One of the most difficult things in the wine business is understanding the personal connection people have with wine. There is often an unquantifiable element that makes the drinking experience unique for each drinker, and can make different instances of drinking the same wine different for the same individual. Lots of serious drinkers remember where they were and what they were doing when they had their favorite bottles; somehow the experiences seared into their memories. And yet, each serious drinker has that equally mysterious experience when they pop a bottle, expecting that same memorable liquid to be waiting inside, and are disappointed because it does not live up to the expectations set by the previous experience. Sometimes these differences cannot be explained away by bottle variation or age. Similar flavor characteristics may hold true, and yet
the impression changes. Most people drink wine for that very impression. For all the point systems and magazine articles, websites and wine blogs, all the energy poured into describing wine and framing it as a reliable packaged product, it's still the unpredictable unquantifiable personal impression on the drinker that makes wine important. It's difficult to manage expectations with such a chameleon target. It's also one of the reasons why wine is so enticing: the impression is always a surprise.
This intangible and person-specific quality of wine drinking seems un-reconcilable, especially to someone like a sommelier who attempts to sell wine based on its tangible aspects (grape, year, alcohol etc). The whole other side to wine-- the un-quantifiable part-- that attracts people to wine in the first place is often never a part of the equation, usually because people don't know how to approach the subject. Imagine how silly it would seem if a sommelier said to you "I recommend this wine because it will make you feel good based on the mood I'm sensing from you, as opposed to this other wine which might set a tone of tension at the table."
There is a lense through which we can examine this seemingly unbroachable aspect to wine, and it comes from a unique discipline: the semiotics of performance art.
Take, as an analogy, The Book. The Book is full of linguistic signs and symbols-- symbols like letters that form larger signs like words and paragraphs that convey meaning if the reader understands both the written language and the context of the word-meaning conveyed. But The Book itself is a sign-- the binding, the cover page, the aknowledgements: each larger construct symbolizing concepts that are a part of The Book reading ritual. The Book exists within larger symbolic constructs: it sits on a book shelf, with other Books (each has a similar format, signifying that these Books are similar in some way). The Books come from a Book store or Library-- places dedicated to the care, spread, and preservation of these Books: the Book-dedicated Institutions threaded throughout the world are symbols themselves that The Book is important. The Book Institution is usually quiet, there is usually a Book Steward to help you find a Book.
And for all this effort, The Book is meaningless... until it is read, or better yet, performed. The Book does not exist as it is meant to unless someone is there to receive and interact with the signology provided by and within the book. It is in the reading (performing) of The Book that the signs locked within may emerge. The actual Book happens somewhere between the surface of the page and the reader's eye-- The Book happens in the space of engagement between the two.
And so it is with Wine (or any consumable, really).
A book is a book only as it is read. There is no performance without an audience. Culture only emerges as it is acted out.(Abrahams 2000 [original 1972]:35). Wine is wine only as it is being drunk. Though the same wine may taste quite similar on two different occasions, the impression of the wine happens in the space of engagement between the wine and the drinker.
This instance-specific take on the drinking of wine can be used to frame wine as a dynamic application in the dining experience. This view also takes into account the different impressions that the same wine can leave.
Bibliography
Abrahams, Roger D. 1972. "Personal Power and Social Restraint in the Definition of Folklore." in Bauman and Paredes (2000).
Bauman, Richard and Americo Paredes. 2000 [original 1972]. Toward New Perspectives in Folklore. Trickster: Indiana.
This intangible and person-specific quality of wine drinking seems un-reconcilable, especially to someone like a sommelier who attempts to sell wine based on its tangible aspects (grape, year, alcohol etc). The whole other side to wine-- the un-quantifiable part-- that attracts people to wine in the first place is often never a part of the equation, usually because people don't know how to approach the subject. Imagine how silly it would seem if a sommelier said to you "I recommend this wine because it will make you feel good based on the mood I'm sensing from you, as opposed to this other wine which might set a tone of tension at the table."
There is a lense through which we can examine this seemingly unbroachable aspect to wine, and it comes from a unique discipline: the semiotics of performance art.
Take, as an analogy, The Book. The Book is full of linguistic signs and symbols-- symbols like letters that form larger signs like words and paragraphs that convey meaning if the reader understands both the written language and the context of the word-meaning conveyed. But The Book itself is a sign-- the binding, the cover page, the aknowledgements: each larger construct symbolizing concepts that are a part of The Book reading ritual. The Book exists within larger symbolic constructs: it sits on a book shelf, with other Books (each has a similar format, signifying that these Books are similar in some way). The Books come from a Book store or Library-- places dedicated to the care, spread, and preservation of these Books: the Book-dedicated Institutions threaded throughout the world are symbols themselves that The Book is important. The Book Institution is usually quiet, there is usually a Book Steward to help you find a Book.
And for all this effort, The Book is meaningless... until it is read, or better yet, performed. The Book does not exist as it is meant to unless someone is there to receive and interact with the signology provided by and within the book. It is in the reading (performing) of The Book that the signs locked within may emerge. The actual Book happens somewhere between the surface of the page and the reader's eye-- The Book happens in the space of engagement between the two.
And so it is with Wine (or any consumable, really).
A book is a book only as it is read. There is no performance without an audience. Culture only emerges as it is acted out.(Abrahams 2000 [original 1972]:35). Wine is wine only as it is being drunk. Though the same wine may taste quite similar on two different occasions, the impression of the wine happens in the space of engagement between the wine and the drinker.
This instance-specific take on the drinking of wine can be used to frame wine as a dynamic application in the dining experience. This view also takes into account the different impressions that the same wine can leave.
Bibliography
Abrahams, Roger D. 1972. "Personal Power and Social Restraint in the Definition of Folklore." in Bauman and Paredes (2000).
Bauman, Richard and Americo Paredes. 2000 [original 1972]. Toward New Perspectives in Folklore. Trickster: Indiana.
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