Is This Bottle Corked__ The Secret Life of Wine - Kathleen Burk [77]
And off he glided, as if on air.
We all dream of being paid for what we enjoy. But as they say, be careful what you wish for, lest you get it.
Do you understand winespeak?
REGULAR BUYERS of wine probably read wine columnists and wine guides. They may wonder which guides to trust: what do the adjectives and nouns really mean? These are important questions. The conscientious writer tries to convey the experience you will have if you drink the wine, and this requires some detail. What most people probably want to know is, what does the wine taste like, and will they like it? Flavor, however, is actually made up of two components: its “nose” and its taste. The skeptic about the importance of its aroma should try drinking a glass while holding his or her nose. Certainly, part of the fun of drinking wine is catching the differences between what a wine smells like and what it tastes like. For many, the nose is almost more interesting, because layers of smell are sometimes more complex and easier to discern than layers of taste.
Indeed, the aroma (of a youngish wine) or bouquet (of a more mature wine) has produced some arresting characterizations of individual types of wine. One, ascribed to the writer Jancis Robinson, a Master of Wine, is for wine made from the Sauvignon Blanc grape, whether a Sancerre from the Loire or the eponymous wine from New Zealand: “cat’s pee on a gooseberry bush.” Now, let us think about that. The scent of gooseberries, yes, nettles, and sometimes elderflowers, and often grass and some herbs, but the cat’s pee is more difficult. What if you do not own a cat? Would you recognize this particular scent? Even more to the point, would this description encourage you to buy it? Another columnist’s recent description of a certain New Zealand sauvignon blanc was that it reminded him of “a rugby club changing room”: we can only hope that this was more dismissive than descriptive. Another characterization, ascribed to a notable writer on burgundy, is that “great burgundy smells like shit.” Again, let us think about it. The classic fruit scent for wine made from the Pinot Noir grape in Burgundy is raspberries, while for some of us, the faint scent of rubber is a possible clue. But his arresting descriptor? Does he mean the faint composty bouquet that can accompany fine wines? Or does he actually mean that arising from the less salubrious section of a farmyard? In any case, it is difficult to see the comment pinned on the shelf of your favorite wine shop. Or what about the classic Australian description of mature shiraz (syrah) as having a “sweaty saddle character”?
Wine columnists often pile on the more agreeable nouns. Here is one that described a Chilean wine made from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape: “gobs of fruit, blackcurrants and dark berries, notes of leather and pencil shavings, a hint of licorice, chocolate, and coffee.” There can be several responses to that. You could pour a glass of the wine, sniff it, swirl it and sniff it again, and try, with increasing desperation, to find each of these scents. You could consider whether you really wanted to buy and drink a wine that smelled of pencil shavings. You could give up on the smells and taste it, trying to tease out everything promised by the adjectives. Or you could quote Jancis Robinson’s reported comment that few can really discern more than a small handful of scents and tastes and just pour yourself a glass, drink it, and decide whether or not you