cabernet franc query

What is "correct" in the context of Sauvignon Blanc?

If the wine displays varietal character?

What is the varietal character of Sauvignon? Is the standard Cloudy Bay, Cakebread, Puzelat, Vogler, Dagueneau, Vatan, Carbonnieux, Mulderbosch? All of them? Some of them? Depends on one's own subjective taste? Depends on terroir?

What then, is "correct" Virginia Sauvignon Blanc?
 
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
What then, is "correct" Virginia Sauvignon Blanc?
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You raise a fine point. Correct Virginia sauvignon blanc will not necessarily be the same thing as correct sauvignon blanc.

Either way, who is drinking enough Virginia wine to care?
 
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
No, it's not my addition based on evaluating VA wine, it is my interpretation of both Rahsaan's and Christian's description of the word in their posts:

Rahsaan: decent and drinkable, but nothing special

Christian: sufficent/adequate

Sounds like mediocrity to me.

How do you interpret that?
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If I take "mediocre" to mean of lower than medium quality and take "decent," "drinkable," "sufficient," and "adequate" to mean precisely of medium quality, not having faults, then I don't think their words either denote or connote "mediocrity." If I add to that Rahsaan's more extended discussion of the word in French, I don't really get close.

But this is a semantic argument, really. I think you know what Christian meant, now. As an added attraction, the next time you hear someone refer to "un vin correct," you'll know it's neither insult nor high praise. The word isn't being used in its English meaning, that's all.

With regard to correct Sauvignon Blanc. I've heard the French regularly refer to un bordeaux correct, which means, it tastes like a bordeaux, alright. One could of course respond with the questions you ask Christian, but wines to which one refers as correct are precisely those that don't reward such questions. I took Christian to mean something like, "tasted like a Sauvignon Blanc, alright." In my experience with VA SB, probably tasted more French than NZ, but it was a correct wine, not one with anything special about it, so you want get far by asking more.
 
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
My concern is with the use of a word that qualifies a wine in a manner that is both arbitrary and exclusionary.
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No more arbitrary than any other judgment. VLM would surely tell you that enough smart people would inevitably agree on which wines were correct and which were not.
 
If I take "mediocre" to mean of lower than medium quality and take "decent," "drinkable," "sufficient," and "adequate" to mean precisely of medium quality, not having faults, then I don't think their words either denote or connote "mediocrity." If I add to that Rahsaan's more extended discussion of the word in French, I don't really get close.
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I take "mediocre" to mean exactly what the dictionary says it means: "of medium quality" not less than medium quality which to me implies, "less than mediocre."

But this is a semantic argument, really. I think you know what Christian meant, now.
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No, I do not know what Christian meant, which is the reason why I requested clarification.

As an added attraction, the next time you hear someone refer to "un vin correct," you'll know it's neither insult nor high praise. The word isn't being used in its English meaning, that's all.
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I am on familiar terms with the French language and I do understand how the French define the word in relation to wine. I don't think everything the French do or say regarding wine should be employed or copied.
 
No more arbitrary than any other judgment.
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I disagree. If I say: "This wine is terrible" this not an arbitrary judgement. It is what I think of the wine.

Christian determining that a wine is "correct" on the other hand, implies that I (as a reader of his statement) am complicit in the definition of the term, and I am not sure I even understand the definition as it relates to a Virginia Sauvignon Blanc.

VLM would surely tell you that enough smart people would inevitably agree on which wines were correct and which were not.
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Again, this is arbitrary. If you put the right group of smart people (read: like-minded, equally habituated, etc) together of course you could get them to agree on a definition of correct.

Put Joe Dressner, Michel Rolland, Kermit Lynch, Peter Weygandt, J Deutsch and VLM in a room and I don't think there would be much concensus.
 
If I say: "This wine is terrible" this not an arbitrary judgement. It is what I think of the wine.

