-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [silk] Fwd: Wine tasting is bullshit. Here's why. Date: Wed, 08 May 2013 23:46:22 -0400 From: Bruce A Metcalf <[email protected]> To: Udhay Shankar N <[email protected]> Udhay wrote: > We've had (parts of) this discussion here before, but this is worth a > read. > This begs an important question regarding wine tasting: is it bullshit, or > is it complete and utter bullshit? There are two questions here, and I think it's important to separate them: Wine Tasting and Wine Reviews. Let's discard the easy case first: Wine Reviews and ratings are indeed utter bullshit, as anyone knows who has compared wines to their reviews and ratings. Some of the reasons are technical, as described, some are esthetic, and nobody has figured out how to define those, much less agree upon the definitions. I studied wine under a Master Sommelier for a number of years, attended half a dozen "wine schools", and have been drinking (occasionally heavily) since. Permit me to summarize the Master's teachings: 1. Learn how to taste wine. This isn't anything fancy, just a good way to eliminate as many variables as possible, with the understanding that you can't ever fully succeed. 2. Learn the vocabulary of wine tasting. Not so you can understand the overpaid reviewers, but so you have words (that mean something to *you*) to permit you to think about the flavors. Notes don't help much, as your palate will evolve over time and they won't mean anything in a couple of years, plus the wines change anyway. 3. Drink lots of wine. See what's out there. See if you can tell the difference between a Cabernet from Napa Valley, France, and Chile, and see which you prefer. Go back and drink them again under different circumstances, and remember that not only do wines vary by vintage, then can often very by the bottle. 4. Ignore all reviews and drink what you love. Which is pretty much what I was doing before all this training. However, I do now love different wines than before. I'm now paying more on average per bottle, but the top and bottom ends of my range haven't moved that much. Am I enjoying them more? Any answer to that would be bullshit too. > The upshot: screw the experts. Drink what tastes good/whatever you can > afford. It seems others have also learned this lesson. Cheers, Bruce
