Winespeak

[robert brown]

Andrea,

By sheer coincidence I have posted in Symposium a marvelous essay on present-day winespeak written by Professor Sean Shesgreen. I hope you will read it and tell us what you think of the article, Prof. Shesgreen's premises, and/or winespeak in general. I happen to own Frank Schoonmaker's "Encyclopedia of Wine", 3rd edition Revised, May 1968 in which he defines "rotten egg flavor" and writes " a fine Cote Rotie of a great year is a truly admirable wine, deep-colored, full-bodied, long-lived yet with great distinction and class; certain experts claim to detect in it the scent of violets and raspberries." Now what is wrong that? It describes the phenomena in question the way they are, what they are. The more bull an evaluator or taste throws out, the more the subject at hand becomes the taster and less the wine. There's an elegant simplicity in using a limited yet applicable universe of descriptions. In fact, I get a better notion of the quality and nature of a wine from a traditional description; something that is much better than being on the receiving end of a confusing string of irrelevancies.

[Jonathan Day]

You can find the essay Robert refers to by clicking here.

[Andreawine]

I'll check out the posting.

I think winespeak of the style you described adds to the pleasure. Sometimes there does seem to be some sort of one-upmanship by wine writers - how pithy can I be in these review?

At that point, it feels phony to most.