Part 3 (2/2)
And in comparison with most mammals, we're pretty appalling at it.
Not our fault: our olfactory lobe is a shriveled little thing, withered away by thousands of years of evolution. But to improve upon our pathetic nasal patrimony, we need training. A Master of Wine's nose is cultivated, by years of practice and experience, to make fine differentiations that mystify the beginner, who may suspect either trickery or a sort of exquisite boasting. The vocabulary of wine writers has become an object of satire, with its knowing murmurings of pencil shavings and raspberries, of leather and petrol, apples, hay, blackcurrants, and indeed (some say) the drift of aircraft hydraulic fluid from the top of a good gewurztraminer.
But what other choice is there?
One of the problems we face is that, being visual animals, so many of our words are based on visual experience. We all know when something's green or rusty or sun-bleached, when it creeps along or rushes past in a blur, whether it's tall or round or angular.
But we can only summon up words to describe smells by comparing them to something of which we already know the smell. The problem isn't just for wine writers: restaurant reviewers, for example, struggle terribly to describe the taste (mostly, of course, the smells) of what they are eating, and resort to talking about how it was cooked, how it looked, what was in it, and what the dining room was like. The late John Diamond, journalist and husband of the celebrity cook Nigella Lawson, had almost no repertoire of descriptive language for food; his wife observed calmly over lunch one day that it was ”a little dispiriting to be married to a man whose only responses to what you fed him were 'Yum' or 'Ugh.' ”
The other profession that needs an accurate vocabulary of olfaction is, of course, the ”noses” or perfumers whose art or craft surrounds us all the time, mostly unnoticed unless we encounter something particularly strident. (A perfume called Giorgio Beverly Hills was popular in the 1980s. It had all the subtlety of a military bra.s.s band exploding in a thunderstorm, and induced one of New York's grander restaurants to have a subtle but unmissable sign on its door reading ”No Pipes, No Cigars, No Giorgio.”) Interestingly, perfumers go about it in a different way from oenophiles. Instead of dismantling the olfactory picture in terms of what it reminds your readers or listeners of, you build it up from individual ingredients you identify by what they remind you you of. of.
The budding perfumer, for example, will be handed a tiny phial of concrete de jasmin concrete de jasmin and asked to do two things: first of all, to write down in a notebook the and asked to do two things: first of all, to write down in a notebook the first thing she thinks of first thing she thinks of when she smells it; and, second, to describe it in relation to other smells and sensations. The scientist-turned-perfumer Luca Turin, the subject of Chandler Burr's when she smells it; and, second, to describe it in relation to other smells and sensations. The scientist-turned-perfumer Luca Turin, the subject of Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent The Emperor of Scent, quotes the fragrance scientist Gunther Ohloff on the rare and precious ambergris. Ohloff, who, he says, ”probably knew more about ambergris than anyone before or since,” calls it ”humid, earthy, fecal, marine, algoid, tobacco-like, sandalwood-like, sweet, animal, musky and radiant.”
But the actual entry under ambergris ambergris in Ohloff's notebook is something we don't know. It's private. His notebook is the most valuable-and the most personal-doc.u.ment a perfumer has. Entries in Ohloff's notebook is something we don't know. It's private. His notebook is the most valuable-and the most personal-doc.u.ment a perfumer has. Entries there there are very different. Here are some real ones: ”the inside of an expensive lady's handbag;” ”the sandstone dugout when I was little;” ”wet hay;” ”the crowd climbing up to Great Zimbabwe;” ”the crush bar at the Royal Opera House;” ”sunlight on old tarred s.h.i.+ps' ropes;” ”toffee apples at the Goose Fair;” and ”teenagers' deodorant.” are very different. Here are some real ones: ”the inside of an expensive lady's handbag;” ”the sandstone dugout when I was little;” ”wet hay;” ”the crowd climbing up to Great Zimbabwe;” ”the crush bar at the Royal Opera House;” ”sunlight on old tarred s.h.i.+ps' ropes;” ”toffee apples at the Goose Fair;” and ”teenagers' deodorant.”
