The only thing I do better than writing my thesis, is procrastination. I've become dora the explorer of my little town in Catalunya, taking photos, taking notes, taking ice-creams on lazy Sundays. The library lives about 57.83 metres from me. So do all the books that I never had the chance to read. Until now. They are rarely related to any of the key words in my thesis. All this (intended) thinking about my thesis got me thinking about wine tastings and the descriptors used. Describing wine has become it's own literary, very-much-for-profit, industry. With every swoosh of the glass a new short story is born. Ones that would make even Victor Hugo misérable.
According to Emile Peynaud and Jacques Blouin (the taste of wine: the art and science of wine appreciation) "fragrance" belongs to the realm of poetic description. This is true. BUT, they also mention that it should not be overdone and that "the primary difficulty arises from the subjective nature of wine tasting, for it is based on personal impressions whereby the key is the taster's own personality". Some of these delightful personalities, however, take their literary aspirations out on unsuspecting wine lovers. I find this to be rather un-billik.
Nevertheless, we need to describe the wines at some stage. Just remember that less is more. As William Strunk Jr. wrote in Elements of style (a friend sent this and some other articles to me to help with my thesis writer's block):
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."
So, in keeping my challenge-accepted promise, to the black impala: here is the first wine word/real world for the new kids on the block.
ANIMAL (aromatic descriptor) /ˈanɪm(ə)l/
Real world:
Oxford dictionary: a living organism which feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to stimuli.
Urban dictionary: very sexy, wild in bed, quite hairy and lives in the woods. meaning excellent. also see savage. the kick-ass pink dude from the Muppets.
Wine world:
It can be a leather, musk, barnyard, horse-sweat, reductive and stinky smell.
The culprit compounds are mostly sulphur-containing compounds like 3-mercaptohexanol, 3-mercapto-2-methylpropan-1-ol, 2-mercaptoethylacetate and so on and so forth. Brettanomyces is also a favourite with animal smells. Some like it some don't. Some French friends find it adds to complexity and thus has a disturbing infatuation with the brett-character. You decide.
I leave you with Ernest Hemingway, famous for his minimalist style of writing: The wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste. The Sun Also Rises (1926).
According to Emile Peynaud and Jacques Blouin (the taste of wine: the art and science of wine appreciation) "fragrance" belongs to the realm of poetic description. This is true. BUT, they also mention that it should not be overdone and that "the primary difficulty arises from the subjective nature of wine tasting, for it is based on personal impressions whereby the key is the taster's own personality". Some of these delightful personalities, however, take their literary aspirations out on unsuspecting wine lovers. I find this to be rather un-billik.
Nevertheless, we need to describe the wines at some stage. Just remember that less is more. As William Strunk Jr. wrote in Elements of style (a friend sent this and some other articles to me to help with my thesis writer's block):
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."
So, in keeping my challenge-accepted promise, to the black impala: here is the first wine word/real world for the new kids on the block.
ANIMAL (aromatic descriptor) /ˈanɪm(ə)l/
Real world:
Oxford dictionary: a living organism which feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to stimuli.
Urban dictionary: very sexy, wild in bed, quite hairy and lives in the woods. meaning excellent. also see savage. the kick-ass pink dude from the Muppets.
Wine world:
It can be a leather, musk, barnyard, horse-sweat, reductive and stinky smell.
The culprit compounds are mostly sulphur-containing compounds like 3-mercaptohexanol, 3-mercapto-2-methylpropan-1-ol, 2-mercaptoethylacetate and so on and so forth. Brettanomyces is also a favourite with animal smells. Some like it some don't. Some French friends find it adds to complexity and thus has a disturbing infatuation with the brett-character. You decide.
I leave you with Ernest Hemingway, famous for his minimalist style of writing: The wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste. The Sun Also Rises (1926).
