But I doubt that was intuitive to you the first time you listened to music. Also, frankly, what you’re saying is that one can do nothing but listen and get just as much out of great music as someone who learns a great deal about it. I simply don’t agree with that. I’m NOT saying you cannot enjoy it, even immensely and in ways that are truly moving. However, studying a topic, any topic, always adds depth to one’s experience of it. I can’t think of an exception to this. Of course, time and attention is limited so we choose what to dive in and learn about vs what we simply appreciate by experiencing it. But to argue that studying a topic brings no benefit would be… arrogant.
How about knowledge?
Arrogant, lol. Whatever. I think its arrogant to say one must have studied something intellectually to fully enjoy it. I wouldn’t argue that having a intellectual understanding brings new dimensions of enjoyment but I can’t think of an example where intellectual knowledge has increased aesthetic enjoyment for me. Sometimes the opposite happens where I am too much in my head about something because I know alot about what went into making it and I can’t step back and just purely enjoy it.
Give me one concrete example of how studying something increased aesthetic enjoyment for you? A good example would help me understand this point of view better.
I already did. You quoted it. Or do you think you were born knowing that there were such things as themes and variations on themes in music? Those are intellectual constructs. You routinely talk about acid and structure and the various qualities of Burgundy. You talk about the various vineyards and producers and techniques. What are those but intellectual knowledge?
And don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say “one must have studied something intellectually to fully enjoy it.” I said that studying something will add to your enjoyment. I even gave an example upthread. Go read.
To fully explain myself I guess I should be specific about what I mean by enjoyment. I am talking about aesthetic enjoyment. I would agree that knowledge can bring intellectual appreciation but I find that separate from the pleasure brought about by a positive aesthetic experience. As an example, I have always loved Volany. I thought wines from there were sublime long before I knew anything about the village or its growers. I have since read alot and have some understanding of the terroir differences and producer styles and history. The wine still tastes equally delicious to me but Ive gained an additional level of satisfaction in recognizing terroir signatures, producer styles and having an understanding of history and micro-geography. So if you guys mean an added intellectual gratification, then I concede the point and agree with you, but if you mean that this understanding leads to an increase of how good it tastes to me, I would respectfully disagree. It just doesn’t mesh with my experience.
Its possible to disagree without being disagreeable. I refuse to debate the issue with you if you if you maintain this aggessive tone and make ad hominin statesments like calling me arrogant. If you don’t think you have an aggressive tone then we have nothing further to discuss.
I didn’t call you arrogant though, Berry. I pointed out that the attitude would be arrogant. You self-identified - that’s not my issue. For the record, though, I think it is, in fact, fairly arrogant to claim such an intuitive understanding of music that any study of it is superfluous and cannot bring you any benefits.
And aggressive? Pointing out that theme and variation in sonata form music is an intellectual construct is aggressive? Look, I don’t care if you reply or not, but you first made a post saying you intuitively get the idea of themes and variations and then made the argument that you can’t think of any way intellectual knowledge has added to your enjoyment of music. All I did was point out the inconsistency there - that knowing about such a thing as musical themes is intellectual knowledge.
A tempest in a teapot, if you ask me. Is there one standard method by which all wine consumers “should” learn about wine? Of course not. Even the “wine made simple” folks aren’t claiming that their courses or books are the only ways people should learn about wine.
To be direct, the would-be wine consumer has many, many more avenues of learning about wine than when I first became interested in wine. Indeed, if you live in a major city with a number of retailers, chances are pretty good that you can take a wide range of wine tasting classes–everything from the beginning level of how to evaluate wine, to very specialized classes on fairly small/specific wine regions. And to state the obvious, the amount of material on wine now available in books and on the Internet vastly exceeds what was available to me when I first started out. No one ought to expect that the learning paths for an average wine consumer need to be the same as for someone ITB, much less someone who wants a professional certification.
Some people start out at the basic level and stay there. Others get bored and drop wine as an interest. Others want more information and seek it out. I hardly think it’s my job to dictate to people what their wine journey “should” be. It’s enough of a challenge to figure out my own wine journey.
Bruce
Well, it sounds like we are back again to the recurring discussion of whether you drink wine solely because it tastes good or whether it offers any stimulation beyond “yumminess.” I’m in the latter camp, but for people in the former camp it is probably true that there is no further reward to be gained from learning. It sounds like you are with me since you say you get an additional level of satisfaction as a result of the knowledge you’ve picked up. The fact that the wine tastes the same is irrelevant* - your experience of the wine is not the same.
