Metatheory of Wine Appreciation: Tasting Notes

S

Steven Spielmann

Steven Spielmann
Some folks around here seem to be opposed to tasting notes. I am curious as to your reasons, in a non-confrontational, I-want-to-learn sort of way.

I totally get being opposed to point scores and evaluative language in tasting notes, so if possible let's try to bracket that issue and just concentrate on the following question: what's wrong with trying to discuss your impressions of a wine in part by listing its various qualities?

Granted that if all you are doing is discerning qualities you are missing something, just as the person who goes through a gallery identifying formal techniques in paintings and nothing besides is missing something. On the other hand, the person who goes through a gallery in cheerful ignorance of what the painters are up to formally is probably missing something as well.

I often enjoy reading other people's descriptions of wines I have drunk because it helps me think about the experience and what there was to perceive in it. For example, people might name a scent or taste I recognize with a different word than I would use, and I say, huh, that's interesting, I wonder if that's really closer to what's going on here?

I guess I read tasting notes as something like genuine Haiku, in other words, attempts to give voice to a certain kind of experience.

----------------------

In an attempt to start the ball rolling for the opposition, here is one possible principled ground for being opposed to tasting notes. Maybe the thought is that drinking wine is just so context-dependent (on food, company, what other wines one has had, idiosyncracies of palate, etc.) that any attempt to describe such experiences in a way that's meaningful to others is in some way a falsification?

I have trouble seeing how this sort of argument wouldn't undermine all art criticism, however. So I guess if that's the argument I'd like a principled defense of the thesis that it applies to wine but not to the visual, auditory, and narrative arts.
 
I don't know anyone who is opposed to TNs. I personally don't take notes all the time, and post even less as I'm lazy.

Note-taking also detracts from the fundamental purpose of drinking: getting pleasantly drunk.
 
Steven, I'm with you, but did you check out the comprehensive back and forth covering this exact territory in Cory and Thor's blogs three months ago?
 
Yixin, aside from Cory I have seen both Joe Dressner and Levi say things which suggest at the very least a suspicion of the genre, among others. Which is fine, both those guys have forgotten more about wine than I will ever know, but that's why I am curious to know where they and others like them are coming from.

Oswaldo, I check out Oenologic and Saignee fairly regularly, so I'm surprised I missed those. I will go poke around...
 
Joe Dressner, back on Wine Therapy, declared war on tasting notes and wrote a longish essay giving reasons. It was thoughtful enough to deserve reposting here, though the ultimate consequences of the argument, I thought, were so extreme as to be disabling.

I almost never post tasting notes, because the descriptors make everything sound the same to me. And I tend to skim through descriptors of the notes of others to see things that provide whatever I might take to be information. But this isn't a metaphysical position on my part, just a personal foible. Those who write notes that inform others and those who read them with comprehension will do so regardless of my disabilities.
 
All very compelling, particularly the charge of reducionism, but aside from the laundry list of aromatic descriptors, which can indeed be useless, I still want to know whether people who have a wine ideology (for lack of a better word) not entirely dissimilar to mine liked or didn't like a particular wine. Obviously, that's why self-selection that goes on in each board is critical. If someone here says they liked a wine, I'm inclined to be interested. If someone in a board with a very different self selection says they liked a wine, I'm not.
 
I'm against us having too much uniformity around here. Let 100 Chateauneufs bloom!

I'm also not a big fan of lists of smells.

But I'm happy to have a wine placed in its context by someone who understands it, as opposed to, say, someone having it in a big blind tasting who doesn't even know what it is.
 
I don't know if anyone objects to the tasting note per se, so much as:

- the use of the tasting note as the dominant form of wine criticism; nothing remotely like it is considered valuable critical analysis in any other aesthetic field.
- the irrelevance of most of the stock descriptive phrases employed by most practitioners of the form; do you really care whether a wine tastes more like cherries or strawberries? whether its "finish" lasts 30 seconds or 45?

If you'll forgive the plug I had a blog post of my own on the subject here.
 
Good plug, bookmarked.

