Is pleasure the elephant in the room?
It was after my third or fourth trade tasting that I’d started developing my poker face. I’d successfully managed to suppress my delight at tasting wines I’d been studying for my WSET course. Rieslings from Alsace, Pinot Noirs from Burgundy, Syrahs from the Sonoma Valley - all taken in with a frown and a faraway expression and then spat out with an arched eyebrow of indifference. When I later began to look for new additions for a wine list, my poker face seemed set in concrete, as I worked my way around the room and scribbled notes next to each wine. Producers and winemakers kept their distance and watched me furrow my brow, thoughtfully considering the wine that they had made, with their hands, in their estate. The dynamic wasn’t entirely comfortable.— Sophia Longhi
Sophia Longhi
Then one day, a curious and chatty study friend came to a tasting with me and, without a hint of self-consciousness, showed her enthusiasm for the wines, asked the producers questions and started discussions and comparisons. The stifling silence had been broken, the air didn’t feel so dry anymore and the wines sang with life.
It made me think back to meeting Izele van Blerk, a winemaker for KWV The Mentors, who spoke with so much energy and merriment about her wines. She talked about the pleasure of drinking bottles rather than saving them, sharing them at parties and enjoying them. Lalou Bize-Leroy’s opinion on wine writers and their obsession with cellaring dates came to mind, too. Burgundy’s “La Tigress” had said: “They should write about how they feel, what’s going on inside them when they drink the wine.”
Emotion didn’t seem to play a part at all in a professional wine tasting environment. But, in a room full of people who are passionate about wine - wine lovers and experts - tasting exceptional, sometimes life-affirming wines, surely pleasure must exist? Behind closed lids, are eyes rolling backwards; somewhere in our throats, are sighs being stifled? Is pleasure the elephant in the room?
I understand that for sommeliers, buyers, writers, educators, merchants, critics and students that wine is work and there needs to be space for serious consideration. Time is also a factor and perhaps people prefer not to show their reaction to a wine to avoid getting into a sales chat with the winery representative, especially if they only have an hour to go around the room.
Master of Wine student Melissa Worrall explains that “a lot of people at trade tastings are focused on a particular task on a tight time frame for that session and so perhaps don’t let the joy shine through.” Worrall also suggested that the terminology we have traditionally used in the wine industry might have played a part in behaviours and attitudes. She considers, for example, that the move away from the term ‘wine critic’ is a positive one. “I’ve always felt ‘critic’ was unkind to the effort, energy and enthusiasm a winemaker imparts into their wines,” Worrall says.
Melissa Worrall
Worrall highlights the gap between the winemaker and the wine trade professional, which I think can be quite chasmic in these starchy tasting environments and makes for a strange power dynamic. It’s interesting to consider where this stiff-upper lip culture in the tasting room came from and I think that a few factors, from gender to social class, play their parts.
In an industry that has always had vastly more men in it than women, it has been men who have shaped our wine culture in the UK. Men have had the biggest mouthpieces and have forged the way in which we communicate about wine. Perhaps we would talk about wine and act around wine differently now if women had been able to lead the way in wine from the outset? We can’t know, but we can see, for example, that online content has moved in a much more creative and engaging direction in recent years, since more women have become active in wine communication online. It has changed a great deal from the straightforward bottle shots and scoring of yesteryear. I know it’s stereotypical to say that it is more feminine to be more emotionally connected (and obviously a complete generalisation), but would there be more emphasis on the emotive experience of tasting and writing about wine if women had been more central to our wine culture historically? Would we feel more comfortable expressing our feelings about wine if there were more women in tasting rooms now? Perhaps wine has become so over-intellectualised that its very essence has been lost in translation.
We also can’t deny that wine, in particular fine wine, has long been an interest or a vocation for those from privileged backgrounds. How has this set the tone for the way we behave at a trade tasting? Should one show composure when tasting a wine? Would appearing moved by a spectacular wine give the impression that one is not used to tasting wines of that calibre, and so a stony-faced facade is assumed? Is it related to power, even? Is the producer of a wine merely a vessel or even a servant for this valuable commodity?
“I think, for many in the industry,” says wine consultant Chloe Dickson, “it’s a mix of superiority, hubris, ego, fine wine privilege and becoming completely out of touch with what actually makes for a fantastic glass of wine.”
Chloe Dickson
Wine is also different things to different people. To some, it is purely epicurean and to others it is purely work - something to be bought and sold, through commerce or through communication. For most people in the trade, wine sits somewhere between the two and I suppose that care needs to be taken with how far it swings from one side to the other.
Libby Brodie, a wine columnist and communicator, expresses how important it is to show excitement about wine, even if it is one’s work. “I can understand that if you taste so much it might get a little blasé for you… but then maybe you shouldn’t be in wine,” she says.
It is certainly true that if your job is to communicate to the consumer about wine, then part of the job description is to remain enthusiastic and curious.
I ask wine blogger Tim Milford if he thinks we can we be professional and show pleasure. “Absolutely,” says Tim. “For me, wine is there to be enjoyed and I would rather people express themselves when tasting the wines as it helps with the communal experience.”
Based on my own experiences, I would agree with Tim that, even in a professional setting, I have gained more from communal tasting, where I have discussed wines with a fellow attendee and have expressed my thoughts, opinions and reactions honestly and openly - and they have theirs. And that might mean swooning or saying something poetic when tasting a 1996 Barolo and feeling comfortable doing that, without being judged as uncouth or silly (I’ll share my Barolo poetry with you another time).
Wine has moved on from a culture of restraint and pomp in many ways and it’s wonderful to see trade tastings becoming more relaxed and welcoming. I’ve certainly ditched my poker face and feel a little ashamed that, through trying to fit in, I even adopted it in the first place.