- and probably not even a fact - I believe science has demonstrated that our taste impressions actually are different depending on the subjective knowledge and beliefs one comes in with.
I clarified that I think it brings an additional level of satisfaction at the intellectiual level so I dont think it brings no benefit, but when it comes to the emotion of pleasure from listening from the music, I dont think it ads anything there. The ability to be moved by music and gain aesthetic pleasure from it seems entirely and explicitly hardwired into the brain.
You are not understanding me. I am saying that someone doesn’t need to have a philosophical understanding if music theory to recognize repeating patterns. The ability to notice melodic signatures is innate (or so seems to me).
Another example would be that every since I was a little kind I noticed some music was bright and happy while other music was serious, ominous or sad. The tonal texture sounded good to me. I now know that those are major and minor keys but knowing the names or even that such a thing as a key exists doesnt make it sound better to me.
agreed.
I’d be curious to read something on that. What I have noticed is that people are experiencually and culturally predisposed to likeing or not liking something and with time one can learn to like something that was previously bad tasting to them, but as far as something tasting physically different, that would be a new concept for me. Either way that seems more of a process of developing taste preferences.
I think one way to look at it is that there are categories of things, or pursuits, the enjoyment of which is greatly enhanced by greater knowledge and experience. These things are amenable to deep–perhaps endless–analysis, discussion, and study. There’s a reason people have been writing about Mozart for centuries and are not going to stop any time soon. There is a lot of depth of material to discuss; the more one listens to Mozart, the more one learns. There is enough material to captivate interest for more than a lifetime. There’s also a reason people don’t (and won’t) write scholarly articles about the work of Britney Spears, except to the extent she’s a cultural phenomenon (or has some collateral importance beyond the quality of her work). Mozart’s music rewards study. You may find it nice at first, but digging deeper yields greater treasures, and digging deeper still yields greater treasures still. This is how cultures develop their canons of work and why aesthetic choices aren’t totally random.
Great wine doesn’t rise to the level of great music or literature in terms of being amenable to scholarly study and analysis–but it’s not Britney Spears either. I think the point of the original blog post is that really learning about wine will lead to a categorically richer experience–and that it’s a mistake to think that greater wine knowledge is only snobbery and navel-gazing without any added value of deeper understanding and enjoyment.
Put very briefly, there is a reason people obsess more over wine than any other beverage, and have for a very long time. It has more depth to it and thus rewards obsession in ways that obsessing over grape juice, or vodka, does not.
This response is a bit glib. I’ve had clients with extraordinary palates and experience with little interest in the details of harvest, cepage, cooperage, etc… These folks had a deep passion for, and knowledge of, bordeaux and or burgundy (this was a while ago). They drank at great depth and breadth and had the benefit of the experience that mattered (putting wine in mouth) and were totally geek free.
Excellent post!
For over fifty years, Carollee and I have been enjoying wine with our meals. We started with Burgundy and still it is our favorite. I try to get as good a match to my meal as I can, selecting from our cellar. We don’t consider wine ‘mysterious’, we just enjoy it. If I no longer have the ‘best’ wine for the the meal, I’ll select second or third best. The only wines we no longer like are youthful CalCabs and Bordeaux. They have herbal notes that take a long time to go away. We drink a varied selection of wines with a wide variety of foods. We are still learning about some wines, that’s why we go to Susan’s for her Friday afternoon tastings.
Fo the past two or three years, Carollee has allowed me to select the music to accompany our dinners. I generally select a CD of Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, Brahms, Dvorak, other Baroque and early Classical composers, and sometimes late 20th Century or 21st Century music
Getting away from the musical analogies and back to wine, from my own experience as a semi-noob and from what I’ve seen in Toronto of the wine school market, there is definitely both a want and a need among the mainstream for the de-mystifying of wine. The truth of the matter is that it is very intimidating to get into wine without any sort of guide to help, whether that be a wine school, online research, a class at the LCBO here in TO, or joining the Beserkers board.
