Steve Plotnicki

Tony & Simon - A few bits here. First of all, I don't believe that it is necessary for a name chef to be in the kitchen. But having said that, in almost every instance where I have been at a name chefs restaurant and he is away, the food hasn't risen to maximum heights. I'm not sure why that is, and I'm not sure how one goes about fixing that. But my best guess is that the things that make one's cooking great are subtle distinctions as well as constant choices that happen spontaneously. I mean for example, if someone on the line butchers the chicken wrong and if the mistake will change something about the dish, there really isn't anyone but Gary Rhodes who can make the decision to use it or to turn it into chicken salad the next day. And I guess it's the same in my business. There are thousands of little decisions where if they were made by others, it would change the complexion of the business. The other thing is, and it is something we all hate but which can't be avoided in todays food world, chefs are brands. They make a lot more money by attaching their names to things than they do from cooking. I wish it wasn't that way but it is. The problem with Ramsey is that they called the Claridge's restaurant "GR at Claridges" and it doesn't really tell you if it is supposed to be the same as what you get on Royal Hospital Road or different. And everyone assumes, or at least wishes, that it is exactly the same, with less of a hassle to get in. That's why the theme for Claridges should have been completely different from RHR. Like a steakhouse or all seafood.

Do I have to post this multiple times, or can I just post it once? Look, in a nutshell my problem with Craft and Craft Bar is that they act like they are materially different than other restaurants but they really aren't. I mean they go out of their way to make every little thing different. Even my ice cream was different because they rolled each scoop in crushed cookies. I wish they would just simplify it all and dispense with the act that they are doing something different. Considering that they serve good food there, they should just have the waiters shut up and serve more of it.

Blue Heron - As the son of a kosher butcher, here is the way to deal with pin feathers. Singe them off. Put one of your burners on the stove on high and hold the the chicken over the burner to singe them off. If the chicken is greasy for some reason, use gloves. The Barberie ducks we ordered from D'Artagnan for New Years were loaded with pin feathers. The people who were doing the cooking didn't notice them and didn't realize they would affect the finished dish. But I saw it and freaked and spent the next 5 minutes singing the pin feathers off the best I could. As for kosher chickens/meat tasting better, I think that's a crock. The corrolary they want you to believe is that because the kosher process for raising, feeding and slaughtering is a cleaner process than for non-kosher birds or meat, the taste is superior. But Bell & Evans is a far superior tasting bird than anything Empire makes. And my father was selling Empire birds in the 60's and 70's. I've eaten a few hundred in my lifetime.

Okay, on your recommendations I went there last night. I figured out three things that bothered me about the place right away. And it occured to me that Craft might be guilty of the same offenses. Poorly crafted menus that are almost impossible to read. I mean what is the purpose of dark paper and small typeface in a barely lit room? Also, I hate the rectangular plates. To me they have been chosen to make small portions seem larger. Those portions would be lost if they were served on the standard extra-large size white dinner plates most places use. But the most annoying thing is how the waiters speak to you like what they are doing is so revolutionary that you might not be able to figure it out if they didn't explain it to you. "If you haven't noticed, the bottom half of the left side of the menu are cold dishes and....." Pleeeaaaase. " How could I notice anything when the place is so dark and the typeface is so small? And do they think I don't know the difference between cold and hot? Do they think I'm a moron? Onto the food. I had the Salumi assortment. The Duck Ham is great. I found the Mortadella not up to the same standard. Those are the two home made ones I believe. As for the rest, they are of good quality and the dish was enjoyable but they can be had anywhere. For my main dish I had the Loup de Mer. It was a half of Loup, fileted but with the skin still on. The skin was nicely charred and the burnt taste was well integrated into the dish. It was served on top of leeks and tomatoes that were stewed. I feel like lemons, either confit or just some pulp was thrown into the mix because the vegetable stew had that tang to it. It was quite good. But despite the goodness, I don't think it changed my opinion in any way. As Robert Brown said about Craft, it's good bistro food. Nice and honest. But for me it stops there and I don't see what the fuss is about? I mean mine would have been much better if they served me a whole fish, brought it to the table that way, deboned it, plated the vegetable stew and put the fish atop, just like any other bistro would do. But the gestalt there is like they are doing more than that. And I find it annoying. So I say they should; Turn the lights up Print new menus that don't try and make a point with dark paper and small typeface Serve normal size portions Serve the veggies with the food. This ala carte thing is a ripoff Then they should hire a publicist who announces that they have abanded all pretention and are just going to serve great NYC bistro food that is based on market ingredients. Then my expectations will be in sync with what they are actually serving. As an aside to this, I fancy myself to be a good menu reader. In my experience you can hand me a pack of menus from places I've never been and I can pick out the wheat from the chaffe with about 75% accuracy just by looking at a list of ingredients in a dish. But I have to say that I am frustrated with the way they have layed out the menu here. I must admit, I had the same problem at Marseilles and it made my meal less enjoyable there as well. In my world, appetizers are appetizers and entrees are entrees. And to deconstruct the way they are listed, only to serve them in a traditional way seems not only to be pointless, but I find it actually bothersome.