Who would have thought that they refer, respectively, to orris root, vetiver, coumarin, castoreum, dihydromyrcenol, immortelle sauvage immortelle sauvage, Maltol, and the dreadful Calone?
Ambrette, nitro musks, rose absolute, geranium, civet, menthyl lactate, sandalol, linalool, oakmoss, geraniol ... the list runs into thousands of raw molecules, with more being captured by gas chromatography and ”heads.p.a.ce technology” (you put a lid over, say, a flower and t.i.trate its essence) and synthesized in ma.s.sive multinational fragrance houses such as Firmenich, IFF, and Givaudan. And the would-be ”nose” has to know them all and be able to retrieve them from his or her olfactory memory.
So the world of perfumery is a topsy-turvy version of the wine connoisseur's olfactory landscape. A perfumer will sniff a fragrance and think, ”Rotten grapefruit, grandma's kitchen, the garden at La Masure, macaroons, oak bark, wet gra.s.s, tomcats,” and, from this, compile the list of ingredients that went into it. The wine lover has no such luxury. She knows knows what went into it: grapes. And so the language must work backward, from the gla.s.s to the outside world. what went into it: grapes. And so the language must work backward, from the gla.s.s to the outside world.
The good news, of course, is that it can be taught. Once you have had your attention drawn to the odor of crushed violets at the base of Chanel No. 5, you will always notice it there in future. Once you know that petrol scent of a good Riesling, you will be able to identify it on the spot. Sometimes, of course, it doesn't help; the hydraulic fluid of a gewurztraminer is something you'll just have to take our word for.
And what does a rhinoceros have to do with the subject? Simply this: a rhinoceros lives in an olfactory world. Eyesight is way down on his list of useful senses. Even time is different for the rhino, who inhabits a sort of spectral world, a world in which the instantaneous demarcation between what's here now and what was here a moment ago simply does not exist. Where we see an empty room, a rhino would smell it crowded with ghosts, olfactory shadows of varying degrees of translucency. His impressions of the world alter not with the speed of light but with the speed of evaporation. Conjuring would mean nothing to a rhino: we see the dove disappear, but the rhino could smell it clearly, hidden in the false bottom of the magician's table.
So we might take a leap and presume that if rhinos had speech, their vocabulary would be heavily laden with words defining the tiniest distinctions between different smells and the way they blend and linger.
It's impossible to imagine what such a language would be like, of course, but that is in a way what wine writers are trying to achieve. No wonder they sometimes struggle.
To cork or not to cork: that is the question A CORKED WINE is produced by the action of fungi on cork in the presence of chlorine, and is recognizable by the powerful mushroom, musty, or moldy aroma. Among the general wine-drinking public, there is no agreement on just how many corked bottles of wine there are, although everyone agrees that there must be lots of them. At the 2002 International Wine Challenge, for example, of the 12,000 bottles from around the world that were entered, 4 percent were corked-480 bottles. Even worse, at a 2008 tasting of the 2004 Cha.s.sagne-Montrachet Premier Cru (Blanc) organized by the magazine is produced by the action of fungi on cork in the presence of chlorine, and is recognizable by the powerful mushroom, musty, or moldy aroma. Among the general wine-drinking public, there is no agreement on just how many corked bottles of wine there are, although everyone agrees that there must be lots of them. At the 2002 International Wine Challenge, for example, of the 12,000 bottles from around the world that were entered, 4 percent were corked-480 bottles. Even worse, at a 2008 tasting of the 2004 Cha.s.sagne-Montrachet Premier Cru (Blanc) organized by the magazine The World of Fine Wine The World of Fine Wine, at which almost all of the top producers were represented, nearly 25 percent of the wines were either corked or oxidized. If one in four cans of baked beans was found to be faulty, there would be a huge outcry.