Christian determining that a wine is "correct" on the other hand, implies that I (as a reader of his statement) am complicit in the definition of the term, and I am not sure I even understand the definition as it relates to a Virginia Sauvignon Blanc..
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Ok, now I see what you are saying.

Your point is of course fine and correct, but surely those of us on this board can handle a bit of rough-and-tumble linguistic complication via the word 'correct'.

But I agree that if leading an intro to wine seminar, one would want to choose different terms than 'correct Virginia sauvignon blanc' or 'typical Musigny'.
 
My dictionary defines "mediocre" as "of moderate or low quality." If you define it as meaning "of moderate quality," then the answer to your question about "correct" as applied to wine is "yes it can mean mediocre in the sense of moderate."

You say you understand what a French person would mean when s/he says "un vin correct." You may not think that meaning should be employed or copied, but if Christian says, as he did, he uses the word as the French do, then you should understand him, whether or not you think he should have employed the French meaning.

Let's not confuse wine evaluation with understanding a word. We don't need to be VLM style metaphysical objectivists to determine that words do their work when they work the way their speaker wanted them to. Sometimes this doesn't happen. More times it does. When it doesn't, it's a coherent response to ask further about the meaning, as you have done. But once you figure out what the person was trying to say, it's time to move on to criticizing what s/he was saying.
 
Jonathan, the Oxford American Dictionary defines mediocre: 1. of medium quality, neither good nor bad...

My criticism is no longer about what Christian was saying regarding a particular Sauvignon Blanc from Virginia, but rather the concept of "correctness" as it applies to wine, which I find absurd, arbitrary, exclusionary, evasive and overall not very useful.
 
It's probably just as exclusionary as picking over the minutia of a word's definition (and the intent of those using it) and arbitrarily determining that the use of that particular word is "absurd." Pot, meet Sauvignon Blanc.
 
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
Jonathan, the Oxford American Dictionary defines mediocre: 1. of medium quality, neither good nor bad...

My criticism is no longer about what Christian was saying regarding a particular Sauvignon Blanc from Virginia, but rather the concept of "correctness" as it applies to wine, which I find absurd, arbitrary, exclusionary, evasive and overall not very useful.
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What comes after the elipsis? In the OED, the definition starts that way and then moves to "contextually indifferent, of poor quality, second-rate." The quotational examples show the second meaning operating in the 20th century. But I'm not arguing that the first meaning doesn't exist and in that sense, "correct" and "mediocre" may be taken as overlapping judgments.

I can understand why you find the judgment of correct not very useful. It certainly says little more than "I like this wine OK." I'm not sure I find it "absurd," or "exclusionary" (a near moral condemnation that seems excessive). Whether it's arbitrary depends on whether the judgment "Likes OK" can be made normative, I guess. But that's an issue for a different thread.
 
"Put Joe Dressner, Michel Rolland, Kermit Lynch, Peter Weygandt, J Deutsch and VLM in a room and I don't think there would be much concensus."

Interesting thought. Put all these guys in a room with 10 sauv b's from all over and ask them to pick out the most "correct" sauv b. I bet there would be some overlap.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
"Put Joe Dressner, Michel Rolland, Kermit Lynch, Peter Weygandt, J Deutsch and VLM in a room and I don't think there would be much concensus."

Interesting thought. Put all these guys in a room with 10 sauv b's from all over and ask them to pick out the most "correct" sauv b. I bet there would be some overlap.
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My hope would be that at least one among them would walk out of the room citing what a complete waste of time such a task would be.
 
originally posted by Nicolas Mestre:
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
"Put Joe Dressner, Michel Rolland, Kermit Lynch, Peter Weygandt, J Deutsch and VLM in a room and I don't think there would be much concensus."

Interesting thought. Put all these guys in a room with 10 sauv b's from all over and ask them to pick out the most "correct" sauv b. I bet there would be some overlap.
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My hope would be that at least one among them would walk out of the room citing what a complete waste of time such a task would be.
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So, for you, every grape's characteristics could be defined as, "well, it could be this, it could be that, but we don't really know."...?
 
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