Wilfrid - This horse is so dead that it is ready for the .25 ride in a supermarket. But since you've thrown the quarter into the machine, here goes. Your entire argument rests on the fact that the differences in opinion we have with each other are considered vast. If one takes the opposite point of view, and looks at our opinions as alarmingly similar, and the differences as small ones not large ones, your entire argument, oops excuse me, rationality of your position goes away. So I guess I'm saying that it's a bit of a straw man. Build up the differences in order to ask, "how can we diverge from each other to this extent?" But if you look at this from the other perspective, that we all look the same, we believe in monotheastic gods, we eat with utensils, we have all decided to cover the same parts of our bodies, we all ride in planes, automobiles, etc., the correct conclusion is that we are the same, not that we are different. In fact we spend most of our life trying to figure out how to differentiate ourselves from others around us. You don't have to look any further than the college admission process for proof. A five point difference on the SAT exam can mean the difference between getting into school A, and being forced to go to school B. Can you really describe the two students in my example as different? So Shaw is right. Certain things take education of the palate. Bitter chocolate is the most common example of educating one's palate to like something that seems wrong on its face. But the fact that only a few people get it in the first place is still an argument for the naturalist position. That's because it takes at least one person to "get it" naturally.

Tony - You keep complaining about what Michelin isn't trying to do. They aren't trying to rank cuisines, they are ranking restaurants WITHIN THE CUISINE THEY CONSIDER THE BEST, FRENCH. If you disagree with that, fine. But if you want to be critical of the job they do, it has to be within the context of the argument they are making. To complain that they give short shrift to Korean Bulgoki is pointless. Michelin is a poor source for information about Bulgoki and if you want a great version, I would look elsewhere. And if you think they should more sensitive to the Bulgoki lovers of the world, well that is an objection to the philosophy of their approach, not the quality of their judgement within the philosophy. You can argue either one of those things, philosophy or quality, but they are not interchangeable and there is no connection with their giving the Fat Duck two stars and their not being the right place to source out Bulgoki. Bux - French food has assimilated western European cuisines, some Middle Eastern cuisines and some far Eastern cuisines. Chinese cuisine is only a compendium of the Chinese provinces and a few countries it borders on. But I have to say that French cuisine is starting to fall behind New York, London and Sydney for being the most prolific melting pot. And that's because in days of yore, France was the axis for European travel. One could hardly get from the South of Europe to the North, and vice-versa, without traveling through France. That is a lot of culture for those French chefs to absorb. Now in the days of airplane, TV's and fax machines. let alone the advent of the Internet, culture doesn't travel by foot anymore. Hence, the melting pot can solely be a function of where capital markets are, and information can "jump over" countries like France.

Tony - Gee there you go again. You say your problem with Michelin is that they do not give proper recognition to other cuisines. But you keep omitting the fact that it isn't Michelin that you have a row with. It's everyone who agrees that there is a hierarchy of cuisines and that French cuisine is at the top of the pile. All Michelin does is reflect the taste and opinion of their readers. Your point about Chinese cuisine and the film is well taken. But nobody is saying that Chinese cuisine isn't complex or sophisticated. But in my opinion, and I'm a pretty accomplished Chinese food eater, Chinese cuisine, as great as it is, does not rise to the same level as French cuisine. And that is because French cuisine is a melting pot cuisine, and Chinese cuisine is isolated from outside influences. That is why Steve Shaw's point about French and Japanese techniques fusing is right. They are fusing because those two cuisines are at the highest level of culinary sophistication, and that is because they were culturally dominant (as in high culture, not popular.) And if China wasn't a communist country for the last 50 years, and individual expression was allowed, and the ability to earn money wasn't encumbered by law, who knows, maybe they would have the greatest expression of culinary technique. But that hasn't been the case, and to argue that a country who has been stymied culturally has superior cuisine to those who have been able to enjoy improvements that have come about by living in a free society, misses the point of what Michelin or anyone else is really taking note of. If you don't believe this to be the case, all you have to do is to look at the culinary revolution in Spain, a nation where the advancement in technique from when Franco came to power until he died was stagnate. But look at what they have done since he died, although what they do is still considered derivitive of French technique. But who knows, maybe 100 years from now it will be discussed in different terms, and the French part will be replaced by the term "classical," because it is practiced in too many countries to be described the way it is now.

