The name of the website is inspired by a statement by Andrew Jefford, according to whom tasting notes bore the reader and distance them from wine. We don’t know if the proliferation of this very sad literary form punishes wine bottle sales, but it certainly bores us to death.
Moreover, tasting notes are an imprecise tool for commenting on wine:
- First of all, the descriptors that a taster has available in their memory change based on their experiences. A reader may have difficulty remembering the scent of red currants, while the same wine may bring to mind a splendid raspberry for them. Yet both the person who wrote the note and the person reading it are tasting the identical wine; they just have different taste vocabularies connected to different experiences. Not exactly a scientific method.
- Furthermore, even if the assertion “there are no great wines, there are only great bottles” is extreme, it is true that, even within the same vintage, the conditions of bottle storage and the year in which it is consumed, the barrel from which the wine was taken, and many other factors weigh in, so that the taster’s glass will very likely not be comparable to that of another drinker.
Tasting notes are thus an imperfect tool. But even if they were a perfect tool, who cares! they are boring!
For this reason, and for healthy goofing off, we felt the need to open a website about wines that does not have tasting notes. Wine has the unique ability to open thoughts and stimulate conversations, a capacity inevitably diminished by tasting notes, as suggested by any visit to Vivino.
So on this site you will find:
- Impressions on wines that have interested us, reflections that a glass has led us to make. Of course, we will talk about the wine, but above all about what the wine has made us think.
- Reports of events or visits to wine shops, impressions of the world that revolves around the glass. Of course, we will also talk about wines, but above all about the events and places where they are tasted.
- Encounters with producers and winemakers, the precious opportunity we sometimes have to hear about the bottles from those who make them. Of course, we will also talk about wines, but above all about the philosophy and history behind them.
Hugh Johnson, describing a centuries-old wine he had the opportunity to taste, said that the aromas that came out of the glass were a very rapid gust of perfumes, which disappeared immediately. Incidentally, he had described not only the centuries-old wine but also the everyday one: the impressions and pleasure offered by a glass cannot be returned to, because they are ephemeral by nature. What remains are the memories and opinions that we build around those memories.
True to the principle of storytelling rather than describing, let’s keep memories and opinions, and banish the dry tasting notes!
Fuck the gooseberry notes!
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