (1) describe the individuality of wines and capture the full range of their expressiveness, and (2) find a way of describing and evaluating wine in which their individuality cannot be captured by conventional categories.

If the critic is charged with being “on the lookout” for what’s new in the wine world, she must be able to describe that novelty. If a wine offers something distinctive and unique, that distinctiveness must be described as well.

This is a daunting task for two reasons. As many have noted, in Western culture we lack a fully developed vocabulary for describing sensory experiences. Furthermore, all language is built on conventions and general concepts and thus describing something that is both new and unique requires some degree of linguistic innovation. The conventions of language must be stretched to accommodate something that by definition doesn’t quite fit.

Yet if the writer is to be understood those novel descriptions must  remain sufficiently bound to conventions to be grasped by the reader.

That is the dilemma—to be creative yet conventional.

Why the British and (some) Americans Hate Wine Drinkers

04 Wednesday Sep 2019

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wine hatersThis is very funny and also probably true. Peter Pharos wonders why the British hate wine drinkers.

Prohibitionists aside, how could one get angry at a drink and the people that like it? Nobody gets sarcastic if you say you like vodka (even if, well, they should). Nobody thinks aspects of your personality are dubious if you drink green tea. Why, you can even say you love the tormented ambiguity that is cider and stand tall. But start talking about wine and you can see your interlocutors transform into your least favourite aunt in real time.

After showing that the real reasons can’t be that wine is a play thing of the rich (it isn’t), boring (don’t get upset, just ignore it), or dominated by snooty sommeliers (it isn’t and they aren’t) he comes to the real reason:

Well, I am afraid the plain and simple truth is that it’s because wine is European. Not foreign, you understand. You do do foreign under certain conditions. If, for example, it can be patronisingly filed under “Empire”. Or, if it is so exotic that you can mess it up without fear of anyone calling you out (sardonic tellings of Chinese mixing wine with Coke seem to abound in the British wine trade. That’s one big pot of milky tea having strong opinions on how the kettle absorbs light folks.)  But wine is European and, as with opera and philosophy, to be European is to be pretentious, effeminate, and altogether suspect.

Yup. I don’t know the British context, although Brexit is a big, fat clue, but in the U.S. similar attitudes prevail.

Liberals have long been the subject of epithets designed to cast them as un-American, such as “Chardonnay sipping”,”latte drinking”, “volvo driving”, or “brie-eating”. Obama was once criticized for requesting Dijon mustard on his burger. Notice these are all European, or worst, Scandinavian. And who can forget the battle cry of the early 2000’s—French fries should now be called “Freedom fries”.

As Peter notes:

In the end, the awkwardness and the hostility and the sarcasm has nothing to do with snobbery, or money, or class – and much less with wine itself. It has to do with the creeping suspicion that beyond the sea, someone, somewhere, is living a better life.

You can always posit resentment, or as the French say ressentiment, as an all purpose explanation for viciousness and be close to the truth.

How (not) to Party Like an Existentialist

26 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Philosophy, Wine Culture

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sartre and beauvoirPhilosophers are not noted for their revelry. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen “philosopher” and “party animal” used in the same sentence. But there are exceptions. According to Skye Cleary, the French existentialists Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were the life of the party.

Existentialism has a reputation for being angst-ridden and gloomy mostly because of its emphasis on pondering the meaninglessness of existence, but two of the best-known existentialists knew how to have fun in the face of absurdity. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre spent a lot of time partying: talking, drinking, dancing, laughing, loving and listening to music with friends, and this was an aspect of their philosophical stance on life. They weren’t just philosophers who happened to enjoy parties, either – the parties were an expression of their philosophy of seizing life, and for them there were authentic and inauthentic ways to do this.

What, you might be wondering, is an authentic way to party?

De Beauvoir wrote of her wartime parties in occupied Paris: they saved up food stamps and then binged on food, fun and alcohol. They danced, sang, played music and improvised. The artist Dora Maar mimed bullfights, Sartre mimed orchestra-conducting in a cupboard, and Albert Camus banged on saucepan lids as if in a marching band…

Sounds like a barrel of laughs, but with the threat of Nazis banging down your door, any sort of laughter is an act of rebellion. But apparently not all their parties were so tame:

For de Beauvoir, there’s nothing philosophically wrong with having orgies, it’s the same as with any other aspect of life: it matters how you approach the situation. If a person, she wrote, ‘brings his entire self to every situation, there can be no such thing as a “base occasion”’. And it’s true that de Beauvoir and Sartre had many lovers, but casual sex wasn’t part of their repertoire. They thought that promiscuity was a trivial use of freedom and, instead, wanted intense love affairs and friendships.