Tony - Michelin, Robert Parker and countless other guides and experts about food and wine, assume a hierarchy in their respective fields. When they write about their fields, they correctly omit the people who have no cultural connection to food and wine as defined by Western society. If you have a bone to pick with that, well that's your right. But understand that insisting on including Chinese in that statement, who might have never eaten more than a bowl of rice with a little gravy is pointless and serves to undermine the conversation. It is pointless to argue about the context of a statement when a change in context won't change the thrust of the substance of the statement. So next time when I say that President Bush is the leader of the free world, the answer isn't "well how can you say that because the world isn't really free?" And that is because my statement isn't about the free world; it's about the power of an American President in what is commonly held to be the free world. Bux - The reason that a rose is different than Chateau Palmer is that a rose is totally natural. Wine, like chocolate is a natural thing that has been manipulated to extract certain flavors and characteristics. I mean if you walked through Chateau Palmer at harvest and tasted the grapes off the vine, they taste nothing like what is in the bottle. It gets even more complex if the end product is intended to go through a chemical change over time like wine goes through in the reduction process while it's aging. So be careful when you say natural order of things. Maybe the simplest example of what I'm describing is what Passard did to those carrots while I was there. One wouldn't necessarily associate carrots with sweetness. But if cooked slowly, the sugar is brought to the forefront. And pair it with some salt, it really seems sweet. One does not need to manipulate a rose in the same way to extract its essence. It's on the surface. It's obvious. As for Michelin, it is losing its relevance contemporaneously with Haute Cuisine losing its relevance. Like dressing in a suit and tie for work has lost some of its relevance. And that isn't to say that Haute Cuisine (which is really French technique) isn't the highest expression of cuisine, or that a beautiful suit and tie aren't the best expression of clothing, it's to say that we live our lives in a more casual way these days. So you have properly framed the issue. The issue isn't what Michelin doesn't do properly; it's about whether they do a good job at what they try to do, and whether there is a need for it. And criticizing them for not being good at giving proper recognition to other philosophies of cuisine is sort of like criticizing the Opera News for not recognizing The Who's Tommy as being a great rock opera. I know that isn't a perfect analogy, but it should make my point.

Jimmyo - Thanks. Your words are encouragement. I guess I'll just have to suffer through more great meals and write them up :) As for food as art, I think one has to be careful of semantics when discussing a discipline that is spoken of in terms of it being an art, when the final result isn't "art." I mean when speaking about Doctors, they say the art of practicing medicine, but the final result isn't "art." And although there was an art to how Passard constructed the meal and manipulated the tastes and texture to tell a bigger story, I still wouldn't call it "art." But it also seems appropriate to say that there's an art to what he does. Does this make sense? Art is a verb, but "art" is a noun. Personally I don't think food is "art" because it's purpose is consumption and not prerely aesthetic. Problem is, not everyone agrees with me.

Tony - Not only food, but culture in general is dictated by the tastes of a white Western minority. When I say it is a "fact," I am by implication not including people who eat bugs as a steady diet. And if you are going to insist on including those types of people, we can't have a conversation because we are bogged down in the semantics because the word "best" needs context. As for Montcahet/St. Veran, I will admit that it is possible for a bottle of St. Veran to be better than a bottle of Montrachet. It's just highly, very, extremely, almost impossible, unlikely.

Wilfrid - One more thing, where does physiology of taste fall into your equation, I mean do you believe that certain things just naturally taste better? Is not ripe fruit "better" than unripened fruit? And are certain shapes more pleasing to the eye? Sounds to the ear? Is nothing natural?

Wilfrid - Quickly because I have to run, while your model might explain how judgements come about, it does nothing to explain why people think flowers smell good. And why we think garbage smells bad.Or why we have a physical attraction to certain people, and why not to others. I'm afraid that those things are instinctive, and preceed the thought process. And where I think your theory breaks down is when you say that people do not share the same opinions. And I think that is wrong because if you analyzed to what extent opinions differ, it's a miniscule percentage. But we harp on those differences in opinion because so much of our society is based on defining and then exploiting those differences. In fact our entire economic system is based on the differences. But in reality you and I agree on 99% of things, or even more. And that is because flowers naturally smell good. And one needs not be a philosopher to figure that bit out.