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The question is, what should be done about it? There are currently three main ways to close a wine bottle: natural cork, plastic stoppers, or screw caps. Natural cork-the bark of Quercus suber Quercus suber, the cork oak-gradually replaced wooden stoppers, beeswax, or oil-soaked rags beginning in the early seventeenth century (although cork stoppers had been known to the Romans, the knowledge was lost during the medieval period). For its defenders, only natural cork ensures the proper aging of a good wine. They argue that minute quant.i.ties of air seep around and through the cork, allowing the wine to mature gradually, but that the tight fit of plastic corks prevents this. Who knows? There are as yet no publicized results of long-term comparative research to support their argument. Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that for wines with the potential for long aging, such as the great clarets, Rhone wines, Italian Barolos, or German and Alsace rieslings, natural cork should be used.
However, in the early 1990s, supermarkets became tired of the high proportion of corked bottles and put pressure on producers to find an alternative. Over the following few years, more than ten different types of synthetic cork crowded onto the stage. There are substantial problems with plastic: there is some loss of flavor, technically known as ”scalping;” there can be plastic taint; plastic-stoppered bottles lose sulfur dioxide too quickly, thereby encouraging oxidation and premature aging; and plastic corks are hard to extract from the bottle and impossible to push back in. As David Bird has written in Understanding Wine Technology Understanding Wine Technology, ”There are those who would say that it is a pointless product-it is trying to imitate natural cork, which itself has imperfections.” The main problem is aging. After eighteen months, the state of the wine in a plastic-corked bottle does begin to decline, but since relatively little supermarket wine is much older than that, this does not much matter. And for fast-moving, lower-value wine, such as that of large-scale New World producers or the supermarkets' own labels, plastic corks were for some years the closure of choice.
But times have changed, because now there is the screw cap, the most successful of the three in preventing oxidation. They give a perfect seal, do not cause taint or suffer from quality variation, and can be opened with the bare hand. Indeed, they have been known to protect white wine for ten years. The problem is presentation: do screw caps still imply a cheap wine or remind too many consumers of opening a bottle of vinegar?
The current state of play seems to be as follows. Most producers of premium wine, and especially of red wine, use natural cork, not least because they believe that their traditionally minded customers would be outraged if anything other than cork stoppered their bottles of wine. At a lower price level, and for wines which are meant to be drunk young, the use of plastic corks is still widespread, but they are increasingly being supplanted by screw caps. The screw cap was for some years primarily used for the cheapest wines, but today, here and there-especially in New Zealand, Australia, and California-increasing numbers of quality wine producers have adopted it. But the status hierarchy remains: do you prefer that the wine you drink be protected by a metal screw cap, a length of extruded plastic, or a piece of bark? The ceremony of removal of a cork by a skilled wine waiter is a wonderful one, even down to the suspicious sniffing of the cork, but the results seem to be depressingly uneven.
Does wine really provoke the desire and take away the per for mance?
IT'S BEEN the b.u.t.t, as it were, of jokes since time immemorial, summed up by a drunken porter: the b.u.t.t, as it were, of jokes since time immemorial, summed up by a drunken porter: PORTER: Faith sir, we were carousing till the second c.o.c.k: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. Faith sir, we were carousing till the second c.o.c.k: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.MACDUFF: What three things does drink especially provoke? What three things does drink especially provoke?PORTER: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the per for mance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the per for mance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
Now we know it vulgarly as the ”brewer's droop,” but it might as well be the distiller's or, indeed, the vintner's, were it not for the popular understanding that there is something a little more delicate about the wine drinker's sensibilities that prevents him (for this particular affliction is confined to men) from making a human wineskin of himself to such an extent. It is, after all, ”drink,” as the Porter says; and there is no record of what they were carousing on on ”till the second c.o.c.k.” And ”drink” in this case means alcohol: more accurately ethanol, or, as doctors waggishly call it, EtOH. ”till the second c.o.c.k.” And ”drink” in this case means alcohol: more accurately ethanol, or, as doctors waggishly call it, EtOH.
