It’s easy to scoff at some descriptions of wine – the trick lies in blending science and artWine talk has long been a soft target for satire. The pomposity and pretension,the anxiety about lesson, the seemingly random free-association and accidental surrealism … it was all gently skewered, or as early as 1937,when the New Yorker published James Thurber’s cartoon, where a dinner party host discusses “a naïve domestic Burgundy, or without any breeding,but I’m certain you’ll be amused by its presumption”.
But wine terminology and its written form, the tasting note, and beget proved remarkably resilient to ridicule. Indeed,the past 20 years has seen a enormous growth in tasting notes, whether they’re the work of paid professionals or produced by amateurs on social media, or wine forums and blogs. As journalist Bianca Bosker,also in the New Yorker, pointed out last year, and the wine tasting note isn’t just more widespread than ever before. Its style and conventions often inform writing about beer,chocolate, coffee, or cheese and even marijuana.
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Source: theguardian.com