Tasting No
29/05/07 21:39 Filed in: Food &
Drink
I have
written before on the subject of tasting notes on restaurant wine
lists. Most restaurants feel the need to describe
what their wines taste like (well, that's not
exactly true. They usually get their suppliers to
do the describing for them), but in the end what
ends up of the list is usually pretentious
nonsense.
The idea of describing what wine tastes like is sound, but only when the wines being described actually have some character. In Ireland, seven bottles out of ten come from the "New World" (i.e. Australia, Chile, USA, South Africa, and to a lesser extent Argentina and New Zealand), and most of those have a retail price of €8 or less. Most of them are made (or marketed) by big corporations, and the wine in the bottle is usually a secondary consideration to the brand name on the label. The best you can say about them is that they are bland or inoffensive. If a restaurant stocks one of these, I can't see why they should see the need to describe what it tastes like. A picture of the label would be more effective at communicating the message.
Yesterday, I was in Dún Laoghaire and ended up in Café Mao for a quick nosebag at lunchtime. (I have never understood the rationale behind the name of that restaurant. I can't imagine a restaurant called Café Stalin, or Café Pol Pot, but that's by the by.) Anyway, while I was there, I came across an exquisite example of oenobollocks. A Merlot (always a difficult one to describe) on their wine list was flagged up as this:
Ruby red tending to Burgundy-red hues. Intense, persistent with complex scents of spices. Intensely vinous, harmonic.
This tasting note consists of three verbless sentences describing appearance, nose and palate. Obviously it was written by someone who has studied wine tasting, because these three things are considered sacrosanct when it comes to writing tasting notes. But sadly, the whole lot is meaningless bollocks.
"Ruby red tending to Burgundy-red hues."
Are Burgundy-red hues feeling a bit poorly, and Ruby red is wiping their feverish brows?
"Intense, persistent with complex scents of spices."
It's a cheap fucking Merlot. You don't get intensity, persistence, complexity, scents or spices with cheap fucking Merlot. You get bleh.
"Intensely vinous, harmonic."
Rule No.1. of writing short tasting notes: never use the same word twice. Once again, you don't get "intense" with cheap fucking Merlot. I should freakin' hope it's "vinous", seeing as it's wine, after all. "Harmonic"? If you ping the glass with your fingernail, does it give a perfect C major? I think the word the writer was scrambling for there was "harmonious", but again, it would not be appropriate here.
There probably is a nice picture of a kangaroo or something on the label of this wine. They should stick with that to sell it rather than trying to describe how awful it tastes.
The idea of describing what wine tastes like is sound, but only when the wines being described actually have some character. In Ireland, seven bottles out of ten come from the "New World" (i.e. Australia, Chile, USA, South Africa, and to a lesser extent Argentina and New Zealand), and most of those have a retail price of €8 or less. Most of them are made (or marketed) by big corporations, and the wine in the bottle is usually a secondary consideration to the brand name on the label. The best you can say about them is that they are bland or inoffensive. If a restaurant stocks one of these, I can't see why they should see the need to describe what it tastes like. A picture of the label would be more effective at communicating the message.
Yesterday, I was in Dún Laoghaire and ended up in Café Mao for a quick nosebag at lunchtime. (I have never understood the rationale behind the name of that restaurant. I can't imagine a restaurant called Café Stalin, or Café Pol Pot, but that's by the by.) Anyway, while I was there, I came across an exquisite example of oenobollocks. A Merlot (always a difficult one to describe) on their wine list was flagged up as this:
Ruby red tending to Burgundy-red hues. Intense, persistent with complex scents of spices. Intensely vinous, harmonic.
This tasting note consists of three verbless sentences describing appearance, nose and palate. Obviously it was written by someone who has studied wine tasting, because these three things are considered sacrosanct when it comes to writing tasting notes. But sadly, the whole lot is meaningless bollocks.
"Ruby red tending to Burgundy-red hues."
Are Burgundy-red hues feeling a bit poorly, and Ruby red is wiping their feverish brows?
"Intense, persistent with complex scents of spices."
It's a cheap fucking Merlot. You don't get intensity, persistence, complexity, scents or spices with cheap fucking Merlot. You get bleh.
"Intensely vinous, harmonic."
Rule No.1. of writing short tasting notes: never use the same word twice. Once again, you don't get "intense" with cheap fucking Merlot. I should freakin' hope it's "vinous", seeing as it's wine, after all. "Harmonic"? If you ping the glass with your fingernail, does it give a perfect C major? I think the word the writer was scrambling for there was "harmonious", but again, it would not be appropriate here.
There probably is a nice picture of a kangaroo or something on the label of this wine. They should stick with that to sell it rather than trying to describe how awful it tastes.