But is there any evidence that drink really does does take away the per for mance? That it provokes the desire, taken in the right mea sure, seems unequivocal: ”beer goggles,” with their strange illuminating power of augmenting the beauty of whoever is seen through them, are available through the foot of a winegla.s.s, too, and perhaps are even rosier (though again, the effect is attributed to beer as another tribute to the greater delicacy of the wine-bibber). take away the per for mance? That it provokes the desire, taken in the right mea sure, seems unequivocal: ”beer goggles,” with their strange illuminating power of augmenting the beauty of whoever is seen through them, are available through the foot of a winegla.s.s, too, and perhaps are even rosier (though again, the effect is attributed to beer as another tribute to the greater delicacy of the wine-bibber).
And the mechanism of these magic gla.s.ses is clear, too. Contrary to how it may initially seem, after that first soothing yet invigorating pair of gla.s.ses when the company grows more welcoming, the room warmer, and the wits sharper, alcohol is in effect a depressant. Even champagne, twinkling in its flute, hides a blackjack in its innocent petillance petillance, and in the heel of every fine burgundy lurks a thug with a sock full of wet sand.
We perceive it otherwise because the depressive effects of ethanol seem to work from high to low, in terms of brain function. First to go is that which makes us most human: our finely calibrated tool kit of social inhibitions. Then goes the judgment-just a little but certainly enough-then the volume control and, presently, spleech itselth; the legs wobble, balance fails, the gorge rises. And if all this is not enough (and by this point, as many of us may have experienced in youth, only a direct message from G.o.d would be enough) and the victim goes on drinking, eventually consciousness will recede and the sodden cerebellum may decide that breathing itself is no longer worth the effort.
We aren't concerned with such extremes here. We are not even venturing into the degree of drunkenness that makes so many of our city centers such h.e.l.ls of roaring and midriff after dark. Let us instead stop at the moment when the initial inhibitions have broken down. A man may spy a woman who, his judgment suspended by hock, suddenly appears to him the most beautiful creature he has ever seen. Normally, he would keep his counsel, but he drains another gla.s.s and weaves over to her; sober, he might say, ”h.e.l.lo,” but, a little illuminated, he will say meaningfully, ”Well, hel-lo,” perhaps even with an invisible exclamation mark and question mark afterward, like this: ”Well ... hel-lo!?”
What will happen next is equally predictable. He will, unless rebuffed (which he will not be; she too is slightly lit up), bring them more wine; he will also gaze into her eyes. Science has proven this Science has proven this. People under a pleasant degree of intoxication make longer eye contact than the virtuously sober. Science has also proven that if two people of opposite s.e.x (or two of the same s.e.x, if that is their natural inclination) gaze into each other's eyes for more than about fifty seconds, a powerful and rationally inexplicable sense of attraction forms between them. (This is unlike what happens if you do the same experiment with two heteros.e.xual men: after the same length of time, both report feeling a powerful, yet entirely unprovoked, desire to punch each other on the nose.) And now the stage is set. Desire has been provoked. A couple more gla.s.ses, or, if at dinner, an armagnac for him and a green Chartreuse for her, and the curtain falls on the first act.
The second act takes place in a taxi; then in his, or her, apartment; then in his, or her, bedroom; and is none of our business.
The third act curtain rises upon a man with his head in his hands claiming that he must be tired-he has been working terribly hard recently-and a woman making soothing observations about how it's all right and not to worry, while the ghost of the Porter cackles knowingly in the background.
