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> The brothers' taste is [...] vindicated by their ability to name and communicate what they notice in the wine, and to enable us to come to notice it, too. Bu

by mankyd 12y ago

> The brothers' taste is [...] vindicated by their ability to name and communicate what they notice in the wine, and to enable us to come to notice it, too. But that's the point of calling it "junk". What they notice (and thusly communicate) about the wine often simply isn't there. They certainly do "notice" things, but what they notice is often imaginary. A good bottle of wine can certainly be enjoyed. It's a question of where they enjoyment stems from, and how much credence we put in the idea of some wines being significantly different and better than others.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Sure some are better than others. Some batches of coca cola are better than others. The 'junk' comes in when the expert starts naming imaginary features and rating them.
- mankyd 12y ago
  Yes. I should elaborate on what I mean by "how much credence". We have an entire industry built up not just around wine, but around _tasting_ wine - judging it, speaking about it, writing about it, etc. It seems that, while some wine will certainly be better than others, the degree of difference from one quality wine to the next, and the amount of significance we ascribe to it is where the debate should really lie.
_ak 12y ago
I'm not sure whether things are actually imaginary, or whether they might just have a lower perception threshold. In beer tasting, we talk about off-flavors like green apple, butterscotch, cooked cabbage, or flavors like spicy/peppery, cloves, bananas, citrus, passionfruit, etc. None of these are imaginary, as each of these are linked to a specific chemical compound, such as acetaldehyde, diacetyl, DMS, various phenols and esters, and of course hop oils and various humulones, cohumulones, etc. from the hops. What would help in wine tasting would be to link each aroma and flavor to specific chemical compounds, it would make detection more objective and make it possible to tell apart the very real aromas and flavors from the imaginary ones.

by mankyd 12y ago

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Sure some are better than others. Some batches of coca cola are better than others. The 'junk' comes in when the expert starts naming imaginary features and rating them.

mankyd 12y ago
Yes. I should elaborate on what I mean by "how much credence". We have an entire industry built up not just around wine, but around _tasting_ wine - judging it, speaking about it, writing about it, etc. It seems that, while some wine will certainly be better than others, the degree of difference from one quality wine to the next, and the amount of significance we ascribe to it is where the debate should really lie.

_ak 12y ago

I'm not sure whether things are actually imaginary, or whether they might just have a lower perception threshold. In beer tasting, we talk about off-flavors like green apple, butterscotch, cooked cabbage, or flavors like spicy/peppery, cloves, bananas, citrus, passionfruit, etc. None of these are imaginary, as each of these are linked to a specific chemical compound, such as acetaldehyde, diacetyl, DMS, various phenols and esters, and of course hop oils and various humulones, cohumulones, etc. from the hops. What would help in wine tasting would be to link each aroma and flavor to specific chemical compounds, it would make detection more objective and make it possible to tell apart the very real aromas and flavors from the imaginary ones.