Dariusz Galasiński: Towards more inviting tasting notes

By , 23 October 2024

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When you ask wine professionals, by far most tell you that tasting is a subjective affair. Yes, some offer nuancing but time and again, I am told that your experience of wine is yours and mine is mine. The difference between a professional taster and me is the volume of wine tasted. Critics have understanding and experience of styles, regions, varieties and who knows what else that I will never be able to match. But we still have our own experiences of wine.

So, here is my question. What happens between the tasting and the tasting note where all that subjectivity and experience vanish? You see, I somehow doubt that I am the only one who is not excited by references to plums and cherries in wine descriptions. No, I am not smitten by apples and melons, either. I’m not even all giddy at the thought of quince and guava even though I still have not smelled either. I keep thinking that most tasting notes tell me next to nothing about the wine they describe.

But I’ll do one better. I seriously doubt that there is anyone who comes to a shop or a restaurant as says: I would really like to have strawberries on the nose. No one says: I fancy some lemon zest tonight, does he?

What is the attractiveness of the universal-fruit-salad tasting notes which populate the cyberspace in their millions? Such tasting notes do two things. First, they describe wine as if it were an obvious object of inquiry – this is what it is like, no hesitation, no qualification. They are a report on a physiological experiment. Second, they remove the subjectivity of the taster-critic. We only get to hear about the wine, never what it was like to drink it. And wine is for drinking, is it not? I would like to acknowledge a recent conversation I had with drinks columnist Jason Wilson for making my thinking on this much clearer.

Before I am shouted down for this iconoclastic take on wine criticism, consider the following. Wine professionals also tell you that you should find a critic whose taste is similar to yours. Then when they like a wine, you are also likely to. And if there is no objectivity, such advice makes perfect sense. Find your critic, follow them for the wines they like and Bob’s your uncle.

Research supports such advice. A recent study found that apart from liking the wine the consumer already knows and the price, it is advice from a trusted someone that is an important criterion for getting a wine. Indeed, asking advice from people or organisations is a time-honoured way of getting on with the world. Guidebooks (now, accompanied by guide websites) are perhaps not as old as the mountains, but old enough for understanding how important hearing what someone else says has been for us.

But tasting notes are such guides, I hear you say. We pay access fees precisely for advice wine websites publish. Does it matter if the tasting notes are written in the objective fruit-salad way? Yes, it does.

It matters, first, because it is better to be clear about what you do. Your tasting notes are not statements of factual information about wine. In fact, the more objective you want to be, the more you do not tell me what I really would like to know. Will I like the wine? Will it be delicious? Will I enjoy it? If I do, can I care less about cherries and apples? No, I cannot. And if I do not enjoy it, I care even less. No wonder, wine-buying customers prefer to go the wines they already know – they can hardly learn about new wine from a fruit salad!

It matters also, second, because I wish wine writers did not preach or profess about the wines they review. I wish they spoke to me. I wish wine writers set up a relationship with me, a reader. When you do not, the tasting note becomes a boring wine documentary in which all wine looks the same – how many times can you read about the blasted cherries or apples? When you do, you encourage me to go somewhere together with you.

So, here is to more invitation notes!

  • Dariusz Galasiński is a linguist and professor at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. He has been writing on experiences of mental illness and suicide. He also drinks wine and does research into how it is spoken about both by amateurs and professionals.

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    Richard Gundersen | 8 January 2025

    Hi Jenna, I’m with you. Mainly because my palate is not that sophisticated, but I recognise a great wine when I taste one. My Vivino notes more often reveal something about the situation where the wine was being drunk and its appropriateness for the food/occasion.

    Greg Sherwood | 29 October 2024

    Jenna, you would enjoy Tamlyn Currin’s notes on Jancisrobinson.com… she has a wonderful knack of describing a wine with quite colourful non cherries and apples descriptives… instead using more illustrative metaphors … like your Savvy that reminds you of a trip to the seaside etc. Wine writing and wine critiquing is a tough gig. Get too flowery and one is accused of Purple Prose Puffery… (guilty as charged)… but write too austerely and vaguely… and the criticism follows as well. Being engaging should be every writers number one priority, whichever style you choose to follow.

    Davy Strange | 27 October 2024

    You should read Elitistreview more often!

    Not that I post very often as my back is fouled up…

    Jenna Higgins | 24 October 2024

    I wish more people would realize that what makes a wine memorable, is the experiences you’ve had and memories you’ve made while tasting/drinking the wine. Wine has personality – why not describe a Sauvy B as “the wine that takes you on holiday, one sip of this wine immediately transports me to a family lunch with a creamy mussel pot in December next to the sea” or equally “a wine that immediately takes me to a walk on the beach, crisp and mineral, like inhaling the salty sea-breeze of the cold west coast ocean mist” – I love it when people paint pictures and stories with their wine descriptions. I’ve always linked my Granny’s peppercorn tree to Shiraz; “This wine’s peppery characters remind me of when I was about 5, I used to pick red peppercorns off of a tree in granny’s yard and then pea-shoot and chuck them at my younger brother all over the front lawn” or equally with chenin ” the guava smell on this wine reminds me of how we used to climb the fruit trees and steal guavas out of my mom’s garden, we’d take one bite and throw them to the floor until we found the perfectly ripe one – that’s what this reminds me off” and then equally ask your consumers ” where does this wine take you? what are you smelling and connecting this wine with” – make it personal, if you can make that connection, your wine is 10000 x more memorable than any other tropical R90 Sauvy b on the shelf!

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