Dariusz Galasiński: Usefulness is the primary requirement of wine assessment
By Dariusz Galasinski, 4 November 2024
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I got some stick for the previous article entitled “Towards more inviting tasting notes”. Apparently, I criticise wine professionals without a shred of understanding and sympathy for their work. Professional assessments are, so I was told, objective and if I cannot see it, I am a self-important cynic. In this article, I would like to consider the possibility of wine assessment objectivity.
Let me declare my hand straight away. The idea that wine assessment (or any empirical assessment for this matter) is objective is a non-starter. Let me also say that wine tasting and assessment are not at all part of ‘philosophy of perception’, as Jamie Goode suggests in a recent article. If anything, it is part of philosophy and methodology of science and it raises the issue of the possibility of objective measurement/assessment. Such objectivity is impossible and we have known it since Kant, really, and all we can talk about is accuracy and consistency.
So, let us start with calibration. I would expect that most wine professionals assessing wine do a sensitivity test, trying to understand how, for example, they experience acidity (I am relatively insensitive) or bitterness (I am very sensitive). But the calibration I have in mind is for ‘today’s tasting’. Lighting, stemware, temperature, noise, humidity all can influence your perception of aroma and flavour and unless you understand your ability to taste in today’s conditions, you yourself exclude the possibility of objectivity.
But this is only for starters. Do you calibrate yourself for age? Or for weather conditions? Do you understand your sensitivities after a cold or a sleepless night, or after a fight with your partner? Mood, after all, is also shown to affect tasting, as is perception of company you are in. If you do not, no trace of objectivity can be seen in the rear-view mirror.
In all those discussions, does it matter that aroma or favour are objective, as Dr Goode skilfully moves between perception and object? No, it does not because such considerations have little to do with our ability to taste/assess. Just imagine that up until the late 18th century we were blissfully unaware of Uranus, which ‘objectively’ was there. It took almost another 100 years to discover Neptune. But ‘objectively’ it was also there. The existence of planet Neptune really had no bearing on the quality of our telescopes. Much as the objective aroma or flavour of wine has nothing to do with our ability to experience it.
Now, as Dr Goode professes, wine writers might aspire to be objective, but he forgets about the evidence to the contrary. Research by statistician Robert Hodgson (and others) shows well that wine critics differ considerably in their scoring. And if you go to David Morrison’s Wine Gourd blog, you will see a number of posts discussing considerable variability in seasoned wine critics’ scores.
Things get even worse. In her classical book on Chablis, Rosemary George MW admits failing to identify the essence of Fourchaume having tasted 27 wines from the famous Chablis climat. On their popular YouTube channels, Konstantin Baum MW, Agnese Gintere, Bob Paulinski MW regularly fail to identify regions, varietals, vintages and other aspects of the wines which are presented to them for blind tasting. Indeed, while the Institute of Masters of Wine asks for identification of the grape variety, they go easy with the origin of the wine, asking for identifying it ‘as closely as possible’. And this is supposed to be as hard as it gets!
Yet, the ability to identify a wine was offered to me as an example of professionals’ objectivity (and my cynicism). It is, I am afraid, a figment of the wine critic’s imagination. I would like to add that not only do I applaud that experienced wine professionals show their ‘weaknesses’, I actually admire it! For a second, I can be in the same boat with people infinitely more knowledgeable about wine than I am. This is wine inclusivity proper! It is so good to see the professional elite getting off their pedestals and joining us, mere mortals.
Incidentally, it is perhaps worth mentioning that if critics all agreed on their scores, it still would not be evidence of objectivity but at best only evidence of standards of assessment, much as those as I am used to in Academia.
But what really astonishes me in the defence of objectivity is that it seems something wine professionals should strive for. No, Jamie, in doing your job well, you do not have to rescue ‘a bit of objectivity’. In my opinion, the view that wine professionals need objectivity in order to do their job or to be excellent cannot be further from the truth. I would go as far as suggesting that objectivity is altogether irrelevant. What is important is usefulness. Your assessments should be helpful to those whom you address. Let me reiterate: wine critics/professionals write to be useful and not to be objective.
If my choices are anything to go by, I cannot care less about your objectivity. What I care about is whether I will love the wine you describe and, possibly, recommend. Will it be delicious? Will people I share it with love it, too? Will it be, I am getting advanced here, of great quality, especially for the price I am going to pay. Your imagined objectivity will get me nowhere in the questions I have. And, let me stress, I do not care about the questions you want to answer!
I have just (cynically) used the phrase ‘imagined objectivity’. This is because if you read as many tasting notes as I do (thank goodness, mostly for research purposes), objectivity of language stares you in the face with its sarcastic smirk. You can teach how physics is written about on the basis of tasting notes! So, perhaps it is time to ditch the faux objectivity and engage with wine as it is meant to be – an experience. Yes, this also means re-thinking the ultimate in wine objectivity – wine scores. And as a self-appointed representative of an army of wine drinking linguists, I hereby pledge my assistance in re-considering the ‘language of wine’. It can be done.
