Describing Wine
One of the great challenges of wine appreciation is describing what we taste, not just to other people, but even to ourselves. Translating what we smell or taste into words is far more difficult than translating what we see into words. While dogs, for example, experience the world mainly through their sense of smell, we humans are far more visual and describe the world in terms of what we see with our eyes. From an early age, we are encouraged to”show and tell,” but we are never taught to”smell and tell.” All languages have a rich and sophisticated vocabulary for describing what we see, and we can be very precise in terms of color, shape, size, and visual distance when communicating with others—but such a vocabulary does not exist for smells and tastes. There is no semantic tradition in any culture or in any language to describe the things we smell, in the way that we are able to identify things we see.
In fact, the whole process of smelling is limited to a single word: smell. There is a smell coming from the mushrooms; I smell the mushrooms; the mushrooms smell. The same single word is used to describe the odor, the detection of the odor, and the action of the odor. Compare that to all the words we have for seeing, looking, watching, gazing, observing, etc. We must therefore look around in our personal memories for similar smells and tastes to compare with the wine, and then, when trying to share our experience, make subjective comparisons: “It tastes like dark chocolate with a hint of mushrooms and damp leaves.”
Another problem is that the part of the brain which processes smells also handles emotions and memory; it’s not only the most primitive part of the brain, but also the most subjective and personal. Smells are chemicals, and as the wine is exposed to air and evaporates, chemical molecules rise from the glass, through our nose to the receptors in our olfactory cortex.
The olfactory cortex, which evolved over eons into the amygdala, is the very oldest part of our brain, and is where emotions and memories are processed. The very earliest job of the brain was to process smell: does it smell good or bad? Is it something I can eat, something I would like to have sex with, or something I should run away from before it eats me? Memories of smells were therefore critical to survival and, even in the amygdala of the modern brain, the chemical processing of smells, emotions, memory, and desire, are all intimately entwined at a primitive level.
What the olfactory receptors do is transform the chemical information of the wine’s aroma molecules into electrical signals. These electrical signals travel into the brain’s cerebral cortex: the deepest, most primitive and least “conscious” part of the brain where the electronic impulses are translated back into the memory of our mother’s kiss, a feeling of hunger, the desire for a woman, the pleasure of luxury, the terror of darkness, or the lingering scent of invisible lilacs. These involuntary but powerful stirrings of our deepest emotions can all be released by the scent of a loved one’s pillow, the fragrance of a rose upon the evening air, or the delicate aromas released by a glass of wine. Nothing is more powerful or evocative and less subject to our verbal skills or logical analysis than our sense of smell.
One of my favorite times of year is fall when I go mushroom hunting in France, combing through the woods of Perigord looking for cèpe mushrooms and truffles, stepping through the fallen leaves and savoring the musky dampness of the decaying vegetation. Most Spanish red wines have an earthy aroma that reminds me of my days in the woods, and so for me the association of earthiness and damp leaves is pleasing and enhances my enjoyment of a good Tempranillo. But to another person, with different memories and experiences, the concept of damp organic decay might be totally disgusting, and my enthusiastic description of the wine might persuade them never to try it. Worse still, because of the unpleasant associations created by my description, a person tasting the wine might possibly dislike it and unfairly discover in it all the bad qualities they imagined I had suggested.
Wine drinkers, therefore, need to consciously train themselves to develop a commonly accepted vocabulary that will allow them to discuss wines with other people. With practice and concentration, they can decide if a wine reminds them of fruit, vegetables, wood, or fresh-cut grass. If it reminds them of fruit, is it a berry fruit, a tropical fruit, or a citrus? Over time, wine drinkers will discover a common language that enables them to share their impressions of a wine with other people using words and allusions that are mutually understood. But to develop such a vocabulary takes practice and conscious effort. The difference between a professional taster and the rest of us is training.
Unfortunately, the best wine class in the world, the best teacher, or the best book, can never impart that knowledge. It has to be accumulated, sip by sip, sniff by sniff, glass by glass, by each individual wine drinker. The UC Davis Wine Aroma Wheel at www.winearomawheel.com is a wonderful tool that will help the true connoisseur differentiate between the aromas of passion fruit and boysenberries, but for the rest of us, just learning to isolate the difference between a fruity taste and an earthy aroma is a good place to begin. Eric Asimov, the excellent wine critic for the New York Times, argues that we can divide all wines into sweet or savory. By sweet he does not mean sugary; he is rather referring to the impression of sweet we get from a wine that is intensely fruity, plush, viscous, and mouth-filling. By savory, he means wines which are more austere, with smoky, herbal, earthy, and mineral tastes.
We are not limited to food or taste metaphors; as a visual species we have other tools to describe wine. Karen MacNeil, a well-respected wine critic and author of the Wine Bible, quoted a restaurant owner’s description of Viognier wine:
“If a good German Riesling is like an ice-skater (fast, racy with a cutting edge), and Chardonnay is like a middle-heavyweight boxer (paunchy, solid, powerful), then Viognier would have to be described as a female gymnast – beautiful and perfectly shaped, with muscle but superb agility and elegance.”