Wilfrid - No, no, no to you too. I haven't swapped examples to evade your question. I have swapped them because the comparison of the two cuisines is not analogous to comparing two novels. Haute Cuisine and Syrian cuisine, like Opera and Rock & Roll, operate on different spheres. If we have that out of the way, your challenge to me boils down to is a rose beautiful in and of itself or do I need to come to that conclusion using commonly held criteria? And where does one begin to answer that question since it is just a fancy version of which came first, chicken or egg? But I have to assume there was a first time where someone came to the conclusion that a rose is beautiful. So I will come down on the side of it being a natural occurence, rather than something contrived through human behavior. I know that is just circumstantial evidence, and not empirical, but sometimes that has to do.

Wilfrid - Okay I'll bite on Moby Dick ( a bit of imagery there eh?) Whether Moby Dick is considered the great American novel or is considered run of the mill is off point. This discussion started by my proclaiming that Haute Cuisine is better than Syrian Cuisine. The analogy there is, is a novel better literature than a magazine article? Now of course there are lousy novels and there are great articles but that isn't the issue. In general, novels are better literature than articles. Why? The form of a novel is a greater expression of writing than an article. That is an entirely different discussion than is a particular novel the best one? And in the same light, I can say that Hute Cuisine is a greater expression of cuisine than Syrian. And when I say that, I am not expressing preference. I am being objective about the criteria commenly held to evaluate what is better cuisine. That it might happen to coincide with my own opinion is to my benefit. And that there might be some other criteria out there for Pygmies really is of no relevance to the discussion. And again as Fatus pointed out, even Pygmies could tell the difference, unless they were ignoramuses.

Fat Guy - You make an excellent point about the fact that not having the knowledge of how to preserve their wines, limited the types of palates the Greeks had. The preservation of food and wine opened all types of avenues of taste up. I mean think of the first person who realized that you can salt fish, or cure pork, etc. It must have been a revelation. And I'm sure there were people who hated the way those things tasted because they were unusual. And I'm sure there were people who took to them right away. Where is the controversy in ham these days?

Clare - I don't mean to say that people who can't discern that '61 Palmer in the first sitting have no sense of taste. Fatus said it best when he said that certain things take some educating, or are not obvious. But if after it is explained to you, one doesn't understand why people think '61 Palmer is a great wine, okay I will say those people have no sense of taste. I was once at a rather large wine tasting/dinner at Kensington Place with something like 20 people. There were 30 odd wines sitting on the table. I brought a 1970 Latour and the wine was simply glorious. At the end of the meal, one of the dinner participants sat down next to me to discuss the Latour and he said, 'I don't get what all the fuss was about. I mean I don't like those secondary and tertiary flavors. That wine is too old." Now the other 19 people were waxing rhapsodic and if anything, we complained the wine was too young! So which one is it? Was that person of sound opinion, or does he just have a bad palate? Mind you, this was someone who drank lots of wine, although he didn't have that much experience with mature claret. And what happened to you and the '61 Palmer. Did you ever see the light?

Magnolia - No my son is merely ignorant when it comes to chocolate. If you want to base your chocolate buying patterns on his opinion, go ahead. But you will be sentenced to a lifetime of eating Hershey's and Cadbury's. See if that suits you. And I know it doesn't because I believe it was you who posted about Angelina. I mean why did you bother to go there? Why didn't you go to some other cafe? They all serve hot chocolate. Or why didn't you go into your local Casino and buy packaged hot chocolate powder and just boil up some water in your room and dump the contents in? Wouldn't that have been just as good as Angelina? You see things aren't better because I say they are. They were better before I was born to say that about them. Things are better because they just are. Sometimes these things are easy to explain as to why. I mean French butter is better than the American kind because it has a higher fat content. And unpasteurized, artisinal cheeses have more flavor than packaged ones for obvious reasons. And if you prefer American butter to the French, and packaged cheeses to the real stuff, be my guest. But what it comments on is your lack of taste, not someone's inability to prove in words that French butter is better. And if you really believe that isn't true, I'm sure next time you will skip Angelina's for the hot chocolate mix. It's much cheaper too.

