… and what do you mean when you use the words “gnat shit” in a tasting note? 
I use linear somewhat often, but not as much as I’d like to. Inevitably if I use ‘linear’ I’m referring to a distinct positive. A recent example was Alan’s recent note of the '04 Bouchard CC. Each time I have tasted it, Linear comes to mind. Laser focused, razors edge etc. A defining line along the flavour acid spectrum that isn’t common in any but fine wine. For me, almost always a white.
It may be technically incorrect to some, but like love, you know it when you know it and no one can explain it exactly to your own description.
Linear in Riesling = sharp and focused. In Cab = one dimensional. To me, it can be used differently and depends on wine and writer. Not a great descriptor but in the right place it can be of use.
JD
Wittgenstein would so approve.
For me the positive / negative split is more about price or the aspiration of the wine as opposed to grape variety. In the higher levels I think we expect or deserve more than one dimension. In the lower grades it’s probably a positive synonym for focused, compared to the alternatives (such as blousey).
I use it in the same way I use “concise”, “pragmatic”, “flippant”, “docile” and, when I need an adverbial phrase, “in the stilted manner of a Balinese gamecock.”
I use “feculent”, “conjoined” and “metonymic” to mean somethings else entirely.
Hope this helps.
For me, there’s a spectrum. “Johnny one note”, among other terms (boring) => “Simple” (Pleasant, enjoyable, but nondescript) => “Linear” (has one thing to say and says it well).
+1
perfect …
it has less amplitude vrs a wine multidimensional… Linear ='s simple
multidimensional ='s complex …
I sell a Merlot that is linear … nice $32 a bottle … I also sell a complex multidimensional Merlot blend for $37.00 it complex or better quality …
Shalom !!!
Salute !!!
I only write my tasting notes for myself (although I find I remember most really good wines without notes for a long, long time), but for me, linear is a vaguely perjorative term meaning monotonic. When I see those using it as a laudatory term, I get confused, so I don’t use it in notes intended for the general public.
In other words, it has to opposed meanings, depending on the user. Great.
Indeed, it did. I think you nailed it, Noah.
And thanks for adding to my obfuscatory vocabulary in the process.
exactly how I mean it and use it. You said it well.
And I guess this is why numerical points provide additional context, clarity and meaning to tasting notes!
Noah. Sorry to be pedantic, but those words are neither adverbials, nor phrases.
Adverbials are those words that a word or phrase that modifies the meaning of an adjective, verb, or other adverb, expressing manner, place, time, or degree often, but not always end in -ly, like quickly, angrily, here and now.
A phrase is a number of word that together have one meaning.
I’ll stay away from the feculent wines, though I know that many consider them pleasantly multifaceted; unless they are linear, and then only an aberrant few give approbation.
P Hickner
“In the manner of a Balinese gamecock” is the only member of that set that I claimed as an adverbial phrase. It is an adverbial phrase. The rest are obviously adjectives. If you’re going to be pedantic, at least read the post correctly, or talk about something interesting like the presence or absence of the subjunctive in English.
Nerds.
But, Noah gets extra points for using phallic terms, conjoined. Quite linear.
Not a big CdP fan myself either.
Thank you.
As for the phrase, I have used the term “linear acidity” to describe a wine where the acid is present throughout the palate, sort of unyielding, but in a good way. Typically flavors are described in non-linear ways (the finish often fades out asymptotically, for example).
If I use “linear” in a wine tasting note, it’s typically in the usage that Neal lays out.
If you think about a complex wine, it’s a wine that spreads out on the palate and hits a lot of different notes. A linear wine I consider at the opposite end of
the organoleptic spectrum.
Bruce
There have been a couple of previous threads on this. What I’ve come to realize is that many people have made up their own definition, and there isn’t one that’s generally accepted. For some people it’s positive, for some it’s negative, for some it’s neither. So, there’s clearly no value to anyone else who reads a note with that word in it. I’ve stopped using it entirely in favor of describing what I would have meant (my own made up definition) with other words.