Britt Karlson, a Swedish wine critic, once described an unfortunate wine as “ideal for serving at a funeral dinner, because it provokes a fitting mood of sorrow and grief.”
Alternatively we can seek our metaphor in music. In one of his Italian detective novels, A Long Finish, Michael Dibdin wrote:
“Barolo is the Bach of wine … strong, supremely structured, a little forbidding, but absolutely fundamental. Barbaresco is the Beethoven, taking those qualities and lifting them to heights of subjective passion and pain … and Brunello is its Brahms, the softer, fuller, romantic afterglow of so much strenuous excess.”
Those people who know their German composers and are familiar with Italian wines will recognize the insightful truth behind Dibdin’s metaphors. For those unfamiliar, however, it could sound merely pretentious. And of course, that is the great danger of talking about wine; the metaphors can become too flowery and ostentatious: “This is a cheeky little Pinot; unctuously naughty with a promise of heavenly bliss, like a nun slipping out of her habit.”
Roald Dahl, that wonderful British novelist, should really be given the last word on the subject from his short story “Taste”:
“Richard Pratt was a famous gourmet…. He organized dinners where sumptuous dishes and rare wines were served. He refused to smoke for fear of harming his palate, and when discussing a wine, he had a curious, rather droll habit of referring to it as though it were a living being. “A prudent wine,” he would say, “rather diffident and evasive, but quite prudent.” Or, “a good-humored wine, benevolent and cheerful—slightly obscene, perhaps, but nonetheless good humored.”
Scoring and Rating Wine
Traditionally, wines are rated on a European twenty point scale:
0-3 points (15%) for sight (color, clarity, etc.)
0-6 points (30%) for smell (bouquet, aroma, etc.)
0-8 points (40%) for taste (tannins, acidity, sweetness, etc.)
0-3 points (15%) for harmony (overall experience and balance)
The value of this system is its “human scale” which is
almost intuitive. Without being an expert, anyone knows that a five point score means a weak wine, a ten point score means an average but unremarkable wine, a fifteen point wine will be a memorable experience, and a nineteen or twenty point wine will be absolutely unforgettable.
The influential American wine critic, Robert Parker, introduced his one hundred point system in the 1970s, and unfortunately variants of this system have now taken over and dominate the wine world:
96-100 points: Extraordinary; a classic wine of its variety
90-95 points: Outstanding; exceptional complexity and character
80-89: Barely above average to very good; wine with various degrees of flavor
70-79 points: Average; little distinction beyond being soundly made
60-69 points: Below average; drinkable, but containing noticeable deficiencies
Nowadays the Wine Spectator, The Wine Advocate, The Wine Enthusiast, Wine and Spirits Magazine, and every critic and commentator seem to have all adopted a version of this one hundred point scale. The trouble with this one hundred point system is that it has no human scale. What does eighty-nine points mean? Like a German wine label, at first glance it sounds more precise and scientific, but on closer examination it conveys no meaningful or helpful information. It is too vague and abstract.
Numbers satisfy the American taste for quantifying and measuring, and Americans are familiar with the one hundred point scale from their schooldays. Numerical ratings give the impression that wine quality is measurable, and that the experts have scientifically analyzed it and pronounced their judgment. A number makes the critic’s opinion sound more objective, and therefore more valid than the consumer’s personal opinion. But a ninety-two point score does not tell you if the wine will go with lunchtime pasta, nor does it indicate if it will be better suited for a summer picnic or for a cold winter night around the fire.
The trouble is that because it appears to be a scientific and precise judgment, retailers and consumers treat it as such. Every wine store or supermarket selling wine is now festooned with garish “shelf-talkers”—those little shelf tabs below the bottle—proudly declaiming “Robert Parker 89 points.” The implication is that any wine without such a declaration must not be any good. You can see people standing in the aisles debating whether to go for a Wine Spectator score of ninety-one or a Wine Enthusiast score of ninety-two. It has just become a horrible marketing distraction.
Despite the apparently scientific objectivity of the one hundred point scale, even Robert Parker has admitted it all really depends on his mood and how he got out of bed that morning. “I really think probably the only difference between a 96-, 97-, 98-, 99-, and 100-point wine is really the emotion of the moment,” he said to the Naples Daily News in 2007.
Robert Parker
I have very mixed feelings about Mr. Parker, which I should explain before proceeding any further. Robert Parker started becoming known for his writing about wine in the mid-70s at just about the time that the Californian wineries began their renaissance; he has written a number of books on wine, and he also edits the very influential Wine Advocate newsletter. As mentioned above, Parker’s one hundred point scoring system has now become the industry standard. He is a man with a very deep knowledge of and passion about wine, especially the great reds from Bordeaux, the Rhône, and California, and he has reached his position of eminence through hard work, dedication, and simple expertise. Nonetheless, I have two problems with Mr. Parker.
My first objection is personal and selfish. Parker and I share the same tastes; we both like bold, broad-shouldered, swaggering reds. For years, I enjoyed drinking Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Barolo, and Barbaresco, which were all affordable until Parker discovered them. By writing about these wines and bestowing his blessing, he made them insanely popular. As a result, these wines are now extremely expensive and I can no longer afford to drink them.
