So what

originally posted by John Donaghue:
How much pleasure do you take from stacking your books on a bare pine shelf with cinder block bookends? Would you take any more or any less pleasure in stacking them on a nicely finished piece of walnut, or even another pine shelf, but this one neatly joined and well-made?
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That is not the question at hand.

The question at hand is this: Do you take more, less, or the same pleasure in putting your books onto a nicely finished walnut bookcase that took 1 week to build or an otherwise identical one that took 4 weeks to build?
 
originally posted by Cliff:
originally posted by SFJoe:
Marc Angeli says he'd never buy a wine without seeing how the vigneron prunes his vines.
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That either radically limits what one can stash in the cave, or rakes up serious frequent flier miles!
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Marc Angeli is one of the few with Chenin in goblet. Very impressive when seen against the fucked up Guyot double and Cordon simple in the Layon.

Me, I only buy wines from winemakers with dogs.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The question at hand is this: Do you take more, less, or the same pleasure in putting your books onto a nicely finished walnut bookcase that took 1 week to build or an otherwise identical one that took 4 weeks to build?
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Yeah, I was off. I think it separates out a little - I take similar pleasure in both when I can see that they're well-crafted, because it means that someone, apprentice or master, put time and effort and care into their creation. That's the inherent, intrinsic part for me.

I can also value the different kinds of effort behind each piece, although I conceed that the differences may not be evident. I think I could value either effort equally, yet possibly in different ways? To make a bit of an obvious example I could value the apprentice's raw effort and determination but also value the experience and skill of the master. There are dozens of possiblilities; I don't know that any one value needs to be better than another.

Which brings me nicely back to the original post of the thread - I don't see the point of trying to forget or ignore the effort in making a wine. The wine is what it is because of that effort, and learning about the work the winemaker put into it can only enhance my enjoyment of it (well, most of the time - R.O. and pesticides can make for exceptions). I don't know that it makes a wine actually taste any better or not, but I do take more pleasure in drinking wines when I know some of their history.
 
originally posted by John Donaghue: Which brings me nicely back to the original post of the thread - I don't see the point of trying to forget or ignore the effort in making a wine. The wine is what it is because of that effort, and learning about the work the winemaker put into it can only enhance my enjoyment of it (well, most of the time - R.O. and pesticides can make for exceptions). I don't know that it makes a wine actually taste any better or not, but I do take more pleasure in drinking wines when I know some of their history.
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I admit I worded that awkwardly...(please try and forget I used the word "forget", and I was speaking specifically about myself as an artist, not necessarily others as winemakers)...

There are times when great efforts are required to make something I am at last satisfied with. There are other times when the art seems to make itself. Either way, much of my art is experienced outside of the context in which it was made and, unless asked, I don't make a point of discussing technique, much less effort. If I was a member of an online "art forum" where people discussed artworks, and someone hated a piece of mine they saw, I wouldn't bring up "effort" as an argument to try and make them see a better side to the art. That's all. (And if someone else brought up "effort" on my behalf, I would appreciate the thought, but think that they were taking an erroneous tack.)

This doesn't mean at all that I don't appreciate effort when it comes to wine (are there any wines out there that don't require effort?) but while visiting winemakers and vineyards can add to my overall appreciation of the craft/science/art of making wine, it won't necessarily directly convince me that a particular glass of wine in front of me tastes any better.
 
originally posted by John Donaghue:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The question at hand is this: Do you take more, less, or the same pleasure in putting your books onto a nicely finished walnut bookcase that took 1 week to build or an otherwise identical one that took 4 weeks to build?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was off. I think it separates out a little - I take similar pleasure in both when I can see that they're well-crafted, because it means that someone, apprentice or master, put time and effort and care into their creation. That's the inherent, intrinsic part for me.

I can also value the different kinds of effort behind each piece, although I conceed that the differences may not be evident. I think I could value either effort equally, yet possibly in different ways? To make a bit of an obvious example I could value the apprentice's raw effort and determination but also value the experience and skill of the master. There are dozens of possiblilities; I don't know that any one value needs to be better than another.
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I think you have not sufficiently attended to the qualifier "otherwise identical" in Jeff's question. If you didn't know how much effort--not having seen it--went into which bookshelf, how would you distinguish them sufficiently to value them differently according to the kinds of labor that went into them?
 
You go talk with the people who made them.

And yes, I suppose that if you have to research the work involved then the labor might not appear so evident in the final product. I would argue that the more one learns of the effort and work required, though, the more evident the labor will become. I haven't met very many winemakers, certainly not so many as the posters on this board, but the more I meet and talk with and learn from the more I realize that there are few easy choices in making wine.

To change the topic a little, assume that I do get more enjoyment out of a wine because I've talked with the winemaker about it - not making a badly flawed wine suddenly palatable, but perhaps making a good or even mediocre wine a little more pleasureable to drink. Any real harm, other than maybe making myself look foolish? None of this exists in a vacuum, after all.
 
Did the apprentice take four weeks because he doesn't know what he's doing or did he take one week because he worked on nothing else?

Did the master take one week because he can dash off a bookcase in his sleep or did he take four weeks because he has a hundred other things to do?
 
All of those things are meaningful and they all change the way I might value the bookcase! Or the wine. And to make it even more fun, the bookcase could be of equal value to me in all four situations, yet for totally different reasons.
 
Did the apprentice take four weeks because it took three weeks to find someone else to do the work?

Did the master take four weeks because he's a humbug (but has great marketing)?

I can do this all night, you know.
 
I frequently like a wine more because I've talked with the winemaker about it. Also perhaps because I bought the bottle at the domaine after a particularly pleasant visit. I didn't say one can't do this or that it was wrong to do this. But I don't get confused into thinking that my evaluation, based on those reasons, should hold for anybody else or is an evaluation of the wine as of wine. If you want to research the provenance of your bookcase in order to enjoy it, I'd be the last person to stop you. But with regard to the question that started this post, you won't persuade me that the effort you've researched to find out matters particularly to the value of the bookcase--except for you and those who share your taste for knowing the provenance of things.
 
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