I understand and appreciate this fellow’s romanticism of “remystifying” wine but I feel that this only appears romantic once you have a fair amount of knowledge and experience with wine under your belt. When you have absolutely no knowledge, I can assure you that for many people there’s nothing romantic about it. In fact, the world of wine can be quite intimidating from what I’ve seen of its effects on other people.
I’m not talking about myself necessarily here, I wanted to go on the journey and wasn’t afraid of making the mistakes I’ve made (as seen here on the board itself a number of times) which I knew I was going to make. That was part of my excitement of my diving right in. I’m talking about people who have been on wine tours with me, who are afraid to ask questions out loud for fear of looking stupid – and yet will then ask ME something aside as if I knew the answer simply because they feel I’m more approachable to them. It is for people like this that demystification is an absolute must.
I’m sure you all have friends and family members who partake of your vast superior wine knowledge from time to time. When you demystify it for them, does it suddenly make it less magical for you? Do you suddenly lose your passion for wine because you had to help somebody else understand wine better? Of course not. Without the demystification of wine, you get the average person walking in behind me at Royal DeMaria who put in backbreaking work in Canadian icewine giving the following comment as their tasting note: “Wow. This icewine tastes just like… icewine.” (True story dat, BTW.)
Also, keep in mind that demystification (i.e. education about wine, which is really what we’re talking about here) allows those like myself who want and aspire to become wine experts and aficionados to take that initial step on the journey. Those who don’t want to take the journey – and that’s perfectly alright – will find wines that they like and just keep buying them as was pointed out above and will have no need ever for either demystification or remystification.
The truth of the matter is that BOTH approaches are quite correct, as both Kevin and Chris point out in appropriately enough the very first two posts above. The romanticism of the mystery and the thrill of learning about wine is not necessarily mutually exclusive from a simplified academic approach to wine. They’re both parts of the journey those interested in wine are free to partake of or indulge at their leisure. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
![[drinkers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/82916bed5ad74ac8470bc04089d9758b0c80c9fa.gif "drinkers"){kind=small}
I think what Bruce, Cris, Pat, and a few others have said are true. Not everyone who reads an intro wine book wants to, or should, become a wine geek. I also think there is something to be said about the commercial aspects of “dumbing” down wine. Some people just want people to pick something off the shelf and take it home. I mean, Bud Light is the most popular beer in America ![[bleh.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/cbb27a94fa73081862abf910a8bfa05e2ae2f5c3.gif "[bleh.gif]"){kind=small}
. People see that blue box, take it home, and literally do not have to think while drinking it. Some people are trying to get people familiar and comfortable enough with wine to be able to go the grocery store and find a bottle of wine they think will go with dinner. And there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that. For too many years wine was thought of as an elite beverage, and people were frankly very confused and intimidated by it. It seems like there are a few of you here who would like to keep it that way. We are, after all, an industry, and the more wine buying public there is out there, the better for the industry as a whole. And maybe, just maybe, that person picking up a bottle in the grocery store will realize how good it is, and will be willing to branch out and try something different, something they are not familiar with.
And as for Berry and his naysayers, I would propose that for myself, sometimes I would love to be able to take the intellectually hat OFF from time to time. When I drink wine, much of the time I am analyzing for flaws. It’s what I do. I am deconstructing the wine, conjecturing on how it was made, pointing out the flaws, trying to guess the pH, etc etc. Sometimes I would love to mindlessly sit back and just drink it. But I OVER ANALYZE (like some of you tend to do in these threads ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
) when I wish I couldn’t. To just inject the music analogy one more time (regrettably), I’ll bet a musician going to a concert notices the flaws and misplayed notes, where someone else might not.
Thank you for saying it much more eloquently than I could
Indeed, what you need to know as a winemaker is certainly different than what one needs to know about wine as a retailer in a large retail establishment, which in turn is somewhat different than what one needs to know to be a sommelier in a restaurant. And we’re just talking about the necessary knowledge to do one’s job; what one WANTS to know on top of that may be a completely different thing.
I keep going back to the linked blog post. Some consumers just want the most basic information so that they can walk into a wine store and feel comfortable about their purchase (or feel comfortable with ordering wine in a restaurant). Other people get sucked into the black hole of wine knowledge and want to know everything about every wine they try. There is obviously a demand for wine knowledge and education at various levels of interest–there is no single path, and there is no single destination…
Bruce
Tran, can we refer to you as a “wine snoob,” then?