My second objection owes more to Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I do not in any way mean that Parker himself has become corrupt, far from it; he is rightly proud of his high ethical standards: impartiality and independence from the wine industry. But unfortunately his influence is now so powerful that it has affected—if not corrupted—absolutely everybody else in the industry. For example, one of Parker’s early favorite winemakers was Michael Rolland in Pomerol, whose wines Parker always praised. Rolland also worked as a consultant for various other neighboring wineries, creating a similar style wine to his own. These wines also scored well with Parker, and so, inevitably, other winemakers beyond Bordeaux started hiring Rolland as a consultant and very soon Michael Rolland became the first “flying winemaker.” Jetting around the world, from Chile and Argentina to Australia and California, Rolland helps fellow winemakers create the style of wine that will score well in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate ratings, and thus be featured on “shelf talkers” in wine stores everywhere. There is even a wine analysis company in Sonoma, CA, called Enologix, which uses complex chemical algorithms to advise winemakers exactly how to manipulate their winemaking techniques in order to get Parker scores in excess of ninety points.
Parker’s wine ratings dramatically affect the price of wine on the market. It is claimed that the difference between a Parker score of eighty-five and ninety-five can be $10 million to the value of the wine. A wine rated at less than seventy can bankrupt the winegrower. The prices people pay for wine and the wines retailers and restaurants select to offer for sale are all affected by the judgments of Robert Parker. Even though his judgments may be fair and his opinions correct, I believe that it is wrong and unhealthy for any one individual to have that much power. Of course, there are other wine critics and magazines also rating wines; but not only have most of them adopted Parker’s scoring system, most of them have also adopted his tastes and his preferences for the rich and powerful, oaky, fruit-forward reds that he so admires. Consequently, we are seeing an international standardization of taste, a “Parkerization” of wine.
The ripple effect goes even further than the wine market; it reaches as far as the cellar and vineyard. A winegrower who may have a vision of a unique wine he wants to make may hesitate or change his mind when thinking about how Parker might rate it.
Of course, there are many who oppose Parker and the style of wine he promotes; the “hedonistic fruit bombs” as they are called. Parker once referred to such people as an “anti-flavor wine elite,” a phrase which went viral on Twitter and which has since been adopted by the very people he criticized. Parker’s detractors now sign themselves AFWE.
Hence my ambivalence about Robert Parker; I like his writing, I share his tastes, and I greatly respect his knowledge. Robert Parker should also be admired for making wine popular and accessible to Americans, and he should be commended for cutting through much of the jargon and Old World mystique of wine and bringing a New World freshness to the business. Unfortunately, the majority of people do not read his thoughtful tasting notes or his informed reviews; they just see the numbers—the Parker Points on the shelf-talkers. That’s where power corrupts absolutely.
I just wish there were a couple more Robert Parkers, equally informed and passionate, with similar influence but with different tastes—not to mention a preference for a twenty point scoring system.
For a list of all the French wines that Parker has awarded one hundred points in his system, go to www.comptoirdesmillesimes.com/blog/les-meilleurs-vins-robert-parker/.
Health Benefits of Wine
Wine has been used as a medicine for more than four thousand years. Ancient Sumerian clay tables and Egyptian papyri, as old as 2200 BC, describe a wide variety of wine-based medicines. The Greek physician Hippocrates considered wine an essential part of a healthy diet, and also as a disinfectant for wounds as well as a cure for everything, from lethargy to diarrhea. The Ancient Greek poet Eubulus also recommended the daily consumption of wine for good health, but only in mode
ration. For Eubulus, moderation meant three bowls of wine with a meal. The Greek bowl, or kylix, contained about 250 ml of wine, so three bowls would be the equivalent of a modern, 750 ml bottle of wine.
The relationship between wine and health was first brought to Americans’ attention in a 1991 edition of the TV program 60 Minutes, when Morley Safer discussed the “French Paradox.” The paradox was that the French, who, as a nation, are well-known for enjoying a delicious cuisine high in fats, suffer from a very low incidence of coronary heart disease. The program concluded that although the French diet is indeed high in saturated fats, it also includes a healthy dose of red wine, which obviously counteracts the effects of the fat. Following the TV program, sales of red wine in the USA almost doubled as Americans concluded that the increased consumption of Merlot would make them healthy, slim, and, hopefully, as elegant as the French.
Even if drinking red wine does not make you look like Catherine Deneuve, recent research has shown the health benefits are still not inconsiderable.
Memory Protection: Researchers at the University of Arizona tested women in their 70s and found those who drank wine daily scored much better in memory quizzes than those who did not drink wine. The powerful antioxidant resveratrol protects against cell damage and prevents age-related mental decline such as Alzheimer’s. In a study by Loyola University Medical Center, the researchers gathered and analyzed data from academic papers on red wine since 1977. The studies, which spanned nineteen nations, showed a statistically significantly lower risk of dementia among regular red wine drinkers in fourteen countries. The investigators explained that resveratrol reduces the stickiness of blood platelets, which helps keep the blood vessels open and flexible. This helps maintain a good blood supply to the brain.
The Booklovers' Guide to Wine Page 3
