While reading Bravo (a VERY highbrow Brazilian culture magazine that weighs in on conceptual art, modern dance and avant garde classical music but also finds the music of Prince and Morphine worthy of mention), we found a wonderful article by the linguistics columnist praising the English language (and encouraging Lusophones to follow suit) for its ability to assimilate words from other languages that express precise concepts with no English equivalent.
Examples he thought would be useful for brazilians included “Drachenfutter” (German for a guilt gift that an adulterous husband buys his wife, sprechen sie Deutsch, Kobe?), “Mokita” (from New Guinea, signifying a truth that everyone knows but no one has the courage to say) and, most especially in a land replete with exuberantly youthful beauties, “Shibui” (the Japanese word for that deep beauty that can only come from age and experience: the patina on a fine wooden table, Rene Russo being ten times sexier than Brittany Spears or…an aged bottle of wine).
Literally translated as the puckery and astringent qualities of the green persimmon, Shibui in the extrapolated sense carries the idea of something that is not sweet in nature but is instead reserved, elegant, multidimensional and somberly austere in its effect, leaving the consumer in a state of contemplation and gratitude.
Sounds like a perfect word for a great bottle aged wine that is not ABOUT fruit but has TRANSCENDED to another plane…
Shabui or Shibui? You’ve spelled it both ways. Any hints on pronunciation? I don’t want to misspeak the next time I bandy about a new wine word . . .
alan
Shibui, thanks, edited:
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Interesting post. I love learning words for those universally recognized concepts that haven’t necessarily earned a single English word. Schadenfreude popped up in another thread, and it’s a classic example.
Shibui is an excellent new addition to my personal list of borrowed terms. Thanks, Roberto.
You are very welcome. Here is another bit I gleaned from Brasilian media
Musings & Meditations on Perfection, Brasilian Style…
While in Rio de Janeiro last January we came across the following essay in O Globo by Arnaldo Jabor on the search for perfection (in this case the “perfect” wine, a 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc):
“…I examined the wine from all angles and here I struck the truth, cruel and not open to appeal: The wine does not exist. There only exists the IDEA of the wine, an abstract and platonic conception of it. In the case of this wine, the actual wine destroys the imagined wine, the wine we have always dreamed of as it rests in its hollowed place in the cellar promising the multidimensional riches of a metaphor. There it is ALL wine s, a promise of enriched life in our hearts. But, presented with the actual wine, life lost its mystery, the wine ceased to be utopian and retained only what is possible. We saw it turn, with clarity and realism, into a mere mortal, without transcendence, just another (very!) delicious wine. In the end, it was proven that it was just another wine, one which we perceive as romantic, gentile, generous and warming but not one sent directly from God. Alas the search continues…”
Now the twist: The essay above was actually written about the unveiling of the derriere of one of the reigning Novella Queens of Brasil, Juliana Paes (who is the cultural equivalent of Halle Barry and J-Lo rolled into one!), in Playboy magazine. Just replace all the references to “wine” with the word “derriere” and to “the cellar” with “Novella” (prime time soap opera) and you get the original. But you DO get the point, yes? But, fear not, faithful WINE EXPO-isti, our search on your behalf never ends (actually, the hunt is the really fun part!). Cheers!
Here is Juliana:
Having seen Juliana’s photo, I envy Sr Jabor’s search.