Today I read an article from The Telegraph describing a study in which tasters rate the usefulness of wine descriptors. Many of the participants found them to be extremely unhelpful and pretentious! For the most part, I actually agree with their perspective and with the point of the article, but only up to a point...
Sometimes, adjectives used to describe wine can be pretty ridiculous and clearly were invented by snobs who wanted to make other people feel dumb and make themselves feel superior. Either that, or they were written by really unimaginative PR sorts who ran out of adjectives and their word processing thesaurus was of no help. Things like “old bones?!” WHAT? Bizarre. Agreed. Wine should not taste like old bones… What do old bones even taste like? How do I go about finding some to taste? Do I even want to?
“Brooding?” C’mon. No one can taste “brooding.” Brooding is not a thing. That’s dumb.
However… (could you tell this was coming?) there are several that they list here that I disagree with and use personally all the time… Does this make me a snob? Take “vegetal” for instance. I like this one! We all know what vegetation tastes like, right? It may not be as specific as “grass” or “asparagus” or “spinach,” but we all know a vegetabley flavor when we taste it. Next is “leather.” OK, so maybe I don’t go around sucking on or eating leather. But I think I know what it tastes like- it’s very closely related to the smell of leather (and smell and taste are so closely related anyhow!) C’mon!
Minerality? Well, that one could go either way. I always think of minerally flavored wines as having a sort of calcium or limestone flavor. But, I grew up with really hard well-water, so maybe I have a special bent on that one.
What do you think? Have I crossed over into snobbery? Is my growing familiarity with wine descriptors tainting my view? I feel pretty committed to the idea of keeping wine non-snobby and laid back, so this is important! Bring me down to earth, friends!
Share your thoughts in the comments (please.)
Sometimes, adjectives used to describe wine can be pretty ridiculous and clearly were invented by snobs who wanted to make other people feel dumb and make themselves feel superior. Either that, or they were written by really unimaginative PR sorts who ran out of adjectives and their word processing thesaurus was of no help. Things like “old bones?!” WHAT? Bizarre. Agreed. Wine should not taste like old bones… What do old bones even taste like? How do I go about finding some to taste? Do I even want to?
“Brooding?” C’mon. No one can taste “brooding.” Brooding is not a thing. That’s dumb.
However… (could you tell this was coming?) there are several that they list here that I disagree with and use personally all the time… Does this make me a snob? Take “vegetal” for instance. I like this one! We all know what vegetation tastes like, right? It may not be as specific as “grass” or “asparagus” or “spinach,” but we all know a vegetabley flavor when we taste it. Next is “leather.” OK, so maybe I don’t go around sucking on or eating leather. But I think I know what it tastes like- it’s very closely related to the smell of leather (and smell and taste are so closely related anyhow!) C’mon!
Minerality? Well, that one could go either way. I always think of minerally flavored wines as having a sort of calcium or limestone flavor. But, I grew up with really hard well-water, so maybe I have a special bent on that one.
What do you think? Have I crossed over into snobbery? Is my growing familiarity with wine descriptors tainting my view? I feel pretty committed to the idea of keeping wine non-snobby and laid back, so this is important! Bring me down to earth, friends!
Share your thoughts in the comments (please.)
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