What does "pure" mean?

[Anton_D]

Pure?

A wine that’s never had wood put to it?

[Jeremy_Holmes]

I think of it as a wine where you notice no artifice. There’s a crystalline quality to the fruit, usually back-lit by the wine’s perfect supporting acidity.

I think many would agree that the wines of DRC have great purity Anton. 100% new wood here.

[Eric_Lundblad]

I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think were going to come to a common agreement about a word that’s used in tasting notes, or any set of words in tasting notes. Heck, we can’t even agree “what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” . For me, if I read a note written by Jeremy, Anton, Jeff, Marcus, John, Chris or William (folks on this thread whose tasting notes I’ve read recently enough to recall)…I know what they’re trying to say because I’ve seen enough of what they’ve written to understand, or think I understand. In theory, same with Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce…and those are some tasting notes I’d love to read!

[Rudi_Finkler]

When I use the term ‘pure’, I simply mean that the fruit or other components of a wine show a clear, clean, unadulterated, direct expression -the more purity, the better the wine. So for me, a ‘wine of great purity’ is a wine where most visual, olfactory, and gustatory components show this characteristic - with other words, a wine without noteworthy disharmony.

BTW, in the German wine language we have the nice adjective “reintönig”. I don’t know any corresponding term in the English language, but the German noun “Reinton” means “pure tone”.
Tonight we will have a 1978 Vieux Château Certan. I hope that the wine will be “reintönig” and a pure joy for us and reading my note a pure joy for you tomorrow.

[Rudi_Finkler]

…
My hunch, which may be dead wrong, is that most of the people who refer to them in tasting notes haven’t eaten or smelled many of them. That would make them borderline useless as precise aromatic or flavor descriptors. But I think that people refer to them to give an overall impression, rather than anything specific. Again, I may be dead wrong.

Hopefully…

[Markus_S]

Violets…That would make them borderline useless as precise aromatic or flavor descriptors. But I think that people refer to them to give an overall impression, rather than anything specific. Again, I may be dead wrong.

There were two candies that had violet-flavored candies that were quite delicious and gave me an idea of what violet smelled like. The same with lavender: who really scrounges around on all fours eating those, but we all know what it smells like when we encounter it.

[William_Kelley]

Especially about the violets. After having read about violets in one too many tasting notes, one summer I got down and smelled every violet in my backyard just to see if I was missing something. We had mostly purple ones but also some white and lavender versions. They’re only about eight inches tall, so it’s not like the aromas are wafting around your nostrils unless you’re right down on the ground with them. They’re quite faint. You need to catch them in the morning before the sun burns off the oils. With roses, there are as many different scents from one variety to the next as there are different flavors in different wine grapes. Not much similarity between Riesling and Merlot. But I couldn’t distinguish as many different scents in the violets.

Agreed, but when writing for a broad audience, a certain amount of simplification is necessary, which precludes going into too many nuances between different kinds of roses (my mother is a keen gardener so I am aware of the aromatic bandwidth). The idea is to write a note that will communicate a meaningful and useful description of the wine in a comprehensible way to the largest possible audience. At least, that is my ambition when writing tasting notes. The notes I might write for personal consumption or for circulation among friends might indulge in less accessible descriptors, but to publish a professional tasting note that specified rose cultivars would be a meaningless exercise for almost all of its readers—as well as, I suspect, immediately satirized as irredeemably pretentious (I remember someone unkindly criticizing David Shildknecht’s notes for resembling a “botany lesson”).

[William_Kelley]

Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce…and those are some tasting notes I’d love to read!

It would be quite amusing to do some pastiche tasting notes in the style of famous authors. Hemmingway on Cornas? “It was a rich wine and a manly wine, and those that drank it were full of courage and there was a gleam of light in their eyes. It finished long, and at the end there were tannins that puckered the tongue.”

[John_Morris]

BTW, in the German wine language we have the nice adjective “reintönig”. I don’t know any corresponding term in the English language, but the German oun “Reinton” means “pure tone”.

Is “Reinton” a musical term? I can see the analogy between a pure musical note and a pure wine.

(An anecdote Greg will like: As a teenager, a friend and I fed the audio output of a Judy Collins song through an oscilloscope and found that one of her sustained notes produced a perfect circle on the screen, meaning that she was singing a pure sine wave.)

[John_Morris]

Especially about the violets. After having read about violets in one too many tasting notes, one summer I got down and smelled every violet in my backyard just to see if I was missing something. We had mostly purple ones but also some white and lavender versions. They’re only about eight inches tall, so it’s not like the aromas are wafting around your nostrils unless you’re right down on the ground with them. They’re quite faint. You need to catch them in the morning before the sun burns off the oils. With roses, there are as many different scents from one variety to the next as there are different flavors in different wine grapes. Not much similarity between Riesling and Merlot. But I couldn’t distinguish as many different scents in the violets.

So I tried a few. You can eat both the flowers and the leaves. If you eat them, the flowers are slightly perfumed. Unless you eat a lot of different flowers, the best comparison most people would be familiar with is probably something very faintly like rose water, and they can have a very very slight acidic touch. But not really something you’d want in your wine, unless you like your wine to remind you of shampoo.

Well, no one will ever have to tell you to take time to smell the roses, will they, Greg?

I’m disappointed, however, that you haven’t posted notes of yourself on all fours sniffing those short white and lavender violets.

