Winespeak
W
hat’s your poison? Pick your wine of choice. That’s what you’re sipping. (We’ve opted for a Brunello di Montelcino from the cracking ’97 vintage, pulling the cork was like getting a face full of Bonox – but more on flavor later…) The experience is delicious. It fills you to brimming as you live this moment, this taste, this sense of well-being. How would you describe this wine? You are, after all, going to describe it… aren’t you? Has it really any meaning until you’ve put it into words?
“We can reflect on an experience,” the psychoanalyst Donnel B Stern informs us, “only when it exists in verbal form”. Words are “the sole means of our engagement with living”. Stern distinguishes between formulated and unformulated experience. The former is experience we’ve given meaning to by describing it, if only to ourselves. An experience that remains unformulated has been given no order, no sense, no perspective, no context – and so no value in our wider lives. Take that wine. Until you’ve noted all the richness of its various aspects, can you really say you’ve drunk it? Giving description to an experience actually enhances that experience – the words themselves give an additional layer of pleasure (provided you’ve chosen wisely).
So we intrude on our own reverie to give fullest sense to what we’ve just swallowed.
While we ponder the wine in our glass (pour some more if it’s empty) initially we’re involved in a purely private and silent appreciation of the wine. Emile Peynaud (that legendary palate) believed that the professional taster must overcome “the influence of external factors and the various forms of suggestion which might alter one’s perceptions”. When we consume wine while dining out however, we need not be so self-restraining, so oblivious to environment in our own tasting and the enjoyment of what we taste. Better that our tasting experience is enhanced by the very external suggestions that the professional must mistrust. Then perhaps our drinking might prove to be even more uplifting than the liquid in the glass.
But how do we convey our judgments, what vocabulary do we use to describe to others what we believe we are tasting?
Appreciation soon moves to a more social realm – the desire to share your opinions, compare them to the responses of others, and broaden the dimensions of enjoyment to embrace vicarious pleasure as well as your own. (The early twentieth century psychologist Herbert “Harry” Stack Sullivan would go further. Description must be made in company – “it makes no sense to think of ourselves as… capable of anything like definitive description in isolation”.) But how do we convey our judgments, what vocabulary do we use to describe to others what we believe we are tasting? Peynaud has remarked on the difficulties inherent in trying to describe sensations that are not easily put into words. (“We tasters feel to some extent betrayed by language,” he reflected in The Taste of Wine. “It is impossible to describe a wine without simplifying and distorting its image”.)
When you examine the language most frequently used, it appears that experts and novices alike tend to couch their wine descriptions in one, some or all of five descriptive dimensions.
The most obvious is describing the perceived flavors
themselves. This dimension of flavor
includes both the wine’s nose and taste since (according to the Oxford
Companion to the Mind) “flavor is usually defined as the overall sensation of
taste and smell”. An attempt to provide
a graphic representation of wine flavors resulted in the Aroma Wheel of
Professor Ann C Noble of
Fruit flavors are perhaps the most common, and
require little explanation. There are,
however, numerous less-than-usual flavors applied to wines, which to many
people veer from neutrally unappealing to downright disgusting. Pencil shavings, forest floor (plenty of that
in good Burgundy), barnyard, feral, civet, even skunk, and, as a 1973 Santenay
Gravieres was once described, “of scatological aroma which then vanishes to be
replaced by liquorice” (are you licking your lips?). A singular flavor term is garrigue, which has no equal in the
There are some who object strenuously to the identification of flavors – fair or foul – in wine. Kingsley Amis wrote in Everyday Drinking, “When I find someone I respect writing about an edgy, nervous wine that dithered in the glass, I cringe. When I hear someone I don’t respect talking about an austere, unforgiving wine, I turn a bit austere and unforgiving myself. When I come across stuff like that and remember about the figs and bananas, I want to snigger uneasily. You can call a wine red, and dry, and strong, and pleasant. After that, watch out…” And another writer of that generation, Roald Dahl, while giving us fanciful books like Charley and the Chocolate Factory, couldn’t (as his correspondence with Decanter magazine revealed) abide fanciful wine descriptions.
Never let anyone tell you a flavor you discern in a wine isn’t there.
