Gluttons for Punishment

Context is everything.

“I remember three constant frequenters of the docks...who used to express themselves in their peculiar oracular way, so authoritatively, that I resolved to put their judgment to the test.....I used to tell the cooper to draw two glasses from the same pipe, and to hand them as if they were from different numbers.  I may say that the trick upon them was invariably successful, for they were sure after tasting, and retasting, and much profound thought, to pronounce the verdict that, although similar, one possessed rather more of this, or that, than the other.  I kept my own counsel, but was convinced...that in wine-tasting and wine-talk there is an enormous amount of humbug.”
---T.G. Shaw, Wine, The Vine and the Cellar

The wine calendar is a fast-fermenting crush of tastings. In peak season there are professionals who endeavour to pack in three or four in a day as if knowledge might arrive more quickly by running towards it at full pelt with an open mouth. Experienced tasters boast of sampling a thousand wines a week implying that volume fine-tunes the palate. In the business it is called finding the benchmark, but to me it is more a case of eating the bench. Just as in sport one can over-train or lift weights in such a way that no real benefit accrues, so tasters can suffer from flagrant palate-fatigue. One can only imagine the deleterious effect of allowing a surfeit of substandard wines to cross one’s lips!

So is this pain with a purpose? The generic or regional tastings, for example, are a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly with cheap brands jostling with boutique wines. Consumers tend to select the wines they want to taste beforehand which are usually the wines they already know – no serendipitous discoveries here! Some tastings focus on single grape varieties in a comparative “central table” line up so that a prospective taster can enjoy a snapshot of the whole tasting. However, the very rationale of tastings is inevitably skewed. Who attends – and who doesn’t?

Which leads me to speculate about the point of mass tastings.  We assume our religious duty to congregate daily before the altar of wine-for-wine’s-sake, to swirl, sip, spit and evaluate (or devaluate), each of us a super-analyser. Ultimately, our impressions of the tasting are condensed to highlights and lowlights, but if we had to taste everything we would see how much mediocrity flourishes. Is the purpose to shake and sluice the gold pan to sort the shiny nuggets from the dross, or is it to assess the overall quality of the tasting? I suppose it depends what purpose we have in being there. The restaurateur or wine buyer needs excellent wines at good value for their list, so no matter how bad the overall standard of the tasting, just as long as a few things stand out, their needs will be requited and the tasting deemed useful. Journalists, however, might be seeking to take the pulse of the whole tasting, or they might simply be looking for recommendations for their readers. The purpose of tastings is as much the purpose that the taster brings with them.

The objective taster is the one who holds his or her opinions to be objectively correct. The objective tasters tend to favour substantive correctness, because they aim to taste for a perceived common denominator of opinion. Objective tasters are considered to be useful on tasting panels, where collective views are taken into account and maverick perspectives hamstring the judging process. The subjective taster is not afraid to assert opinions although often does so under the guise of objectivity. The negative subjective taster allows prejudice to bind opinion and blind perception. “Doubt is not a very agreeable status, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” (Voltaire) When I taste with someone, mano a mano, I often find that they are missing the point of the wines, for they seem to judge on a scale of comfort and familiarity and according to a host of predefined, conventional rules. For example, the idea that wine should, under no condition, ever taste like cider or beer, or reds should not have a prickle of CO2; that volatility is, by definition, a bad thing; that reduction is necessarily a fault, or oxidation makes the wine unclean. If your palate is trammelled, then anything beyond the norm is an aberration and some of the more fascinating wines will forever be as a closed book. “Our judgements judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon...” Show me how you taste and how I’ll tell you who you are.

Herbert Spencer memorably wrote: “Opinion is ultimately determined by feeling, and not by the intellect”. In our desire to deconstruct wines, we don’t build up a picture of the wine because we don’t allow our intuition to flow or give our imagination free rein. The best subjective tasters use their imaginations and when I see people robotically writing tasting notes as if every wine had an identical validity I think they are wasting their energy. Great wines should spur flights of fancy, appeal to us on the pulses. They should make us tingle with excitement and our responses should reflect that. In big systems the adherence to a systemic approach, the need to compare and constantly evaluate, blunts the finer part of our aesthetic equipment.

I happen to think that focused tastings (with growers present) provide a unique opportunity to engage on a deeper level with the wines and to challenge one’s prejudices. Understanding why things taste the way they do rather than dismissing them outright as faulty is a step on the right path.

The way we taste wines when pleasure is in mind or food is on the table is entirely a different matter. But that is another story and worth exploring elsewhere at great length.