[larry_schaffer]

I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think were going to come to a common agreement about a word that’s used in tasting notes, or any set of words in tasting notes. Heck, we can’t even agree “what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” . For me, if I read a note written by Jeremy, Anton, Jeff, Marcus, John, Chris or William (folks on this thread whose tasting notes I’ve read recently enough to recall)…I know what they’re trying to say because I’ve seen enough of what they’ve written to understand, or think I understand. In theory, same with Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce…and those are some tasting notes I’d love to read!

I agree, Eric. Too many ‘subjective’ words out there that folks use to imply ‘objectivity’. Context and the person writing the notes are important ‘indicators’ of what may be ‘meant’, but we are always going to be ‘guessing’ that we understatement what is meant. A big challenge when it comes to wine and describing it to others for sure.

Cheers.

[Ian_S]

I understand “pure” as fruit unmasked by oak, mlf, etc

Are you saying that some wines come with milfs? What brands? A dishy Blonde? I’d like to “put wood to” (thanks, Anton) a milf that came with my wine! What a smashing idea! This is a better combination than medicated bandaids.

[Rudi_Finkler]

BTW, in the German wine language we have the nice adjective “reintönig”. I don’t know any corresponding term in the English language, but the German oun “Reinton” means “pure tone”.

Is “Reinton” a musical term? I can see the analogy between a pure musical note and a pure wine.

(An anecdote Greg will like: As a teenager, a friend and I fed the audio output of a Judy Collins song through an oscilloscope and found that one of her sustained notes produced a perfect circle on the screen, meaning that she was singing a pure sine wave.)

Yes, “Reinton” is a musical term and indeed a sound with a sinus-waveform.

[John_Chapman]

Pure had a very different meaning if you were a Victorian era leather tanner.

[GregT]

Especially about the violets. After having read about violets in one too many tasting notes, one summer I got down and smelled every violet in my backyard just to see if I was missing something. We had mostly purple ones but also some white and lavender versions. They’re only about eight inches tall, so it’s not like the aromas are wafting around your nostrils unless you’re right down on the ground with them. They’re quite faint. You need to catch them in the morning before the sun burns off the oils. With roses, there are as many different scents from one variety to the next as there are different flavors in different wine grapes. Not much similarity between Riesling and Merlot. But I couldn’t distinguish as many different scents in the violets.

Agreed, but when writing for a broad audience, a certain amount of simplification is necessary, which precludes going into too many nuances between different kinds of roses (my mother is a keen gardener so I am aware of the aromatic bandwidth). The idea is to write a note that will communicate a meaningful and useful description of the wine in a comprehensible way to the largest possible audience. At least, that is my ambition when writing tasting notes. The notes I might write for personal consumption or for circulation among friends might indulge in less accessible descriptors, but to publish a professional tasting note that specified rose cultivars would be a meaningless exercise for almost all of its readers—as well as, I suspect, immediately satirized as irredeemably pretentious (I remember someone unkindly criticizing David Shildknecht’s notes for resembling a “botany lesson”).

True enough. And other than the critic bingo thread, most people in the world don’t obsess over TNs.

I had a friend who started writing a book about rose scents. I don’t think he ever finished because it just ends up being an ever-evolving compendium, but a few years ago we had just listened to a presentation by one of the world’s foremost rose breeders and a few of us went to a restaurant afterwards. Two of the people had published books on roses and everyone knew a little bit about them. Someone suggested ordering wine and as I had the wine list in my hand, they looked to me. I settled on a Chianti and asked the waitress what vintage it was. She didn’t know and went to check. Everyone thought it was cute that I cared about the vintage. After all, it was just “wine”. I told them that wine people do the same thing and think that “rose” is an aroma. Everyone was aghast and then started laughing at such an absurdity.

John - I love your music appreciation exercise! A perfect circle. I have to tell my wife.

[Hank_Victor]

I understand “pure” as fruit unmasked by oak, mlf, etc

Are you saying that some wines come with milfs? What brands? A dishy Blonde? I’d like to “put wood to” (thanks, Anton) a milf that came with my wine! What a smashing idea! This is a better combination than medicated bandaids.

You never had Rombauer Chardonnay?

[Kelly_Walker]

Greg,
As to the taste of violets. As we know, most taste sensation is olfactory. So familiar smells can also be sensed by taste through retronasal olfaction. So the taste of violets is not a sense from eating violets but from their smell. There are many smell tastes that I have experienced.

[Chris_Seiber]

I totally know what you mean. I remember tasting a Verset Cornas blindly maybe 15 years ago and feeling that it was utterly transparent and pure – just blueberries coming through the glass.

If it were utterly transparent and pure, wouldn’t it taste like grapes instead of blueberries?

[Chris_Seiber]

My hunch, which may be dead wrong, is that most of the people who refer to them in tasting notes haven’t eaten or smelled many of them. That would make them borderline useless as precise aromatic or flavor descriptors. But I think that people refer to them to give an overall impression, rather than anything specific. Again, I may be dead wrong.

Great post.

I remember reading a tasting note (not a professional one) that referred to an aroma of a purple Sharpie. I expect Sharpies smell the same regardless of the color, and yet the image was a good one, and I think it was a successful example of communicating through a tasting note.

Violets are not something with much flavor or aroma, and very few have actually eaten or smelled one. Nonetheless, I think the idea of them can be helpful in conveying an impression.

[John_Morris]

True enough. And other than the critic bingo thread, most people in the world don’t obsess over TNs.

Moi? Could you be alluding to moi?

John - I love your music appreciation exercise! A perfect circle. I have to tell my wife.

Tell Monica this is something she can aspire to.