SUB-ZERO WINE BLOG

Ah the language of wine! So subjective, bloated, alienating and inadequate. Wine speak has gotten comical to the point of absurd. With an insider’s tongue that often befuddles, bemuses and often alienates the very drinkers we are often trying to embrace.

A wine review might contain the words “jam packed tannin staining fruit with surreal amounts of extract.” Huh? It gets worse. Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article whose title was something to the effect, “If your wine smells like a dirty hamster cage, it might not be a bad thing.” The article again puts forth the idea that the language of wine has gotten way out of hand, and if we continue in the direction we are going, we will soon be describing aged Syrah as smelling of Sumo Wrestlers thighs! (Though I’ve never experienced sumo wrestler’s thighs that does sound scary.) So if the words are getting out of hand, why not try the numerical approach, another popular trend in wine reviews and ratings. Following bloated language is a score that usually rates the wine from 1 – 100 points.

What, for example, does a 96-point wine really mean? Imagine if we rated art numerically. “I give the Venus de Milo 75 points, with points deducted for each missing arm.” Or the next time you are ready to order some fish at your fav fish joint, the waiter recommends his 99 point salmon in a buerre blanc sauce. The tuna is listed as an 87.

Putting comedy aside where does that leave the average consumer or even the wine enthusiast? Wine has inspired us to develop systems to create it and so it seems reasonable to attempt to develop a system of expression to understand it. These systems can vary and frankly, whether you find it as simple as I liked it or I didn’t like it (and you can answer why) or if it more complex as to have you more fully verbalize, your response must be honest and clear – at least to yourself.