That sounds like a lot of work for a lot of heartache; casual sex has its virtues. And then we find out what fueled the fun:

Both de Beauvoir and Sartre spent their rich lives embracing new undertakings, but took their whiskey and vodka bottles with them. This led to serious health problems, including cirrhosis, but they never regretted their partying or drinking, and by their own philosophy, there is no reason they should have done. They chose it freely, did it on their own terms, and took responsibility for the consequences. That’s what partying like an existentialist is all about.

Sartre liked his mescaline too, and they both used amphetamines. Brown liquor, clear liquor and “speed”—that’s a lethal combination.

For de Beauvoir in particular, philosophy was to be lived vivaciously, and partying was bound up with her urge to live fully and freely, not to hold herself back from all that life had to offer. She wrote that sometimes she does ‘everything a little too crazily … But that is my way. I have rather not to do the things at all as doing them mildly.’

I’ve always been suspicious of this view that to get the most out of life you have take every activity toward its extreme.

Wine drinkers think differently about these matters; we’re more Aristotelean, everything in moderation. If they had been wine drinkers perhaps neither they nor existentialism would have burned themselves out.

Metaphor and the Meaning of Aroma

22 Thursday Aug 2019

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wine term cloudThe wine industry faces many immediate challenges from climate change to competition from beer and spirits. But among those challenges is one you seldom hear discussed—we live in a culture that lacks a developed sensibility for aroma. Wine educator Deborah Parker Wong’s post on this topic is especially insightful.

In his 1966 book The Hidden Dimension, anthropologist E.T. Hall states that when it comes to olfaction, Americans are culturally underdeveloped. He attributed this deficiency to the extensive use of deodorants and the suppression of odor in public places, a cultural norm that has resulted in a land of olfactory blandness….Because odors have been repressed, they’ve never been coded by our culture; there’s no model in place to organize our olfactory life experience and, as such, our response to smells is measured in terms of relative pleasure. Simply put, we only react to odor. By contrast, cultures that attach symbolic meaning to odors like the Suya people of Brazil and the Onge of the Andaman Islands are said to think in smell.

This is why it is so difficult to talk about wine in a meaningful way. We can list aroma notes but it remains just a list with no larger meaning because we lack concepts that would make the notes meaningful. As Deborah points out, it’s not just a matter of lacking words that refer to aroma. The aroma wheel and tasting grids developed by certification organizations give us a rich descriptive vocabulary. What we lack is an understanding of how aromas can acquire symbolic meaning and provoke memory, and she goes on to describe how more scent-based cultures use aroma to make sense of their experience.

If we are going to expand our appreciation of aroma we will have to make more extensive use of metaphor to organize our experience. There is compelling evidence gathered by George Lakoff and others that all cognition and conceptual innovation is based on metaphor.

Which is why I get incensed when pundits in the wine world complain as soon as someone begins to use metaphor to describe wine. I was reminded recently of the classic in this genre published in Slate in 2000 by a professor of viticulture Jon Cohen:

Whenever I read that a wine is “lush and creamy,” “elegant,” “lovely,” “graceful,” “generous,” “luscious,” or “smooth,” I gag. These days, I gag a lot.

I’ve had cheesecake that’s lush and creamy. Tequila and whiskey divide into smooth and rough. My wife is elegant, lovely, graceful, and even luscious. But contrary to what you read on the back of some bottles, these terms are meaningless when applied to wine.

This is the kind of bullshit that renders language useless in the development of meaning and threatens our ability to communicate about wine. Metaphor pervades ordinary discourse. “How do you spend your time these days?” “He immersed himself in the problem”. “The bar seems dead tonight”. These are all metaphors and they are crucial to our ability to communicate.  Obviously the list of useful metaphors is endless; what would language be like without them? The wine world cannot do without metaphor—even fruit descriptors are metaphors. There are no cherries in your Cabernet.

No doubt some metaphors are difficult to understand and some miss their mark; it takes talent to deploy them precisely. But without metaphor there would be no critical vocabulary and no way to relate disparate domains of experience.

As Parker Wong suggests, wine will acquire depth of meaning when we learn to deploy conceptual frameworks that link aroma and flavor to other domains of experience. And metaphor, symbolic meaning, will be fundamental to that process.

Three-Tier and Shamelessly Bad Arguments

21 Wednesday Aug 2019

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bad argumentsFourteen years ago in Granholm v Heald, the Supreme Court ruled that if a state allowed their own wineries to ship wine directly to their residents, they had to allow out of state wineries to do the same. This past June in Tennessee Wine vs. Thomas, SCOTUS ruled that the same principle of non-discrimination applies to retailers. If a state allows in-state retailers to ship to that state’s residents, they must allow out-of-state retailers to do so as well.