But is there any truth in it is there any truth in it? Hunt through the libraries, trawl the Internet, and you will find thousands upon thousands of a.s.sertions that so it is: so it is: drink takes away the per for mance. Look more carefully, though, and it begins to acquire something of a slightly shady air. Dr. Irwin Goldstein, who founded the Inst.i.tute for s.e.xual Medicine at Boston University Medical School, told a television audience that ”alcohol use was actually not a statistical indicator of erectile dysfunction unless and until the alcohol consumption was fairly excessive. There are lots of reports that minor use of ethanol actually prevents vascular disease, which turns out to be probably the basic underlying dysfunction.” In other words, a few drinks keep the pipes clear and should make things better, not worse. And the authoritative drink takes away the per for mance. Look more carefully, though, and it begins to acquire something of a slightly shady air. Dr. Irwin Goldstein, who founded the Inst.i.tute for s.e.xual Medicine at Boston University Medical School, told a television audience that ”alcohol use was actually not a statistical indicator of erectile dysfunction unless and until the alcohol consumption was fairly excessive. There are lots of reports that minor use of ethanol actually prevents vascular disease, which turns out to be probably the basic underlying dysfunction.” In other words, a few drinks keep the pipes clear and should make things better, not worse. And the authoritative Merck Manual of Geriatrics Merck Manual of Geriatrics-not, alas, a listing of the distinguished and venerable, but an extensive guide to the frailties of humanity under the scourge of time-does acknowledge that alcohol may may be a contributory factor in be a contributory factor in up to up to 25 percent of cases, but it makes the same claim for anticonvulsants, anti-infective agents, antiarrhythmics, adrenergic blockers (centrally or peripherally acting), beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, anxiolytics, antidepressants, antipsychotics, cocaine, lithium, narcotics, anticholinergics, acetazolamide, baclofen, cimetidine, clofibrate, danazol, disulfiram, interferon, leuprolide, naproxen, and others besides. 25 percent of cases, but it makes the same claim for anticonvulsants, anti-infective agents, antiarrhythmics, adrenergic blockers (centrally or peripherally acting), beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, anxiolytics, antidepressants, antipsychotics, cocaine, lithium, narcotics, anticholinergics, acetazolamide, baclofen, cimetidine, clofibrate, danazol, disulfiram, interferon, leuprolide, naproxen, and others besides.
None of which, however, is known for provoking the desire; nor would they have made such a good speech for the Porter.
So the answer to our question is: it seems to, sometimes, but we don't really know why.
Yet what a fragile flower the act of love proves to be, particularly from the male's point of view. Cast by a harsh world in the character of ravening satyr, he is truly so delicate that the very elixir of a southern hillside needed to brace him up to approach his desire can prevent him from consummating it-though the reason would seem to be not alcohol itself but an excess excess of alcohol. Falling asleep, an attack of the whirling pits, a raging thirst, or an attack of nausea are equally effective at terminating a night of pa.s.sion before it has begun. The fault (as Shakespeare almost observed) is not in our gla.s.s but in ourselves. of alcohol. Falling asleep, an attack of the whirling pits, a raging thirst, or an attack of nausea are equally effective at terminating a night of pa.s.sion before it has begun. The fault (as Shakespeare almost observed) is not in our gla.s.s but in ourselves.
What was a ”comet wine”?
DID YOU EVER briefly wonder what was meant (in ”The Stockbroker's Clerk”) when Dr. Watson says, ”Sherlock Holmes c.o.c.ked his eye at me, leaning back on the cus.h.i.+ons with a pleased and yet critical face, like a connoisseur who had just taken his first sip of a comet vintage”? In the nineteenth century, French wine-makers believed that comets were hot objects, and that this heat produced particularly good grapes. Therefore, they claimed, years when comets appeared were great vintage years. This conviction apparently began with the appearance of Flaugergues's Comet in 1811, which happened to coincide with a hot, dry summer. According to Michael Broadbent in his briefly wonder what was meant (in ”The Stockbroker's Clerk”) when Dr. Watson says, ”Sherlock Holmes c.o.c.ked his eye at me, leaning back on the cus.h.i.+ons with a pleased and yet critical face, like a connoisseur who had just taken his first sip of a comet vintage”? In the nineteenth century, French wine-makers believed that comets were hot objects, and that this heat produced particularly good grapes. Therefore, they claimed, years when comets appeared were great vintage years. This conviction apparently began with the appearance of Flaugergues's Comet in 1811, which happened to coincide with a hot, dry summer. According to Michael Broadbent in his Vintage Wine Vintage Wine, this ”comet vintage” was possibly the greatest vintage of the nineteenth century throughout the European wine regions.