Adam - One needs to be careful when using words around scientists, academics and philosophers. They demand a level of precision that isn't normally required in everyday life. So your example of whether a 1976 Climens is "better" than it's peers, is more problematic for the choice of the word "better", than it is anything else. Because if one requires the existance of empirical evidence in order to use that word, well it's a non-starter. And that's because there hasn't been a need to create a super accurate scale to measure these things. What would it's purpose be, to settle this debate? But if greatness is the measure of better, than you have perfectly communicated your thoughts to me because I understand what better means. And if I didn't, it means I don't really understand wine. There is a practical reason for the popularity of sweet wines decreasing in the last 20 years. Our diets have changed and we don't eat the rich foods that sweet wines go with as often. Also, modern techniques applied to winemaking have produced riper, sweeter, and more fulll bodied red wines. But I do not see what any of that has to do with the greatness of Sauternes? It only has to do with preferences and fashion. As to there being a subjective component to wine tasting, it's agreed. But the fact that I like to drink the "normale" cuvee of Clos Mont Olivet rather than the Cuvee Papet is a different issue than whether I think the normale cuvee is a better wine. I guess what I'm saying is that in order for subjectivity to be valuable, it needs a reasonable component of objectivity in the mix. The objective standard of comparing Montrachet vs St. Veran already exists. If one wants to go against that conclusion and profer that they are equals, the burden should be on the person who has staked out the position, and the conversation shouldn't revolve around the unproveable. At least the people who argue Montrachet is better can point to a series of circumstantial reasons why. But I've never seen an argument on the St. Veran side of the equation that isn't a variation of calling the pro-Montrachet people dunderheads.

Magnolia - There is no validity to the statement that everyone's opinion is valid. The other night I gave my not quite 15 year old chocolate loving son some Palets D'Or chocolates I brought back from Bernachon in Lyon. These chocolates are among the most ethereal things one can eat. He took one bite, gave a big yum, grabbed 3-4 of them and ran into his room. A few minutes later I went in to see how he was liking them and he said while moving his hand from side to side to display mediocrity, "They're okay. They're not sweet. I like Hershey's chocolate better." Now is that a valid opinion too? You know cashmere is the most in demand wool because it is soft. Is liking things that feel soft something learned, or do humans actually like the way soft things like cashmere and silk feel, i.e., are they inherently better? I don't know about you but to me soft is better. Wool that is itchy and harsh burns my skin. It's just not a matter of opinion. Adam - Clos de la Roche being better than Savigny isn't a cultural construct. I'd like to see you go to Beaune and tell that to a bunch of oenologists and have them tell you why that isn't true. You know if we were to take a good vintage in Burgundy, and line up every single terroir blind, and you served them to people who might have an affinity for tasting wine, I would bet that the panel of tasters would assign the same hierarchy amongst terroirs that currently exist. Is that a cultural construct or is it physiological and a natural human instinct? As for wine drinking in general, you need to come down to London for one of our blowouts. Sometimes the wines are mindboggling. In general I find the argument that because things are unprovable in the absolute (see A. Balic REALITY), that an ordered reality doesn't exist and that things are just a matter of opinion, to be spurious. It's one thing to argue whether Gordon Ramsey or Pierre Koffman is a better cook, that might be a matter of opinion. But it is not a matter of opinion that sole from Dover is better than the stuff we catch off the coast of the U.S. Sole from Dover is simply, well it isn't only better, it is far superior to anything that swims near these shores. And that would be true if I had never tasted sole before and tasted them side by side for the first time. And if I couldn't taste the difference, and choose the superior one by taste, what that proves is not that there aren't objective realities to the physical universe. It proves I have no sense of taste. (Edited by Steve Plotnicki at 10:12 am on Jan. 30, 2002)

Poor publicity. Hey, I keep track of the London restaurant scene and I never heard of it until this was posted. I also don't think a 50GBP restaurant in a touristy location works unless you are getting "special" reviews on the food. Was the place connected to that chef Neat?

Balic - That's why we created lawyers who created circumstantial evidence. To undo the mess philosophers made. Here's how this debate gets sorted. They show you pictures of all the things bears eat. Then they show you pictures of bears taking a dump. Then they put an expert on the stand who discusses the random dumping pattern of bears, how they take a dump, evenly spread out during the day. Then they show you pictures of bears going into the woods, and further pictures of them coming out. Viola. Now what do bears do in the woods? I guess those philosophers forgot one key element in their theories, logic. As for Montrachet being the ideal, I can tell you that after having an 1989 Jadot Chevalier Demoiselles with my dinner last night, that it is much closer to the ideal than St. Veran. And that "better wine" concept isn't limited to chardonnay either. I am proud to report that the 1990 Ponsot Clos de la Roche we drank was far better than any Savigny-les-Beaune I've ever had too. Do you think that I've been educated to feel that way about it or do you think that those wines are really superior?