Still, this kind of description has its place in making sense of wine and adds to the overall appeal of drinking it. We are, of course, as a race a suggestible lot, and someone at table identifying cloves in their wine (though hopefully not skunk) can set you to distinguishing just the slightest tang of clove yourself. If you think you detect it, then for all intents and purposes you do. No harm done and plenty of pleasure (provided you like cloves, of course) with more to come. (Anyway, with practice comes greater accuracy – and drinking more good wine is the kind of practice nobody could object to. Experiments have suggested that it is not so much greater acuity of smell and taste that distinguishes experienced wine tasters from novices, but their greater range of experience, broader flavor vocabulary and less susceptibility to verbal interference.) Never let anyone tell you a flavor you discern in a wine isn’t there. A salutary tale from Cervantes’ Don Quixote, told by Sancho Panza, is raised by the philosopher David Hume to establish his point that “a good palate is not tried by strong flavors; but by a mixture of small ingredients”. Two kinsmen of Sancho’s (he tells the story to underscore the perspicacity of his own palate) were given a sample of wine to try from a cask. One tasted, the other simply brought it to his nose. The first described a flavor of iron, the second a character of leather. The wine merchant, considering himself a more expert judge, declared them both wrong. Such flavors couldn’t possibly be present in that wine. By and by, when all the wine was gone and the cask sold, an iron key was found in it, hanging on a leather thong.
It also seems that discussion of flavor can include its absence (in his “Blind [Drunk] Wine Tasting, P J O’Rourke described a wine, which shall remain nameless for charity’s sake, as follows – “No flavor at all and yet it tastes bad”). Equally, considering wine in the light of flavor frequently brings in textural descriptions, relating to the mouthfeel of the wine (satirist Jonathan Swift said, of a delightfully chewy wine, “This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk”).
This kind of imagery opens the way to another
dimension of wine description – depicting it by fanciful metaphor. Robert Louis Stevenson said “Wine is bottled
poetry”, and perhaps it’s this aspect that draws us to metaphors in an attempt
to capture the essence of the wine. In
Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Charles
and Sebastian spend their summer holidays from
“It is a little, shy wine like a gazelle.”
“Like a leprechaun.”
“Dappled, in a tapestry meadow.”
“Like a flute by still water.”
“… And this is a wise old wine.”
“A prophet in a cave.”
“… And this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck.”
“Like a swan.”
“Like the last unicorn.”
Could you be convinced of some Rioja’s resemblance to… an exiled king?
At face value such descriptions invite laughter, even ridicule. But they can also be seen as an attempt to give meaning to an elusive experience by analogy – to pin down or perhaps expand those sensations (our own and those of whoever’s with us) by likening them to something they’re clearly unlike in order to get to a more poetic truth. Could you be convinced of some Rioja’s resemblance to… an exiled king? If so, a temporary folie a deux is established, which may make little sense to anyone else, but could (one hopes) auger well for our more intimate complicity as the evening wears on. (In relation to metaphor, Harvard psychologist of language Steven Pinker observes “We have to do two things with language. We’ve got to convey a message and we’ve got to negotiate what kind of social relationship we have with someone.”)
Wine is frequently, surprising as it might sound, described in geometrical terms. Balanced, symmetrical, possessing equilibrium, angular tannins… Or contra wise, wines have been described as “lopsided”. While having drunk more than a few lopsided wines, it’s more typically the drinker who’s lopsided after imbibing. Then there’s flat versus round, or even spherical (where the mouth feel is full and smooth all over, with no sharp points that might require comparison to some less elegant three-dimensional polygon with disquietingly sharp edges). “Flat” has a sense of existential onomatopoeia. A flat wine tastes as we feel when we are, not at our worst, but some way from our best – uninspired, and unable or unwilling to express anything uplifting. When we feel flat we’re not the whole of ourselves. E M Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, wrote of “flat” and “round” characters in literature. We would always prefer our wines to seem round to us (as ourselves to those we’re drinking with).
On another descriptive dimension – wine is frequently, surprisingly frequently, rendered in terms of gender.
Bordeaux
Wines deemed to be assertive or even aggressive,
weighty (sometime ponderous), majestic, frank, candid or forward tend to be
described as masculine. Those wines viewed,
on the other hand, as subtle and seductive, sensual and elegant, intriguing and
elusive (not to say deceptive) tend to be described as feminine.
The gender distinction is not, however, as clear as
it might seem. Everything is
relative. Within the feminine
Apparently there are not only degrees of masculinity
and femininity, but different types as well.
The famous Italian winemaker Angelo Gaja speaks up for the masculine
claims of the nebbiolo grape, responsible for the great Barolos and Barberescas
of the Piedmont region. (That arbiter of
all things sexual, Freud himself, was inclined to “seek strength in a bottle of
Barolo” when his spirits flagged. One
can only wonder whether he turned to the supposedly masculine Barolos of the
north or to the more feminine style of the south). Gaja likens cabernet to John Wayne, and
nebbiolo to Marcello Mastroianni (bold directness relegated in the face of
Italian charm?). Where does all this leave
the intrepid seducer? Which wine to
choose to advance his suit? Opt for the
authority of cabernet? (
(Overheard one evening, from an adjacent table, while not strictly minding our own business:
He, “Would you call this wine masculine or feminine?”
She, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
He, “How does it feel in your mouth? Work it around, use your tongue… Majestic, would you say?”
She, “I’d say pompous. So it must be masculine.” Touche)
And so we come to the final dimension of wine description, attributing human characteristics to the wine – anthropomorphizing it. Galileo called wine “a compound of light and humor”. “Humor” here (umore) is sometimes taken as a reference to the earth’s moisture in that region, and related to terroir. Equally it’s as often taken to be a reference to the four humors once believed to define human character, identified by Hippocrates four hundred years or so BC, and developed by Galen some six hundred years later into a theory of human temperament. Sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic… is this the wine being drunk, or what the drinking brings out?
In attributing characters to wines, you might hear
speak of a cheeky riesling, enigmatic semillon, overbearing chardonnay, demur
pinot, grandiloquent
So in attempting to describe a wine, are we really describing that wine, or does the wine force us instead to describe ourselves?
This isn’t to say that our judgments, and the descriptions we use to give them voice, aren’t problematic, reflecting much about ourselves. Emil Peynaud describes tasting as “based on personal impressions where the key factor is the taster’s own personality”. So in attempting to describe a wine, are we really describing that wine, or does the wine force us instead to describe ourselves?
There’s a scene in the film Sideways, in which the characters of Miles and Maya feel each other out romantically while ostensibly discussing Pinot Noir. Miles calls the pinot grape “thin-skinned, temperamental”, but goes on to say that in the hands of the most patient and nurturing of growers it can blossom into “the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle” wine on the planet. (Has he been expressing the personal dimension of his own terroir?) She responds to his thinly veiled pleading by reflecting that “a bottle of wine is actually alive, and it’s constantly evolving and gaining complexity… that is, until it peaks, and then begins its steady, inevitable decline…” (It’s a lovely notion, wine as a living entity. And a poignant one, wine as a decaying entity, its decline from age, or poor handling, or our very act of enjoying it. As you drink it, it gifts you its last vestige of vitality. You get to, if you’re fortunate and the timing is right and the circumstances felicitous, you get to experience that perfect point of evolution, the last gasp of beauty before it’s gone and you’ll never experience quite that again.)
Miles and Maya have spoken, really, of nothing but themselves.
“An unexamined life,” mused Socrates (on trial and facing death), “is not worth living.” In fact, an unexamined life can’t really be said to have been lived. So too with wine and its true enjoyment – with no reflection, the most noble wine, taken sip by sip, hasn’t really been drunk (or lived) at all.
This theme drives the upcoming book Drinking your own words, by Evan Mitchell and Brian Mitchell, available pre-Xmas 2007. All rights reserved by the authors.
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Sources
Quotes from Donnel B Stern
and Harry Sullivan taken from Donnel B Stern, Unformulated Experience – from dissociation to imagination in
psychoanalysis, The Analytic Press,
Quotes from Emile Peynaud
taken from Emile Peynaud, “Tasting Problems and Errors of Perception” in
Carolyn Korsmeyer (ed) The Taste Culture
Reader, Berg,
Richard L Gregory (ed), The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Oxford
University Press,
Representations of the
Aroma Wheel of Professor Ann C Noble can be found in Ron Herbst and Sharon
Tyler Herbst, The New Wine Lover’s
Companion, Barron’s,
Tasting notes for the 1973 Santenay Gravieres from Le Nez du Vin kit
Kingsley Amis, Everyday Drinking,
David Hume, “Of the
Standard of Taste” in Four Dissertations,
Cervantes, Don Quixote, Wordsworth Classics, Hertfordshire, 2000
P J O’Rourke, The CEO of the Sofa, Picador, Pan
Macmillan
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1962
Steven Pinker quote taken
from Peter Calamai, “Of Thought and Metaphor”,
E M Forster, Aspects of the Novel,
Angelo Gaja reference taken from Huon Hooke, “John Wayne meets his match”, Sydney Morning Herald, Good Living section, August 8 2006
Galileo quote taken from Sean Thackrey’s “Wine Maker” website, a compendium of wine tradition, history and esoterica at www.wine-maker.net
Sideways
Plato, “Apology”, The Trial and Death of Socrates,
Macmillan and Co,
