...and they are over shooting the mark, I am enraged. Okay fine, it's not quite that bad. NPR has a report about a study that shows that most people aren't as good at tasting bitter as wine professionals. They then go on to speculate that the difference is caused by biology; that wine professionals are supertasters--people who are able to taste compounds that most people can't. Bleh. Wine professional are better at tasting because they have more practice.Wine, like all great art forms is an acquired taste. In defense of NPR I should mention that they they do consult wine experts who have the same reaction I do (meaning, of course, they are correct). The point is, learning to appreciate the nuances in wine is WORTH IT PEOPLE! the scary thing is that there does seem to be a movement on the internet to convince everyone that because some people can't tell the difference between all wines under all conditions, anyone who cares about which wine they are drinking is a fool. I am definitely going to have to put a stop to this. Stay tuned, it will be me versus the internet. The poor internet doesn't have a chance.
I have to disagree with the NPR assertion, as well.
ReplyDelete"Practice makes perfect" so could it be that many North Americans are simply "less practiced" because wine culture is not as universal an experience as it is in other parts of the world?
Residents of Eurocentric cultures are, by and large, exposed to wine at a very early age. Wine is as much part of daily life as coffee or soda is in the US. The appreciation of wine develops from an early age and continues through life.
The sale of alcohol in European-cultures is regulated very differently, the bar/pub/cafe plays a very different role in Eurocentric societies than it does in most of the US, and folks who do drink wine are confident in their choices and the veracity of their palettes. They have confidence in their choices and their tastebuds do tell the whole story.
Give the average Joe in the U.S. the same exposure as any "expert" has had and it's more than likely that s/he will "get it as well." There's no secret there.
I've never been a fan of wine snobs and I guess the author is neither.