Personally, I don't care about things like 30 v 45, but cherry v. strawberry tells me something, as do a few other things like acid/sweet balance, body, tannin level, supermaturity, level of rs, natural v. unnatural tasting acidity, stewed v. not stewed fruit, etc.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Good plug, bookmarked.

Personally, I don't care about things like 30 v 45, but cherry v. strawberry tells me something, as do a few other things like acid/sweet balance, body, tannin level, supermaturity, level of rs, natural v. unnatural tasting acidity, stewed v. not stewed fruit, etc.
Click to expand...
I agree, I think all of those things are useful info. But I think most tasting note writers tend to ignore them in favor of the usual fruit laundry list. I stopped paying attention to Parker, for example, when I realized that not one of his dozens of stock fruit-flavor descriptions gave any indication whether the fruit was overripe/stewed/jammy or classic and restrained.

At the same time, I think the tasting notes that are most enjoyable to read go beyond factors like the ones you mentioned. I view those things sort of like the necessity of summarizing the plot in a book review. The real insightful parts come after you get the basic facts out of the way. Not every wine is interesting enough to lend itself to insightful commentary, but that's what distinguishes the great from the good, n'est-ce-pas?
 
None of the links are to the Dressner argument that I remember, which went along the lines of this: all tasting notes concentrate on the taste of wine as the proper focus of attention. To know a wine, one had to know where it came from, etc., etc., preferably by visiting the vineyards, talking to the vigneron and then meditating on the quidditas of that wine. Such meditations would not lead, by their nature, to tasting notes. I am not doing justice to his argument, but since I can't find it, maybe by offering this transmogrification, I can get Joe to repost the original.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Has anyone an answer for what I consider to be the First Question: Why write a TN at all?
Click to expand...

For me, and I feel rather strongly about this, I take notes in order to crystalize and take a stand about how I feel about the (wine, beer) I'm taking notes on. I can read 8 year old beer tasting notes and remember exactly how it tasted, but that Colombier Vacqueyras Tradition I had six weeks ago I've got almost no recollection of. Hell, I don't even remember the vintage. Notes for me (and I don't get too crazy with the flowery descriptions) force me to describe something in a way that elucidate how I experience it. Yes, it puts me on record (at least in my notebook) about how I feel about a drink, but the act of putting pen to paper to describe something increases my interaction with it. I experience more when taking notes. That's why I do it.

Cheers,

Kevin
 
originally posted by Kevin Roberts:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Has anyone an answer for what I consider to be the First Question: Why write a TN at all?
Click to expand...

For me, and I feel rather strongly about this, I take notes in order to crystalize and take a stand about how I feel about the (wine, beer) I'm taking notes on. I can read 8 year old beer tasting notes and remember exactly how it tasted, but that Colombier Vacqueyras Tradition I had six weeks ago I've got almost no recollection of. Hell, I don't even remember the vintage. Notes for me (and I don't get too crazy with the flowery descriptions) force me to describe something in a way that elucidate how I experience it. Yes, it puts me on record (at least in my notebook) about how I feel about a drink, but the act of putting pen to paper to describe something increases my interaction with it. I experience more when taking notes. That's why I do it.

Cheers,

Kevin
Click to expand...

Also the notes most likely give me the vocabulary to access my taste memory.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
At the same time, I think the tasting notes that are most enjoyable to read go beyond factors like the ones you mentioned. I view those things sort of like the necessity of summarizing the plot in a book review. The real insightful parts come after you get the basic facts out of the way. Not every wine is interesting enough to lend itself to insightful commentary, but that's what distinguishes the great from the good, n'est-ce-pas?
Click to expand...

Absolutely, the plot summary is just a springboard for some reflection generated by the experience.
 
If a report on a wine is properly titled, then the thread can easily be disregarded by folks not interested in how the particular wine showed.

Thus, there is no downside to having properly titled wine notes and said notes are an asset to folks who are interested. Plus, said notes often lead into meritworthy discussions that would otherwise not occur.

. . . . . Pete
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top