Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The experience of wine: tasting, smelling and knowing
- 2 The language of wine: chemicals, metaphors and imagination
- 3 The case for objectivity I: realism, pluralism and expertise
- 4 The case for objectivity II: relativism, evaluation and disagreement
- 5 The aesthetic value of wine: beauty, art, meaning and expression
- Conclusion: truth, beauty and intoxication
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The language of wine: chemicals, metaphors and imagination
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The experience of wine: tasting, smelling and knowing
- 2 The language of wine: chemicals, metaphors and imagination
- 3 The case for objectivity I: realism, pluralism and expertise
- 4 The case for objectivity II: relativism, evaluation and disagreement
- 5 The aesthetic value of wine: beauty, art, meaning and expression
- Conclusion: truth, beauty and intoxication
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Ways with words
“Nuts, spice, liquorice, herbs, very complex, lots of body and depth to the fruit, with well-defined mineral accents.” “Silky, stylish, sexy – but also elegant, tight, and finely tuned.”
“Beautifully poised with lively acidity and tightly coiled tannins.”
“Attractive and forward, fresh acidity but lovely breadth of fruit on mid-palate.”
“A racy little number, fresh and perky with vigorous fruit.”
“Extrovert, handsome, and charming, destined to be head of school.”
“This vintage is for cellaring not drinking, but this example already has sufficient concentration to convince that it will make a memorable bottle in three or four years”.
“It will never win a race but it's a wonderful little jogger.”
“Charming, vibrant wine that demonstrates the family's painstaking winemaking style well.”
The vast array of ways in which wine can be described defies straightforward analysis, but chances are, given that you are reading this book, you will already be familiar with the enormous panorama of wine characterizations, and the examples above are designed merely to give some flavour of this. They range from the simple, literal and descriptive to the elaborate, metaphorical and evaluative, through to the imaginative, outlandish and absurd. They encompass judgements referring not just to what we might call “intrinsic” features of the wine, but also “extrinsic” features such as winemakers' intentions and values, styles of wine, and predictions about future characteristics that can be tasted now, as it were, as latent potential in the wine.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Philosophy of WineA Case of Truth, Beauty and Intoxication, pp. 45 - 76Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2010