Neither ruling mandates that in-state shipments be allowed. States can outlaw them if they want but they must treat in-state and out-of-state retailers and wineries the same. Thus, states that are out of compliance face a choice—permit shipping for everyone or harm your own wineries, retailers, and consumers by outlawing shipping for everyone. As Tom Wark, who continues to do yeoman work promoting the interests of wine consumers and wineries,  wrote yesterday:

How this happens over the next several years will largely depend on who lawmakers in various states believe are their most important constituents. Should the changes in retailer DTC shipping laws address the concerns of wholesalers and retailers who fear competition from out-of-state sources? Or should lawmakers look to the interests of consumers? Depending on who’s interests are taken most seriously will determine how the discriminatory retailer DTC laws are changed to come into compliance with the Tennessee Wine decision and the U.S. Constitution.

In other words, in states where distributors have political power, their politicians may just go ahead and prohibit all direct-to-consumer shipping.

I want to emphasize Tom’s argument against this maneuver because I think it’s key to the whole debate. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the legal and regulatory framework that was put in place allowed states considerable leeway in regulating the sale and distribution of alcohol. The justification for these regulations was that states needed a way of encouraging the responsible use of alcohol. Health and safety was the justification then and it continues to be the reason given by distributors for wanting states to restrict out of state direct to consumer shipping. (Their real motivations are of course a different matter). Against this “health and safety” argument Tom writes:

Here is a serious rhetorical question. In a state where consumers are able open their door, greet a FedEx driver, sign for and receive a box of wine shipped from an out-of-state winery, an in-state winery and an in-state retailer, what concern for safety or health of the community justifies barring that consumer at the door from signing for a package of wine from an out-of-state retailer?

The answer of course is that there is no such concern. The issue isn’t and never was about health and safety—it was and still is about profit. Distributors lose money when wineries and retailers can ship directly to consumers cutting out the middle man. Tom’s rhetorical question nicely focuses the utter bankruptcy of arguments supporting three-tier.

It never ceases to amaze me how the thinnest of arguments can be used to justify naked self interest. It’s really quite shameless.

Good Stories or Good Wine

19 Monday Aug 2019

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old wine barrelsThe current fashion for good stories in the wine industry follows a peculiar logic.

Good stories stand on their own. They are enjoyable, interesting, informative, sometimes gripping—a good story always makes information more accessible. A winery’s story can offer all of that. More importantly, it can help us understand their wines and where they came from.

But is the story more important than the quality of the wine? Would you eat in a restaurant with a good backstory if the food was bad? Would you read a book by an author with an interesting biography if the book was boring and  uninformative?

Pleasure isn’t the only reason we might consume something. We might want to experience an unfamiliar dish or important book even if we don’t expect to like it. There is always something to be learned from an experience. The same is true for wine—a wine with an interesting backstory might be worth a try just out of curiosity or “for science” as my son says. But once you conclude a wine offers nothing of interest, why care about the story?

For the consumer, good stories can enhance good wine. They will do little for bad wine.

One reason for the current fascination with stories in the wine industry is that many wines taste the same. There is little distinctive about them. A winery can draw attention to itself with a good story even if their wines are pedestrian. It makes good business sense but is otherwise peculiar.

If you make great wine you won’t need a story. If you make bad wine, your story won’t help. If your wine is O.K. maybe the story keeps you in business.

Are good stories for the mediocre?

An Artisan Code of Ethics

15 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in Philosophy of Food and Wine, The Ethics of Eating, Wine Culture

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artisanal coffeeAt Aesthetics for Birds, Matt Strohl posted an interesting analysis of artisanship ethics using coffee as his example. It applies to wine as well.

At issue is the question “Is the customer always right?” Should high-end coffee shops with specialty roasts make milk available for people who want it? Should they sell bags of ground coffee if their customers want it?

His answer is no, a perspective he derives from the “The Ethics of Being an Artisan” a code written by John Piquet, the owner of Caffé D’Bolla in Salt Lake City.

The relevant fact behind the code is that coffee, as soon as it is ground, quickly loses its aromatics and within minutes becomes a shadow of its former self. That fact supports a set of obligations that Strohl summarizes as follows:

  • A seller that presents itself as artisanal/high-end incurs ethical
    obligations that other sellers don’t.
  • Artisanal sellers have an obligation to sell products in the best condition
    possible, even when their customers request otherwise.
  • When customers request products in sub-optimal condition, it is the
    obligation of the seller to educate the customer about standards of
    quality and disabuse them of whatever misconceptions they have.
  • If they still want a product in a sub-optimal condition, they didn’t want
    an artisanal product in the first place and they are at the wrong store.

It is in the nature of artisanship and the promise conveyed by that label that generates the obligation.

The key is that the barista is trusted to play the role of educator in a way that no one would ever expect of a barista at an airport Starbucks.

