The
combination of deep intellect, poetic sensitivity and a profound palate makes
Jancis Robinson perhaps the greatest human to ever write sentences about wine.
Thomas Jefferson and Ernest Hemingway have some great quotes, but their wine
knowledge doesn’t even come. Hugh Johnson (friend and mentor to Robinson), has
the knowledge and palate but he can’t compete with Robinson’s linguistic
artistry.
The
long-time British wine writer, and first woman to earn the prestigious Master
of Wine title, has been churning out essays and wine books for decades, and
she’s still going strong. Her BBC series about wine and her cadre of wine books
were the basis for my early wine studies, and I continue to learn from her
about far more than just vintage variation or fermentation techniques. She’s a
skilled orator, a beautiful writer, and a passionate defender of maximizing
pleasure through wine appreciation.
Recently,
I went back and read one of her books called “Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of
a Wine Lover.” Composed of musings, travelogues, wine tasting notes, and random
wine-related thoughts, this book was first published in 1997. Some parts do
come across as dated, but reading it 20 years later, I found it fascinating how
much her thoughts on wine were still very relevant today. Even though the
global wine industry has shifted dramatically in the past two decades, many of her
thoughts about appreciating wine seem timeless.
Some
of the book reads a little too much like an overly-detailed diary, and some
parts are skippable, but there are little nuggets of wine appreciation wisdom I
thought I’d share.
Why “taste” wine
as opposed to just drinking it?
“The
most common sort of conscious wine tasting (as opposed to just drinking, which
anyone can do) is the most admirable one, tasting for the purposes of pure
pleasure… It also makes perfect sense because just throwing something as
heavily taxed as wind down the gullet — as a surprising number of people do —
is a waste of someone’s money.”
On blind tasting:
“There
is no doubt that guessing a wine’s identity on the basis of taste alone is one
of the most impressive tricks a human can perform.”
The greatness of
almighty Riesling
“Riesling
is the greatest white wine grape in the world, a proposition I continue to
disseminate to this day.”
On wine connoisseurship
and the preeminence of pleasure
“I
am very aware that these strange connoisseur creatures, who clearly allow their
conduct to be swayed by previous experience, may sound a bit precious, perhaps
suspiciously snobbish. But the difference between them and, say, a stickler for
protocol or etiquette, is that they do what they do for the entirely sensible,
selfish and laudable reason of maximizing pleasure. There is nothing whatever
wrong with wine lovers who simple pour wine with careless gusto down their
throats. There are times when that and only that will do. But those who will
not meet a wine halfway, and who consistently ignore the story each wine has to
tell, depirve themselves of a large part of the potential associated with each
bottle. As I was to learn, a wine is more than just a liquid.”
On visiting South
Africa during apartheid
“South
Africa was fascinating – such a vivid clash of natural beauty and human
brutality.”
On hoarding,
re-selling wine for profit, turning wine into a speculative enterprise
Robinson
tells a story about how she purchased a case of Pomerol Le Pin 1982 for $240,
tens of times less than what those cult wines demand on the market today: “ I
know I should feel triumphant about this but in fact I feel almost physically
sick. I hate the way that something I bought to give myself and my friends
innocent, escapist pleasure has been transformed into a financial asset that is
crying out for management.”
“I
have a horrible feeling that talk about those who take fine wine seriously is
going to become increasingly dominated by money. I have already come across too
many bores who confuse wine appreciation with financial appreciation.”
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