A little break from the series on Noma. 

From The NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: an article questioning those lengthy and often indiscernible tasting notes from wine critics. While tasting notes are often helpful (I prefer to loom at them after tasting a wine to see if I agree or to identify a quality that I noticed but did not identify myself). So read the article and see what you think.

(LINK TO ARTICLE)

Quote: “Frustrated with the state of modern winespeak, some academics, sommeliers, and critics are attempting to rein in tasting notes and develop new idioms that convey quality more concretely. A group of researchers known as the American Association of Wine Economists has waged a nearly decade-long crusade against overwrought .and unreliable flavor descriptions. In 2007, the association’s Journal of Wine Economics ran an analysis of wine critiAcs which concluded that the industry was, in no uncertain terms, ‘intrinsically bullshit-prone.’ ‘We, the wine-drinking public, are happy to read their evaluations, because we are largely ignorant of the quality of wines,’ the study’s author, the Princeton economist Richard Quandt, wrote. (He and the president of the Wine Economists, Orley Ashenfelter, shun tasting notes in their own wine club.) Another contributor, Jordi Ballester, is a researcher at the Center for Taste and Feeding Behavior, in Dijon, France, who’s spent his career weeding out wine bullshit—or what he more politely terms ‘fuzzy concepts.'”