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Delirious Description
By Natalie MacLean
March 2003
Describing wine often has a faint whiff of condescension over a robust layer of barnyard by-product. The adjectives seem to be the fruit of over-ripe imaginations: when I hear "muscular," "tight" or "rakish," it's hard to tell whether the critic is talking about wine or Brad Pitt. "Perfectly integrated" is how I'd describe my son's multi-racial nursery school; and "legendary concentration" is what I need to figure out my income tax return. However, "opulent" is indeed a legitimate wine descriptor—it usually refers to the price.
"It just smells like wine to me," a friend said recently when pressed to describe the wine we were sharing. She isn't alone: beyond a few basic adjectives, most people have difficulty describing how a wine smells and tastes. Indeed, the first time I listened to two wine-loving friends discuss a merlot, I thought they were speaking an ancient tribal language. They reminded me of James Thurber's 1937 cartoon showing one drinker commenting to others: "It's a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption."
Wine writing continues to evolve into ever-more esoteric language that seems far removed from the actual experience of smelling and tasting wine. (I've never smelled lantana, the evergreen shrub one writer insisted he found in an Australian shiraz.) What could be prompting this proliferation of purple prose? The thousands of new wines coming onto the market that all require descriptive differentiation? Are wine critics looking to secure their niches through obscure comparisons that no one can question? Is this a way of getting more cash for vin ordinaire? Or could it be a renaissance of wine appreciation, demanding new ways of talking about one of civilization's oldest drinks?
Dr. Adrienne Lehrer, professor emerita of linguistics at the University of Arizona, has been studying this topic for twenty years. According to her recent report, Trends in Wine and Trendy Words, wine description is getting more precise and intense. A wine today isn't simply balanced, it's "integrated" or "focused." In contrast, an unbalanced wine is "muddled'" or "diffuse." A full-bodied wine is now "chunky" and "big-boned"; a light-bodied wine "svelte" and "sleek."
"I'm interested in this from a linguistic point of view, because wine writers are pushing the language and making up metaphors," Lehrer says. "When critics try to describe thirty Californian chardonnays, they often find that the wines are similar—but it would be boring to read the same thing all the time. So they jazz up the descriptions to keep readers engaged."
While compiling her glossary of frequently used wine adjectives, Lehrer discovered that the high-growth tasting terms include "barnyard funk," "transcendental," "intellectual" and "diplomatic." "Funky was used a lot," she says. "I don't know whether it has any specific meaning that's different from the way that it's used elsewhere."
Lehrer thinks the new generation of wine drinkers is trying to make wine talk less intimidating and more relevant by including pop culture references. Wine X magazine (or rather 'zine) aims to "provide a new voice for a new generation of wine consumers." Describing one California cabernet, it asks us to "imagine Naomi Campbell in latex." An Australian shiraz is a "Chippendales dancer in leather chaps—tight, full-bodied and ready for action." A New Zealand cabernet merlot is like "a Victoria's Secret fire sale: smoky charred wood, leather, spicy and very seductive."
But is Wine X simply the same old juice in a newly accessorized bottle? Does trashing grammar and mixing metaphors make wine criticism irreverent, or irrelevant? Walter Sendzik, publisher of the wine magazine Vines, which also reaches out to young drinkers, admits that traditional wine description can be too esoteric. But you can go too far in the other direction, he says: "I've never smelled or tasted Naomi Campbell in latex."
Even the renowned U.S. critic Robert Parker has contributed phrases such as "amazingly infantile," and "packed with plenty of jammy, laser-guided fruit." The topper, though, has to be American satirist Ralph Steadman's description of an Algerian wine: "Very soft and very round, like sheep's eyes with square pupils. The hint of promise got steeper and sparser yet, and it began to taste like dull pewter covered in dust and cobwebs stuck to the roof of my mouth."
All this seems to be a reaction against the same high-flown wine language that Thurber corked with his cartoon. Even in Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited, two young men mock social pretense when they describe the wine they're tasting:
"It is a little, shy wine, like a gazelle."
"Like a leprechaun."
"Dappled, in a tapestry meadow."
"Like a flute by still water."
"And this is a wise old wine."
"A prophet in a cave."
"And this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck."
"Like a swan."
"Like a unicorn."
In fact, serious attempts have been made to standardize wine tasting vocabulary. The accepted template is now the Aroma Wheel, developed in the early 1980s by Ann Noble, professor of oenology and viticulture at the University of California, Davis. The inner circle of its concentric rings notes the most basic wine adjectives, such as "fruity" and "floral," while the sub-divided middle and outer rings provide more descriptive terms such as "grapefruit," "strawberry jam" and "asparagus."
