I understand what you are saying Chris. But Im not being a geek about it. I cant imagine the average Starbucks drinker wanting their coffee with PG flavors. It doesnt make sense for geeks or non geeks. The average coffee drinker is looking for roasted beans cream and sugar. Some add caramel or chocolate. Citrus just doest make sense. It might be an attempt at a target market but I have a hard time imagining even the most novice of drinkers getting Pavlovian salivation at the thought.
Thing is, most “novice drinkers” won’t even notice such flavors in their coffee, even if they’re there. Fruity flavors and aromas in coffee tend to be noticed only by those who are actually paying attention to what they’re smelling and drinking (i.e.: if you’re drinking such a coffee, and not really paying much attention to it, it will merely taste like “coffee”). I will say, though, that every once in a while I come across a coffee that has strong fruity tones. Such tones tend to be found in medium roast brews, and rarely in the ever-popular dark roast brews. I’ve noticed some fruity notes in coffees brewed from beans sourced from Kona, Papa New Guinea, and also some from Ethiopia. I enjoy those coffees.
To me putting Pinot Grigio in the coffee description sounds like too-precious marketing and has little or no meaning.
As to the argument that using “coffee” as a wine descriptor sells coffee short, I think Bryan hit it on the nose: I get the point but there is no point really when it comes to describing wine. When someone starts using uber-specific wine flavor descriptions my eyes just glaze over. One person’s Meyer lemon is another’s Key lime for all I can tell. If you tell me which hillside on what island your coffee aromas in the wine come from, all I’m gonna take from it is “toasted barrels, makes it smell something like the morning Joe in the office pot.” I think those super-specific descriptors are fine for an individual’s personal/internal reference, but they just don’t translate specifically from one taster to another.
Come on. This is silly. We know they add coffee grounds to the must! The real question is, what is the Ph of the coffee? ![[stirthepothal.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f40faec63ca1018898a40805efbf9f0066a3d205.gif "[stirthepothal.gif]"){kind=small}
The coffee business has discovered that it can sell it’s product using a version of “wine speak”, in fact from some of the descriptions I read you would think you were drinking wine rather than a cup of Joe. It’s just smart marketing, which I respect.
There is a generic expected coffee taste, but a lot of great coffees don’t have it. I guess the equivalent would be if the general public heard that something tastes like grapes they would rightly assume that meant concord grapes, but to a wine geek hearing something tastes like grapes probably doesn’t sit quite right.
An Amsterdam coffee shop, maybe…
+1. I’ve found burnt (Starbucks dark roast) coffee aromas in wines that don’t see any oak. Probably some reduced sulfur compound just from fermentation.
I can kind of see the OPs point here. Coffee is being reduced to single descriptor when it really isn’t. But greater specificity isn’t really something we need in tasting notes, IMO. Flavor groups (red fruit, earth, herbal, floral) communicate as well as specific flavors–two critics who choose highly specific descriptors rarely overlap or agree. Being more specific about coffee flavors probably would lead only to confusion.
My impression is that coffee used as a descriptor generally relates to the burnt roast style of coffee (Starbucks). To me, this is pretty much a flaw because it dominates the other flavors, though others clearly like it. Otherwise why does Starbucks sell so much burnt coffee? Get the burnt coffee flavor together with creamy, vanilla-y oak and you probably do get a wine that nicely approximate a Starbucks drink.
Coffee might also refer to mild bitterness, along the line of dark chocolate. Bitter would be more obvious to understand as a dewcriptor, but the connotation is negative so I understand why it’s avoided.
David, you just stated my own view on this perfectly. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I agree with many other comments here. Coffee aroma in wine? Yes- Oak char can give (generic) coffee aromas. Wine flavors in Coffee? Yes, but not identifiable as a whole varietal (variety?). Coffee and wine can be built from similar building blocks of flavor resulting in a more complex whole, - citrus, grass, nutty, chocolate, etc.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with this. It’s no more marketing with coffee than such descriptions are “just marketing” with wine.
Personally, I prefer my coffee with hints of cinsault, picpoul or vermentino.
I think that the main reason that coffee is used in the generic is because it is a very generic expression of coffee that is being sensed in the wine most often. Specifically it is highly roasted coffee. I love coffee, and I especially love light to mid roast beans, and I think that nuance is lost after a certain point. When I note coffee it comes from high char that reminds me of coffee roasted too dark.
If it’s on the side of a bag of coffee for sale it is. I’m with Dave on this. His point is the same as mine was above.
Of course they do. But when you are trying to write a description that stands out from the crowd you might aim it at those you think will be your target market. It is just sales and marketing. The average coffee drinker is not worrying about whether it has citrus components or char. They are just looking for a reason to buy.
So, you would agree that wine a similar tasting note is on the side of a wine bottle it’s “just marketing”, right?
Such a description on a bag of coffee beans is, clearly, not aimed at “the average coffee drinker.” Now, the product may be average – or not – but said description is clearly aimed at those who seek a certain flavor profile from their coffee. I don’t know about you, but when I go to a coffee house to buy a cup of joe (or a bag of beans), I actually ask the barrista what the different coffees/beans taste like. I don’t do this because I’ve been fooled by marketing, I do this because there are certain flavor profiles that I prefer over others w/r/t coffee.
Now, whether the product actually delivers on that promise (tasting note on the bag) is another matter, of course. Similarly, how many times have we had a bottle of wine that had a “tasting note” of the wine on its label, only to have our impressions of that wine greatly differ from said “tasting note”? — I think I can safely say, “Many.” Same thing with coffee.
That said, sometimes tasting notes for wines do reflect my impressions of those wines; same goes with coffee. I’m somewhat amazed this idea is running into an opposition on a wine board, of all places.
Again, you are talking about tasting notes and I am talking about marketing. Yes, a note on the side of a bag of coffee beans is meant to sell it just as they are on a bottle of wine. The geek in coffee or wine doesn’t read those descriptors in order to figure out if they will buy that coffee/wine.
Or maybe you do Brian? 
Why would one put a tasting note on the label of something for any other reason than to sell that product? That is not random testimony of someone BeanTracker.com. Pick any product where there are descriptors on the side. Do you take those at face value? Should we for coffee?
Good questions, and I understand where you’re coming from, and I actually agree with you to the extent that such descriptions are not accurate. However, to the extent they are accurate, I feel said descriptions are helping consumers make an informed choice. Are they on the package to help sell the product? Well, duh – of course they are, to the extent they’re not mandated by law - and, to my knowledge, no such description is required by law. Just today, I was in the supermarket browsing the beer section for some new beers to try; I used the descriptions on the bottles to steer me to and away from some beers that I may like/not like. So, yeah, sometimes I use those descriptions – I find them especially useful relative to one-another from the same producer/line – for example, I had two beers my the same producer in my hands at the store: I steered away from the one that indicated a higher level of sweetness and went for the one that had less sweetness and more hoppiness (they actually had a graph on the back re: these two things, as well as three other things (malt was one of the others)); that graph is akin to a tasting note. Is it accurate and/or should I take it at face value? Well, I do assume they’re not outright lying to me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll actually have the same impression. That said, I’d like to think those descriptions helped me pick the right beer (and, fwiw, I initially thought I’d buy the one I eventually put back on the shelf).
Look, I get your point, and agree with it to a certain exten (see abovve). Do you not get my point? Do you think descriptions on packages are never accurate and/or never helpful?