Noted, passing

fruit at la boqueriaLook, I get it. The pressure to publish makes us all write dumb things. But still…oh, Jamie

[I] was jolted by the realization that tasting notes generally do a spectacularly bad job of communicating about the nature of wine

Really? That was your moment of spiritual revelation? Your trans-hypnotic insight? An understanding of the essence of wine is not to be found via one writer’s grocery list nor via another’s arcane analogies about bunnies and Dadaism?

Just…no.

Jamie Goode is a sensible – often overly-sensible – writer who’s one of the best at deconstructing the molecular guts of wine, though at his worst when slathering praise over liquid mediocrities, but is not the go-to authority on tasting note quality. That’s not his fault, nor a criticism. The fact is that no one is.

What, exactly, is a bad tasting note? Well, what’s a good tasting note? Take a look at the comments to Jamie’s post. You’ll see accord, widespread agreement, a set of key principles on which any good note must rest, a…

No. Wait a minute. You’ll see nothing of the sort. Some people want standards. Some prefer writing. The fruit-and-veg genre is fairly unpopular, but there’s no clear alternative. Expanding this survey to comments elsewhere, it’s pretty clear that there’s absolutely no concurrence regarding the best possible form of a tasting note.

Huh. Funny, that.

One of the more tiresome assertions about notes is that their primary role is to be correct. Well, what does that mean? The most correct note of all would be a chemical breakdown of the wine, and one would need to be a chemist to utilize such a note. Once one strays from chemistry, one enters the realm of the subjective, and the mere possibility of correctness erodes at a rapid pace.

So how about “useful?” Can’t a note be that? Well, sure. Any note, no matter how good or bad by any individual standard, can be useful to someone. But what defines utility? Wouldn’t the obvious answer be the note that catalyzes the greatest commercial effect vs. its absence? Thus, a Robert Parker note on a Bordeaux would be the most effective note, thus the most useful note, and thus the best note.

I’ll wait while you find someone who thinks that. Still waiting. Oh, you found someone? Their tastes and Robert Parker’s tastes in Bordeaux appear to be in full alignment? What a shock!

OK, so now we might have discovered that the test of a great tasting note is not actually utility, but the extent of its confirmation bias and its epistemological closure. I, person X, have tastes in wine expressed as close to 100% as possible by critic Y. Thus, his or her notes are the best, by definition. Right? But if that’s true, why involve third parties at all? (I understand that the reason is because the critic can taste wines that (and when) the consumer can’t, but we’re discussing tasting notes here.) Because it’s inherently obvious that while critic Y and person X might exist in somewhat rampant agreement with each other, there’s only one note-writer with whom person X will never disagree. That’s right: person X. The “best” notes are one’s own.

In other words, we’ve just discovered the only truism about the utility and correctness of tasting notes: that they’re inherently individual and personal. Once one starts to disseminate notes, one has reduced their utility. One has made them less correct. One has subjected them to criticism not just regarding conclusion, but of form. On and on, until someone will be found who finds a note utterly unredeemable. Perhaps many someones.

To this I say: so what? If you’re writing tasting notes for other people, you’re writing for one of two reasons or you’re wasting your time. The first, and most important, reason to write them is that you wish to write them in the form in which you’ve written them. The second is that you’re being paid to do so. Pretty much any other reason is demonstrable self-delusion.

So why is Jamie’s post so incredibly silly? Because he’s asking for something that doesn’t exist, and he already knows this. There is zero agreement on the form of a good, correct, or useful tasting note. And because he’s now joined the dozens (perhaps hundreds) of tiresome broadsides against the gibberish of jargon as viewed from outside that jargon, which has a long and anti-intellectual history with regard to wine commentary. Except that Jamie’s not outside that jargon, and so he lacks this excuse.

But that’s not the silliest aspect. What really grates is that Jamie knows very well that understanding wine does not come from discerning and then describing which type of fig most represents 12.3% of its aroma. Understanding wine comes from tasting the wine, tasting its context, visiting its birthplace, discussing its origin and purpose, reading about it, wandering amongst its parents (the vineyard), having it with this food or that, and so forth. Are any one, or all, of those things required to understand a wine? No. But they all help. Each one of them illuminates. And it is the job of the writer, rather than the critic, to translate those illuminations.

More relevantly, for any writer it’s important to understand the difference between writing about one liquid in one glass at one moment and writing about everything that has led to that moment. They’re both worthwhile. But one is the path to sensation and temporal pleasure. The other is the path to understanding.


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