Why are you writing a tasting note ?

There is a passage in Richard Olney’s book “Romanee Conti” in which he recounts sitting down with Lalou, Aubert and Aubert’s father Henri de Villaine. He asks them to help him by describing the personalities of each of the wines made by the Domaine. One of those present - it is not referenced who - described Grands Echezeaux as -

     “…a country gentleman, aristocrat and dreamer, who idles willingly with a unhurried step of his horse in a forest filled with the scents of sundry mushrooms, of mosses, of dead and decaying leaves, of furtive small game, which spill forth in a multitude of shifting alliances. All of that is expressed delicately, in a refined musical tongue, concise and pure like the message of a Mozart quartet.”

I recall this particular description to this day - 25 years on.  What struck me at the time and still does is how remarkably effective the analogies are in describing the personality or temperament of the wine - to a person slowly riding a horse, the forest and the sounds of a Mozart Quartet - in translating a sense of the personality of the wine.  Though by no means a technical note, one gets a sense of the expected texture of the wine by the cadence of its delivery from the slow steps of horse and its precision by the analogy to a Mozart quartet. The description of the forest floor analogy does of course actually articulate flavors. But overall I found this description at the time remarkably concise and effective. 

Many analogies work effectively in this way. Analogizing wine to people is not so uncommon. A well known resident of Burgundy has been known to contrast two wines in front of him by saying one is like Gina Lollobrigida (or sometimes Sophia Loren) and the other like Audrey Hepburn. Other more colorful references to present day actresses have been overheard at his table. 

Music is a very common analogy and it seems to me a completely appropriate and helpful reference. A good friend of mine frequently uses jazz musician analogies to describe wine - especially by contrast. A wine is more like the music of one jazz musician than another. Fine artists of course might be another means of conveying sentiment, because these arts are designed to elicit an emotional response from the listener or the viewer. Performing artists work too. I recall “The wine dances like Baryshnikov !“ in a Kermit Lynch text in Adventures on the Wine Route, in relation to how a wine changed when paired with a particular food. And so it can be with wine, which too should elicit an emotional response. 

The French as I understand it from Jamie Goode’s remarkable book "I taste RED” are more inclined to analogize to buildings than we Americans. A wine might be like the Paris Opera perhaps.  Or the Arc de Triomphe.  Or the Louvre Palace. Or perhaps a suburban boulangerie. The French also analogize quite often to food or clothes - though I myself struggle a little to think of helpful examples.

All of which is to say that I believe there really should be three completely distinct types of wine note. 

1. The first is the “Technical Note” which embodies the content almost all modern day critics’ notes contain. It speaks directly to flavors and structural components. The exam note, if you will. Intended so far as possible to meet some objective standard - sensations someone else may be expected to share. You need it to pass the wretched test.

2. The second we might call the “Personality Note” which describes more what the wine is saying and should only be written once the glass is empty. Wait until you have finished the glass before even starting to consider how you would describe the wine. Avoid the temptation to jump into the language of a technical note (which in my case is a longstanding habit the doing of which can actually interrupt my enjoying the wine). Do not rush. It may in fact take several different occasions of drinking the same wine to be able to describe it in this way with confidence. You are trying to describe the personality of the wine. The result would be like the description of Grands Echezeaux above (itself no doubt formed over decades of drinking the wine). Terry Theise - in “What makes a wine worth drinking” gives some pointers as to questions that may help with this - “ What is the wine's temperament ? Is it demure, brash, frisky, serene, boisterous, regal“ ? Analogies to people and their demeanor are useful starting points. As might analogies to music. Subjective of course …but perhaps not entirely so, and less than one might suppose.

3. The third type speaks of the emotional response that the drinker feels when drinking the wine, which normally centers on your response to the wine’s particular expression of beauty. This is akin to how a painting makes you feel when you look at it. For me, Terry Theise’s wonderful notes often fall into this third category as of course would Randall Gramm’s poetry.  I call this the “Response Note”, which ideally requires a certain literary skill - and indeed discipline - which as yet I do not possess but which can equally I suppose be simply limited to “I don’t like it”. It comes down to a question Terry Theise simply asks - “How does the wine make me feel” ?

Each type of note requires a separate approach on the part of the writer, a different intent as to purpose. “Are the notes attempting to describe a wine so that someone might be able to recognize it in a lineup on the basis of the note or are they trying to capture something more transcendent and emotional ?’ - Goode again. Circumstances may oblige you to write a technical note - for a test or examination, for example. But since I am seldom taking exams nor writing a note so someone else can pick out a wine in a lineup, I am trying to move away from the technical note towards the personality note or at least include some component that is a personality note. The communication to the reader in this type of note is at one level far less precise and requires a certain sense of imagination on the part of the reader but I also think at another level it is far more precise because it conjures up an image of the wine’s personality that a purely technical note cannot hope to impart. It may also depend a great deal on the circumstances and company you keep when you drink the wine. I also think that trying to move from technical notes will make me more aware of the wine in a way that ultimately is much more aligned to the reason I like to drink it in the first place. I don’t drink a wine because it has well managed or fully integrated close grained tannin. I drink it because it is extraordinary and pleases me.

For myself, beyond simply saying the wine was a joy to drink, the well articulated Response note will have to wait a bit longer. I need a lot more practice.

I am not expecting it to be easy to change my ways. We’ll see how I do….

The little picture is from Wine Folly, which has some good content on tasting method