Slate article on wine

[lagilman]

Mostly for my own placeholding/later reading, but I figured others might be interested as well -- Cherries, Berries, Asphalt, and Jam: Why wine writers talk that way

Comments

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I've always wondered if they were hallucinating.

I'd like to read the rest of the series when it appears, but I'll probably forget. (I speak with hard-won self-knowledge.)

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who is a sommelier. We often drink wine, to excess, together. Her husband, her, myself and 4-5 bottles of wine, an evening well wasted. No driving afterwards! Sometimes she talks about smells or tastes of barnyard, wet animal and other unsavory aspects of a particular wine. I admit that I don't always catch them myself, but considering it is barnyard, I am happy I don't. Interestingly enough though she mentioned a petroleum flavor in an Alsace riesling giving away it's provinence. She was correct, it was an Alsace riesling (I like to play stump the sommelier by not telling her what I am giving her and expecting her to tell me). :) It was at that point that I finally realized what that odd flavor was that I was tasting. It tasted like petroleum and oddly enough I have come to actually enjoy the flavor and actually expect it. In fact miss it when it is not there. Odd how that worked. Now I want to go to the store and see if I can find a bottle of Chatauneuf de Pape blanc, which is one of my favorites.

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

It takes time to develop a nose and mouth for wine tasting. Most people are not interested in developing either. Thus, they feel obligated to ridicule what they cannot perceive. It's like any specialist vocabulary. The problem is that most specialist jargon is not published for a general reader. Oh well. *wry grin*