But wait: isn't wine made from grapes rather than asparagus or grapefruit? Well, there is some sense behind this descriptive noble rot. The molecular structures of wine are in fact similar to those found in fruit, flowers, vegetables—and can even smell like spoilage factors such as "wet dog" and "cardboard box." For example, scientists have identified the chemical compound methoxypyrazine in aged sauvignon blanc which has a canned asparagus aroma. That compound is also found in high concentration in—you guessed it—canned asparagus.
Our culture is visually oriented, and so much of our language refers to sight cues. Of all our senses, smell is the most underdeveloped—perhaps because we no longer have to hunt for our meals or worry about poisonous plants. Even taste fares better: most waiters can come up with mouth-watering descriptions of a restaurant's dishes. But unless they've taken a wine appreciation course, many are hard-pressed to offer equally rich descriptions of the wines on the list.
Yet for all that, we have only four genes for vision—but one thousand genes for smell. We can only detect five basic tastes, but more than two thousand aromas. Input from the other senses must go to the hypothalamus and then on to the cortex for further analysis; but smells go directly to the areas of the brain responsible for emotions and memories.
Perhaps that's why our memories can lead to some bizarre connections. During a wine appreciation class, one student commented that the wine reminded her of Dallas airport. That made some obscure sense: we were tasting rieslings, which when aged do tend to have a petrol smell akin to airplane fuel. Another student said the chardonnay reminded her of her son's gerbil cage—the oak-aged wine evoking the pine wood shavings. Yet another thought the gewürztraminer was like her grandmother's Christmas ham. That puzzled us at first; but the connection became clear when it turned out that her grandmother prepared the ham with lots of spices.
The good news is that most of us can recognize a far wider range of aromas and flavours than we think ourselves capable of. It just takes a little discipline, some concentration, and lots of practice. It also means paying attention to everyday smells—just sniff the grapefruit before you put it in the grocery cart, or the cinnamon on your toast.
The goal of democratic wine description is to develop a common vocabulary that's understood widely and can be used over and over again. It shouldn't be used to create a caste system that sets apart those in the know from those drinking margaritas for fear of looking foolish.
But equally, fine wine deserves more than prosaic description: poetry may even be appropriate. Metaphors don't need to be mundane or scientific to be understood. In fact, if we could reduce wine's essence to precise words, it probably wouldn't be so enjoyable. But enough wine-speak. It's time to quit talking and start tasting—perhaps a strong, silent type that isn't too intellectual.
Sidebar: Tasting Wheels
To buy a color, laminated plastic version of the Wine Aroma Wheel or the Sparkling Wine Aroma Wheel, send a cheque or money order for US$7 to A.C. Noble at the Department of Viticulture and Oenology, University of California, Davis, California, USA, 95616; or call 530-752-0387, fax: 530-752-0382, e-mail acnoble@ucdavis.edu, or visit the web site at wineserver.ucdavis.edu/acnoble/waw.html#get.
You can also download a free copy of the Mouth Feel Tasting Wheel developed by Richard Gawel of the Roseworthy Wine Tasting Programs (in collaboration with the Australian Wine Research Institute). It describes the texture of wines, and can be found at www.winepros.com.au/pdf/mouthfeel.pdf?ref=mfpdf.
SIDEBAR: TASTING CHART
Wine | Traditional | Modern Remix |
252833 Henry of Pelham Reserve Chardonnay, Niagara $13.95 | Buttery, round, ripe apple | Utterly, butterly in a beautiful way |
233635 Cave Springs Riesling, Niagara $10.95 | Floral, mineral, tree fruit | Anne Murray in the early years - refreshing, happy and full of promise |
129528 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand $14.30 | Herbal, gooseberry, good acidity | The Toronto Argonauts football field after a fresh mow on a crisp October morning. |
354274 Gallo of Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon, California $16.95
Blackberries, chocolate, leather | The John Turturro of Cabernets - full of character but underrated |
474163 Black Opal Shiraz, Australia $14.10 | Black plum, balanced oak, peppery | Crocodile Dundee after wrestling two 'gators - cocky but charming |
317057 Masi Amorone, Italy $32.05 | Dark cherries, charred wood, full-bodied | Explosive fruit with a tannic structure to straighten the Tower of Piza |
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Copyright © 2003 by Natalie MacLean. All rights reserved. Please ask permission of the author before copying or using this material.
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