Wilfrid - But you are playing the philosphers shell game. Your example about how civil laws are based on religious laws, and therefore it follows that things are wrong because God said so, and how can that be when there is no God, fails to recognize the possibility that man created God in his own image in order to spread morality to those who couldn't understand it instinctively. As for Da Vinci vs Warhol, I'm not fluent enough in artspeak to really stake out a position in that argument. But I can speak to what I described before about the Last Supper's Vanishing Point. And is the fact that the illusion of the painting is to draw your eye to the spot above Jesus' head, as if he is to ascend to heaven, does that qualify as the metaphysical? Or as Fatus would say, that your eye is drawn to that spot is the objective reality of the universe. That it happens to coincide with a learned value judgment, and in fact, has been created purposely to enhance the value judgement in a way that is well, magical, does in no way detract from the phenomenon.

Wilfrid - I ain't falling for your bait. As that great American philosopher, Fatus Guyus Shawus would surely say, the sound of bear #### hitting the ground in the forest is a physical reality of the universe. You do not need people around to hear it for it to make a sound. So the answer to your question is that great art will always be great art, regardless if there's anyone around to appreciate it. It occupies it's own sphere of reality. That's what makes it art, and not just squiggles on a piece of paper. And indeed Hooters does have things that are better than Gramercy Tavern. Just not the food.

Wilfrid - Well we have honed it even further. Discordant, or what you call out of tune elemnts have to do with unusual pairings. They don't have to do with things that are "wrong." I think that's the thin line here, as I stated in my response to Magnolia about the difference between edible and inedible stinky cheese. To a layman it looks like the difference is opinion. but to an expert, the difference is about having the expertise to be able to discern the difference between complex and ruined. And to say the line isn't clear as to what is complex and what is ruined, even to an expert, that is not a big enough gap to try and create a wedge that says greatness in art is merely a matter of opinion. As for enculturation (there's that word again), again, saying that people from the Himalayas or from Mars would see it differently, so as a result there are no absolutes, is of no consequence to the conversation. And when I say that Montrachet is the best expression of chardonnay, Himalayans as well as Martians, by implication, are excluded from my statement. So this brings us to the misuse of words like "magical." I have to admit, I do not like them as well. But they are the best words we have to describe the phenomenon I am describing. The lack of a word that is less than mystical to describe the unsual characteristics of something isn't a new problem. Look at the word "terroir" the French have coined as a way to describe why the wine of Montrachet is better, or why the chickens from Bresse are better. They coined the phrase to describe the phenomenon. And to say the phenomenon doesn't exist because they can't adequately explain it seems like a non-sequiter. Saying that Montrachet and Bresse chickens aren't the best of the type because well, you are from the Himalayas and to your palate neither are any good, while that might be a great philosophical argument, it is a poor one when discussing culinary or vinous arts. And in that light, I feel that I am on firm ground saying that French cuisine is superior to Icelandic cuisine. But I will grant you not to people who have might have grown up on a diet of walrus and blubber. But as Steve Shaw just said, do they post here?

Magnolia - I'm sorry but I just don't believe that it is about preferences and semantics. And it's not about the flaws in human hearing or taste. That a piano might be slightly out of tune, and that the typical person's hearing is only 99.5% accurate is not something to base the argument on. The half percent is included in the definition of "in tune." What I always find odd about these conversations is that they are based on that half a percent of inexactness. Because it exists, and because one can't prove things in the absolute, people always jump on it to insist that standards are purely subjective. I point this out as a way to demonstrate that for example, 99.5% of the people who would taste Montrachet vs St. Veran would probably conclude that Montrachet is the superior wine. And those who didn't would fall into two categories. They either couldn't tell or they actually had a meaningful reason as to why St. Veran is better. If the reason for liking it more was personal preference, well that's fine but, it's as legitimate as saying that Mary Had a Little Lamb is as good a piece of music as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony because you prefer it more. Preference isn't the standard we judge great works of music by. Greatness is the standard. So the question isn't do you prefer Montrachet or St. Veran? The question is, what is the single greatest expression of the chardonnay grape? I do not know a single person who would say St. Veran, and I would be surprised if we could find one. As for quarter and half tone scales, like I said to Wilfrid. There's a difference between different and off. Just like there is a difference between stinky cheese that is delicious, and stinky cheese that is spoiled. Somewhere between those two stinkys is a line.