I've been thinking about this comment for five hours. On the one hand, the "poetry" is amusing. It is not, however, informative or useful… which is the reason it exists. One man's "notes of plum" is another man's "astringent;" one man's "hints of charcoal" is another's "earthy tones." On the other hand, the article is wrong: the "food" industry hasn't made consumers more food-savvy, they've made consumers more food-*PORN* savvy. People are cooking less than they ever have and watching more Food Network. Most cookbooks are never used in anger. Anybody who does cook is likely looking shit up on Allrecipes, which is a miasma of "mix three canned things together and call it food." Food Network gives people the illusion that they aren't eating 80% frozen Sysco catalog numbers, while magic wine language gives people the illusion they aren't drinking fermented grape juice. Here's the thing: wine "language" exists so that the aspirant middle class can feel like they're making an informed choice about something they can't afford. Backintheday you'd visit vineyards, drink a few bottles, buy a dozen cases and tuck them in your cellar for your butler to pick from. Then the butlered class vanished and all these vineyards needed to sell wine to proles. What better way than to talk down to them? Beer doesn't work like that. You drink it and you like it or you don't. Food doesn't work like that. You buy it and you eat it and you like it or you don't. Wine? "oh, you won't even know what it tastes like for another four years." Really, the wine snobbery is the vestigial remnants of a local industry gone global and about to contract into local again.
There's nothing wrong with caring about something enough to dig in deep and see it for it's finer components. Some wine just taste like grapes and then others.... wow. -And some people may never be able to tell the difference. To some, this is just a blue painting, but you and I both know it's more than that:Really, the wine snobbery is the vestigial remnants of a local industry gone global and about to contract into local again.
From my experience, and I have a good amount of it in the world of wine, there are those that embrace and project the snobbery that you speak of and there are those that embrace the utility of such descriptions. I used to teach wine tasting classes with my pal sounds_sound to incoming servers at an upscale northern italian restaurant. We used phrases like, "herbaceous, grassy" and "soft-tannins" when describing wine. But I don't think we ever did so to be snobby but more to walk these young people, new to the world of wine in to an established pallet of descriptors. Wine is fun and the descriptors used can be fun too. I think wine is snobby when you're being introduced to it by a snob.
If a server tells me that a gewurtztraminer is "fruity and full" she'll often follow up with "would you like to try a little." If Wine Spectator tells me a gewurtztraminer is "fruity and full" they'll say "hints of apple and cranberry with a florid finish and notes of cork and leather - 84/100." This is not entirely Wine Spectator's fault - they can't offer you a sip. And that's what I mean - it's dancing about architecture. Tastes are best shared by tasting. You can do that on a local scale. You can't do that on a global scale. So when you're trying to sell someone a $38 pinot grigio at Safeway, "stupid language" is all you got. That's why I think "die" is far more likely than "adapt" - it's easy to buy a bunch of wine from a local vintner because you can taste it and know it's good. It's hard to justify a $70 bottle of anything via words alone because the words aren't adequate.there are those that embrace and project the snobbery that you speak of and there are those that embrace the utility of such descriptions.