Common-sense doubts

Philosophical reflection on the nature of wine, our experience of it and pleasure in drinking it has been firmly rooted in the ordinary, everyday observation that, in the hierarchy of importance, our senses of taste and smell seem to lie well below vision, hearing and touch. By “importance” I do not just mean basic survival value, for although we can survive without sight and hearing, and (perhaps with more difficulty) touch, our full engagement with the complex social and cultural world so vital to human flourishing depends on the pre-eminence of these senses. In contrast, although our senses of smell and taste can bring us pleasure, and in certain cases alert us to potential dangers, they can seem much less vital to our existence and well-being, and the pleasures they provide of far less interest and consequence than the objects we contemplate in sight and sound. Hence the scepticism frequently directed, for example, at claims that there can be objective standards of taste, or that food and drink can be genuine or serious objects of aesthetic interest, claims that we shall examine in some detail later.

These purported differences between the different senses and their objects are reflected in the apparent fact that we are, in general, simply much less good at smelling and tasting than we are at seeing, hearing and touching.