Tasting Notes
I have spent too much time watching alcohol reviews on youtube. It can be a nice way to get cocktail ideas, a general ranking of spirits, or new bottles to try. Eventually though, it becomes an exercise in futility when the reviewer actually begins to describe the flavor experience. I can’t taste the cool refreshing room-temperature bottom shelf vodka you’re drinking inside my computer so how should I know what you mean when you say it smells like “rubbing alcohol” or has “a faint hint of bootleather”?
Coming up with ways to describe drinking experiences is important when you’re trying to convince yourself or others that:
A. The cheap hooch you deigned to bring along is actually good and interesting
B. It wasn’t a mistake to buy that $50 bottle
C. There’s actually a very good reason that you’re taking rapidly alternating sips of two or more glasses and yes, I did need to buy several similar but different bottles thank you very much.
A friend recently stopped by the other night. Earlier that day he had been perusing the wine selection at a fine local proprietor and decided that, in fact, he ought to get two bottles. When he made it to my house, he had constructed a ruse whereby we (just him and myself) had to open both at once. How did he manage to pull off such an elaborate gambit? By deciding that, as the wines were of similar variety and terroir, we needed to compare the two.
At some point in my drinking career I realized that by giving voice to the vague sensations and thoughts that arose as I imbibed, I could construct a fairly convincing impression that I actually gave a damn and had some idea of what I was talking about. Perhaps I am genuinely taking part in the art of tasting, but I find that this is an activity where the more you practice, the more you realize that they could all be pulling our leg. I remember drinking some lovely Glenmorangie 10 with my darling parents and getting a hint of the artificial banana flavor of Runts candy. Wham. Suddenly I had real life tasting note, and as I remarked upon this flavor, I was overcome with a grand feeling of empowerment. I could summon forth a discussion point more interesting than “great stuff, that”.
After a brief but satisfying maybe ten minutes of quaffing between right and left glasses of admittedly yummy French whites, we had decided that both wines were good, but one was a little bit better. Inspiring. Good show. The heavens opened and Christ himself smiled upon us as we truly appreciated the beauty of His creation. Now to be fair, I was in fact able to remark upon the wines in slightly greater detail than I have led you to believe. I mentioned mouthfeel, brightness, effervescence, and maybe even other descriptors which I have now forgotten. Allow yourself to imagine highly floral language which would paint me as a true appreciator of the potable arts.
Unfortunately, a bottle (or two) of wine does not last. Before long, it’s gone, and all we may keep of it are these faint impressions of what it was like. Focusing on the actual tasting notes of the beverage is missing to point to a tragic degree. Once me and the gang were headed to a BYOB Thai place and decided that orange MD 20/20 would be the pairing for the evening. I do not remember what it tasted like, but I look back fondly on the event. The aforementioned Glenmorangie is a fine bottle, and in this case I have a specific flavor I recall picking out, but mostly I remember that it is one of my mother’s favorites, and I think of her when I see it or have some (I ought to fetch her a bottle soon). I can’t help but hate when I hear tasting notes. It sounds like lying in the same way that captions by a painting in a gallery do. Worse though, the tasters and reviewers of the world make the same mistake as those who film concerts from the crowd, or take a picture of a sunset. Not only will you never capture the essence, you are in fact cheapening the experience by trying to convince yourself that a simple set of fixed descriptors could ever come close to the ineffable beauty of a moment in a life.