The most surprising article from this class was from two weeks ago by Roman Weil: "Debunking Critics' Wine Words: Can One Distinguish the Smell of Asphalt from the Taste of Cherries? (No Accounting for Taste)”. In it, the author, who is Co-Chair of Oenonomy Society of the US, gives empirical evidence that wine drinkers cannot match wine with professional tasting descriptions any better than guessing at random. He goes on to say that "Wine words used by critics to convey analogy to fruits, vegetables, minerals, and odors are worthless.”
Secretly, I found this article satisfying. In part, this is because I often struggle to match tasting descriptions to wines, and end up caving in and just going along with things. This research suggests that it’s not just me. So that’s nice. But how can an entire army of professional tasters and sommeliers be using words that are “worthless”?
This article is all the more interesting when juxtaposed with the speaker for that class, Alder Yarrow, founder of Vinography.com. He is clearly very passionate about tasting wine, and has built an entire website and following around his tasting descriptions. His commitment to tasting notes comes through in the wallet-sized cards that he handed out in class, which state, “We can taste so much of the world in a bottle”. Can he really taste anything in particular in a bottle? Or is he just guessing at random?
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the experience of trying to match flavors in wine with flavors in the world is the real experience. Perhaps that is why on the Vinography.com tasting cards he handed us, they also say, “Words are not an end to themselves. They are merely tools for describing experience, for telling stories, and for creating memories.
This is an interesting juxtaposition - I too have shared your fear that I'm just going along with what the more "educated" person is telling me I should be tasting and inventing the taste in my mind, but it's also part of the experience for me. I think I often enjoy wines more when they are accompanied by tasting notes or a description because I am able to better isolate the specific flavor elements and taste something that I otherwise may have missed. I think of it as similar to meditation - the focus on one single idea can often allow you to become more aware of something that otherwise might be drowned out in the noise.
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