- 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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Dariusz Galasinski | 10 November 2024
Hi Davy, yes, I know Tamlyn’s reviews – they are very controversial and I love them. However, linguistically, they are actually not that different from the dominant pattern.
I don’t think anyone would want to read my tasting notes but I haev been thinking about transforming a tasting note into a different one. So far, I have not gone beyond thinking but I am delighted you think it could be useful.
Davy Strange | 9 November 2024
Have you encountered the wine writer (who writes for Jancis Robinson’s purple pages) called Tamlyn Currin? She talks about how wine makes her *feel* and I find her notes extremely compelling. There’s are some examples of her work here (she writes the tasting notes denoted with an A in the first post): https://wine-pages.com/community/threads/pseuds-corner.16412/ I think some of the critics of her style in that thread fall to grasp that wine is a visceral, personal, and (hopefully) deeply pleasurable experience.
May I suggest you post a tasting note (of a recent, quality South African wine, obviously) to give us an idea of how you think notes should be?
Greg Sherwood | 4 November 2024
Don’t wine critics, like wine producers themselves, or indeed wine marketeers, have to segment the market and write in a way that appeals to the clientelle they invisage might relate to their musings. Surely it is that simple. Dariusz, I love your thoughts and exploration on the topic of tasting and critical analysis, but I do feel sometimes you are attempting to suggest a one size fits all approach to wine appreciation. I am fully aware that my ‘purple prose puffery’ only appeals to a very small subset of educated, highly engaged fine wine followers…and I’m sure my writing style has its critics, etc, but that’s the wonder of diverse wine appreciation. Likewise, I respect that Tim James does not rate wines and instead attempts to delve into the deeper essence of producers’ base production philosophies. The joy is in the variety. I think you perhaps don’t appreciate that concept sufficiently… within a very wide, varied and diverse multi-layered wine market.
Dariusz Galasinski | 4 November 2024
I am delighted that you are not challenging me on the objectivity points. I think the issue could put to bed.
And your point, Greg, about one size fits all is very well made. But this is my point, actually. The point of usefulness is a point about speaking to your readers. So, I understand that if you want to talk to me, you will talk differently than to your rich wine investors who buy wine for a very different reason than I do. The trick is how to be useful to both groups but the anwwer is not the fruit-salad tasting note.
Let me restate the point I made to Tim James. In my view the source of wine writing is the wine writers. We, the readers, either accept it or….have nowhere to go. Wine writing should re-think not its language, as it is so keen to do, but what it is for. At the moment, such reflection is missing in my view.
There is only one person I can think of who is banging on about the experience of of wine, the individual pleasure – Andrew Jefford. Otherwise, wine is about wine not about drinking it.
I have just started a research project. I record wine tastings which I organise for casual, largely ‘uninformed’ wine drinkers. It is so refreshing to hear them speak. If taken seriously, they have nowhere to go because their relevancies are very different from those of elite wine writers like you.
I hope Christian will allow me to write more about it, there is much to learnt from your regular drinkers whose only interest in having a great experience in drinking wine. Let me reformulate – there is much to be learnt from this as yet untapped into market, as wine consumption falls.
Tim James | 4 November 2024
Excellent stuff, in its way, and not easy to refute. But it seems that all you’re wanting from a note is whether you and your pals will enjoy the wine and find its quality commensurate with its price. The first bit of that you will only reliably get if (1) the critic is consistent (which you’ve really indicated as probably impossible), and (2) if you yourself are (impossibly) consistent and consistently agree or disagree with the critic’s tastes.
Fair enough, but it seems then a bit unlikely that you’ll ever find a note useful unless all it does is give you some facts about the wine on which basis you can draw your own very limited conclusions, if you’re knowledgeable enough. The thing is, although objectivity is indeed impossible, as you demonstrate, the striving for it, along with breadth and depth of experience, it’s all we can ask for from a critic. Sometimes it seems to work.
Dariusz Galasinski | 4 November 2024
Thank you for the first couple of words….Then it went donwhill….
There are two issues. One is objectivity and I think that’s done and dusted. The second is that if so, this has consequences and one of them is how to write wine reviews, if you understand that you don’t provide your readers with an objective truth. And the answer to this is netierh simple nor readily available, especially that wine writing has been as it is for quite some time. Change is difficult.
But the question that needs to be asked, in my view, is precisely how to be useful. If the primary role of wine ciritcs is make sense of the notional wine wall, then usefulness must stem from this. and you could start with espousing the basic fact of wine: it by and large is made for enjoyment, pleasure. In other words: for drinking. and if you read those hundreds of thousands of tasting notes you would be forgiven to think that wine is for scientific inquiry.
And so, while I do not believe in objectivity at all, I also believe that wine critics can have an extremely important and useful role to play. But the role is not in describing the wine. the role is to help me find a bottle for drinking.
How exactly it should be done – as I said, there are no easy answers. But I would welcome a discussion on this. something wine needs badly.