Tasting notes and anthropomorphism

WINE TALK
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@scottkieser and I were just posting in a thread about a couple of wines, with me describing one as lacking finesse and him describing another as lacking charm. I knew exactly what he meant, but it got me thinking about using these kinds of descriptors for wine.

I could describe a wine by its scents, tastes, and textures. One can go deeper with specific fruit notes, tannin level and texture, acidity or cut, weight, concentration, finish length, oak influence, minerals, and all the other technical details. In theory you could stick entirely to those factual pieces.

But to me, it can’t tell the whole story. I’ve had plenty of wines with similar fruit, similar tannins, similar mouthfeel, minerals, and similar acidity that still felt completely different in personality. The analytical descriptors don’t always capture how the wine actually came across to me.

On the board and on CT, I often use and see others use anthropomorphic terms. They’re hard to explain scientifically, yet they feel accurate. It reminds me of Justice Potter Stewart’s line “I know it when I see it”, when the Supreme Court was struggling to define pornography. I recognize what people mean when they describe wines as charming, brooding, feminine, shy, generous, playful, serious, rustic, graceful, confident, or sulky.

Do we go overboard with this stuff? I’ve seen plenty of non-wine-geeks roll their eyes at the way we describe things. Yet I almost always know what the writer is getting at, and it often conveys something the technical notes can’t. That’s my opinion anyway.

If this post were a wine it would be friendly, over-extracted, but just structured enough to pretend it knows what’s going on.

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It all comes down to whether the reader gets the drift. I notes are only for yourself, that’s a given. If they’re for public consumption, obviously that can vary.

I know what you mean when you write that a wine has or lacks finesse or charm. I think a fairly large percentage of wine lovers would also understand, and it does add a dimension to the note. So those are useful terms.

OTOH, writing that a wine is a double Moe or a triple Larry might add meaningful context about finesse or charm to me and a few others familiar with the Three Stooges wine scoring system, but it’s unlikely to be widely understood.

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Yes.

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One of the first rules that I learned in law school and my trial techniques classes was that you just have to be you. However you present your case, whatever your style is, it really has to come from within. I think tasting notes are the same way. I know some people have a template, a formula, whatever, but I really dig the personalized notes that have flair and style. My quirky friend Marc Frontario is the perfect example, I like reading any note he writes because, in addition to having just a fabulous palate, his tasting notes have a personality that is so distinct that I get a really clear sense and feel for the wine and the person. Of course that requires you to kind of know the person that is writing the note, but that’s what’s wonderful about this community, we are all friends.

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This may be apocryphal to Martin Luther (or maybe it was Capt Jack Sparrow) but I feel this often.
“To speak of a wine as ‘brooding’ or ‘generous’ is not frivolous; it is our attempt to name the deeper thing happening at the table, where souls meet and God’s everyday gifts do their quiet work.”

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There are some pretty gifted writers posting notes here and on CT, and I enjoy reading them. Many use a variety of metaphors, anthropomorphous or otherwise and I derive a lot of meaning and value from many of those descriptions. Sure some go over the top but just I roll my eyes and keep on scrolling. Dry notes that list ‘objective’ descriptors are kind of dull but I value those too. Chablis that is rich, fat, oaky and sweet? Pass. Pinot that is all cola, Dr. Pepper, and sweet cherries? Pass.

I do get a little annoyed when notes are overly sexist or otherwise offend my sensibilities. FFS pls stop describing wine as some teenage fantasy of a hot teacher, or nurse, or obscure movie starlet. But that’s just me, I still just shake my head and move on.

“Who is a note for?” Is a question I ask myself a lot. First and foremost, my CT notes are for me. My life addled memory being what it is, I couldn’t possibly recall much or anything about most wines I’ve tasted. But I do think about how to communicate with my friends and peers to give them something of value. Probably mostly my notes are pretty dull though. Makes me value the wild flights that some note writers take.