Furthermore, Strohl points out that very high quality coffee beans are rare and difficult to produce. They should not be wasted. The barista and roaster owe it to the farmer not to ruin his beans.

In the end it all comes down to the limits of subjectivity, which is a hard truth to sell in our culture.

When we proclaim that “the customer is always right,” we imagine ourselves as reliable optimizing agents who just need enough choices to live our best lives. We treat our existing subjective preferences as reliable guides to living well. But of course we all know very well that most of our subjective preferences were formed through a combination of random chance and corporate manipulation and that it takes openness and work to bring them into alignment with what would actually be best for us. Someone who balks at light roast coffee at first but is open to being educated may later turn into a passionate Third Wave coffee enthusiast and be better off for it. This sort of personal growth is encouraged by businesses like D’Bolla and stunted by places that just aim to pander to the customer’s existing preferences.

This strikes me as exactly right. If subjective preferences are arbitrary and held unreflectively they are not worthy of special respect.

What would it mean for artisan wineries to adopt a similar code?

To start with, wineries can hold back their product until it’s ready to drink. The best producers routinely do this but some wineries need product to sell and push it onto the market before its time.

Wineries sell a product that can be adulterated by the consumer. Although most customers won’t pour their expensive Pinot Noir into a glass of Coke, they will open the bottle before it’s properly aged. They may store it under sub-optimal conditions. They might serve it with foods that destroy the wine’s nuances. They may not allow the wine time to breathe. They might consume it while too drunk or too distracted to appreciate it.

According to this code of ethics, artisan wineries have an obligation to their product and their customers to educate them regarding how their product should be consumed. Many wineries do a good job with this but many treat their wine as so many widgets to be hustled out the door. When a winery takes care to optimize their release dates and educate their customers that is a good indication that their wines are of high quality whether you like them or not.

Should Wines Be Judged Without Context?

08 Thursday Aug 2019

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wine judgingI’m puzzled by Oliver Styles’ recent article at Wine Searcher. His target is the widely held assumption that context is critical in judging a wine. He argues rightfully that the kind of blind tasting performed by critics is not really blind. They don’t know the producer since that would risk a biased judgment, but critics almost always know the varietal from which the wine is made and the region in which the grapes were grown prior to evaluating the wine.  The reason is that the accuracy of an evaluation depends on context.

A wine from the Croatian coast should not be judged in the same way, or in the same field, as a white Bordeaux from Pessac. One wouldn’t judge a Riesling as one would judge a Chardonnay – it would be heinous to judge a Napa Cabernet next to a Santenay. And how do you rate an oxidative-style Jura white if you don’t know that a wine from Jura’s what you have in your glass?

Styles goes on to argue that this may be misguided. His reasoning is that while a critic is judging, for instance, a 2016 Pinot Noir from Santenay against other 2016 Pinot Noirs from Santenay, the average wine consumer walking into a wine shop is deciding between many varietals from many regions. For a consumer trying to choose between Burgundy, Rioja, or Chianti, knowing which 2016 Santenay shows best isn’t helpful.

Note the assumption here that there is some way of comparing wines from Burgundy, Chianti, and Rioja according to common criteria. Styles seems to think there are such common criteria.

And I think this is a bit of a shame, because the basic pillars of what makes a good wine – balance, intensity, complexity and length – come, as you can see, in total abstraction. It’s not price, balance, intensity, royal warrant, complexity, bottle weight, regional sunlight hours, length; factors of quality are abstract.

I don’t think this is right. Balance, intensity, complexity and length are common criteria used to judge all wines. But they are not abstract. What counts as balance, what counts as intensity, etc. depend on the varietal and region. A premium Napa Cab will usually have more intensity than a Volnay. That doesn’t make it a better wine. Wines from Volnay have their own form of intensity based more on clarity than sheer power. All wines should be in balance but Pinot Noir will usually have more prominent acidity than Malbec. That doesn’t mean the Malbec is out of balance. The grape has a different balance point.

Styles points out:

Critics of a no-context approach will say that we need information about the region in order to understand the wine’s peculiarities. To which I’d ask why a professional wine critic can’t appreciate a wine fully without knowing those peculiarities before tasting it. Is our job that redundant?

But again, what counts as peculiar will depend on context. A pronounced herbal note in Rioja might be peculiar but quite expected in cool climate Pinot Noir, notes of fig jam ordinary in a Napa Cabernet but peculiar in Austrian Blaufrankisch.

I can’t think of a tasting procedure more likely to encourage homogeneity than one that refuses to consider context when judging wines. I get that novice consumers face an array of criterionless choices in the wine shop. But in the end there is no substitute for knowing a bit about what you like and where to find it.