During the nineteenth century, the night skies appear to have been littered with comets, with at least three dozen of them making an appearance. The question was, did great vintages coincide with the appearance of comets? If one compares Broadbent's listing of outstanding wines of Bordeaux during this period, the answer is yes: 1811, 1825, 1844, 1846, 1847, 1848, 1858, 1864, 1865, 1870, 1875, and 1899. However, it is immediately noticeable that this is only a dozen years, and they do not include, for example, 1835, when Halley's Comet made its periodic appearance, nor the years of the Great Comets of 1843, 1861, and 1882. However, with nearly every decade combining at least one great vintage with a comet, it is clear why the French wine brokers latched on to a great marketing opportunity, with advertis.e.m.e.nts in newspapers and entries in cata logues listing comet vintages: it was a claim that the wine-drinking public was apparently willing to believe.
What did Dr. Johnson challenge his Master to drink?
HERE BEFORE US as we write is a rare first edition of Dr. Johnson's epic 1755 as we write is a rare first edition of Dr. Johnson's epic 1755 Dictionary Dictionary ... no; let's give it the full ceremony of its t.i.tle: ... no; let's give it the full ceremony of its t.i.tle: A Dictionary of the English Language in whichThe WORDS WORDS are deduced from their are deduced from their ORIGINALS ORIGINALS and andILl.u.s.tRATED in their in their DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONSby EXAMPLES EXAMPLES from the best from the best WRITERS WRITERS.
How does this most convivial and clubbable of men-he defined the word club club as ”an a.s.sembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions”-define as ”an a.s.sembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions”-define wine wine?
Soberly enough.
”WINE,” he writes: ”The fermented juice of the grape,” and that (compare the EU definition) is that. Straightaway, Johnson is off on a list of supporting quotations, beginning with Shakespeare (”The wine wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees / Is left this vault to brag of”) and working through the Bible (”Be not amongst of life is drawn, and the mere lees / Is left this vault to brag of”) and working through the Bible (”Be not amongst wine wine-bibbers, amongst riotous eaters”), Bacon (”Where the wine wine-press is hard-wrought, it yields a harsh wine wine that tastes of the grape-stone”), Sandys, Milton, Herbert, and Pope, ending with the satiric Swift (”If the hogshead falls short, the that tastes of the grape-stone”), Sandys, Milton, Herbert, and Pope, ending with the satiric Swift (”If the hogshead falls short, the wine wine-cooper had not filled it in proper time”).
His secondary entry is a quote from Arbuthnot, which goes straight to the point discovered by anyone who has ever had a gla.s.s of terrible homemade parsnip wine, and, indeed, by elephants, who allegedly throw fruit into water holes and come back later when it has fermented: ”Preparations of vegetables by fermentations called by the general name of wines wines, have quite different qualities from the plant; for no fruit, taken crude, has the intoxicating quality of wine wine.”
A modest enough explanation of one of the most far-reaching discoveries of all time, but then, surprisingly enough for the great conversationalist of his age, Dr. Johnson forswore his drinking, thereafter more likely than not to be confining himself to water when those about him were downing the stuff by the bottle. Yet there were few subjects on which he enjoyed conversing more than wine, one of which brought about his celebrated quarrel with the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the middle of a discussion about wine at the house of General Paoli, Johnson, fueled on nothing more than water, suddenly bellowed, ”I won't argue with you any more, Sir. You are too far gone.” Far from taking it on the chin, the great painter snapped back, ”I should have thought so indeed, Sir, had I made such a speech as you have now done.” It wasn't the only occasion, either: at Richard c.u.mberland's house, Johnson asked for another cup of tea, only to be told by Reynolds that he had already had eleven cups. ”Sir,” roared the Great Bear, as he was known, ”I did not count your gla.s.ses of wine. Why should you number up my cups of tea?” But the occasion ended in laughter.
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