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Warren, I am totally OK with these kinds of wine descriptors. They capture and communicate an impression of a wine in a way that I can easily relate to. The more formal, wine-centric terminology in a tasting note can sometimes be a “thud” or even a “whoosh” for me.
As far as tasting notes being “too much”, don’t think about that. That is something for the reader to decide. And the note is more for and about you anyway. That it connects with and is useful for other people is “gravy”.

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My thoughts exactly.

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Perfect example of the type of cringeworthy TN that I could really do without.

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Thanks Otto. Your notes are exemplars of great non-metaphorical detail. I love your notes, and wish I could capture this much detail. I also appreciate how you tell it like it is.

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You may enjoy this on the use of metaphor in science and philosophy.
I paste a quote and then a link to the greater piece.

“About 100 years ago, physicists had to come to terms with the fact that the machine metaphor or model was inadequate to describe what they were finding out about the world of inanimate matter. Biology, the science of life, however, was left behind — until recently. There is now a revolution going on in biology whereby it is becoming at last undeniable that living beings are nothing like machines. Nor are we ‘survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes’. Almost everything is wrong with this unfortunate sally. Organisms are blatantly not ‘machines’ at all; nor are they just, or even, ‘survival’ machines; there is no sense in which even a single cell can be said to be a robot; nor is it ‘programmed’, never mind ‘blindly’ so; nor are genes ‘selfish’; and organisms routinely dispose of and rearrange substantial parts of their genome, some to an extraordinary extent.”

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I’m very much in the camp of being very wary of using obscure, fanciful prose. Wine is an intimidating subject for a newcomer, and so I very much value clear and direct over the more esoteric descriptions that can make a newcomer feel an outsider, unaware of this **arcane language.

Further to that I’m a big fan of writing about what’s actually tasted, and the structure of the wine, and avoiding jumping to (often sensible) conclusions without that context. e.g. not saying ‘oaked clumsily’ without additionally adding what the aromas / flavours (and structure) were that prompted that statement.

** note that I fully agree with use of ‘tannins’, ‘volatile acidity’ etc. technical terms that are easy to look up to find out about. They absolutely are useful to reference. ‘Swooping paving slabs’ are not.

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While I thoroughly enjoy reading others’ tasting notes, especially of wines I have in my cellar or am interested in purchasing, I cannot honestly write anything at all resembling those notes. So, I don’t try. But I do try to convey how I felt about the wine. And I’ll sometimes make note of something I really like or find distinctive when it comes to a wine’s complexity, e.g., a black olive note, or hint of watermelon or black tea, etc. However, I suspect my notes mean very little to those who wax poetic about those same wines.

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image

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Plus 1.

And honestly, when a note gets into a place where the descriptors move away from the objective, I’m more likely to look at the wine as something I should check out. It speaks to the wine moving the writer in a way that the objective flavor descriptors can not which is why I enjoy wine so much. If I wanted cherries or cola I would just buy cherries or a cola.

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Like any art or other man-made product, wine is imprinted to its core by the energy and intentions of the creator. So it would stand to reason that when you talk about descriptors, some would closely resemble the description one might give to the artist.

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For me, metaphor and anthropomorphic language can turn a TN that feels like a scientific paper into something more like an illustrated novel. One is accurate but dull. The other adds some emotion to the analysis and makes it a more enjoyable read. That said, it’s easy to go overboard, whether with sensory details or emotional flourishes.
And then there are the photos… (I’m a fan!)

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Couldn’t agree with this more, and imo it tells you a lot more about the writer than it does about the wine.

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This brought to mind the Brooklyn wine shop Big Nose Full Body. Of course it’s not sexist but a cute play on frequently used anthropomorphic wine vocabulary.

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Much appreciated!

Although I find some descriptors that people think of as anthropomorphic quite useful and use them quite often myself (eg. lively, fat, tired, brooding, elegant, assertive, dull). I think there is a fine balance between using these kinds of descriptors judiciously, too much or too little. Too much of them and the notes get so frivolous that it’s hard to get a clear picture of the wine. Too little or not at all and the notes get too technical. Just the right amount of them adds nice color to the notes and can help keep them interesting and, well, human.

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