The worse abomination to describing wine was in this review I read which described the wine as "graphite" (there wasn't even a simile). I mean, what does "graphite" even MEAN!?
More on winetalk culture
June 2, 2004
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The Guardian does not give the "Arizona linguist" a name, even a misspelled one, or identify the publication. The linguist was probably Adrienne Lehrer, whose work on wine is discussed in this interesting article "Delirious Description" by Natalie MacLean:
Wine writing continues to evolve into ever-more esoteric language that seems far removed from the actual experience of smelling and tasting wine. ... What could be prompting this proliferation of purple prose? ...
Dr. Adrienne Lehrer, professor emerita of linguistics at the University of Arizona, has been studying this topic for twenty years. According to her recent report, Trends in Wine and Trendy Words, wine description is getting more precise and intense. A wine today isn't simply balanced, it's "integrated" or "focused." In contrast, an unbalanced wine is "muddled'" or "diffuse." A full-bodied wine is now "chunky" and "big-boned"; a light-bodied wine "svelte" and "sleek."
"I'm interested in this from a linguistic point of view, because wine writers are pushing the language and making up metaphors," Lehrer says. "When critics try to describe thirty Californian chardonnays, they often find that the wines are similar—but it would be boring to read the same thing all the time. So they jazz up the descriptions to keep readers engaged."
While compiling her glossary of frequently used wine adjectives, Lehrer discovered that the high-growth tasting terms include "barnyard funk," "transcendental," "intellectual" and "diplomatic." "Funky was used a lot," she says. "I don't know whether it has any specific meaning that's different from the way that it's used elsewhere."
MacLean also describes how
in Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited, two young men mock social pretense when they describe the wine they're tasting:
"It is a little, shy wine, like a gazelle."
"Like a leprechaun."
"Dappled, in a tapestry meadow."
"Like a flute by still water."
"And this is a wise old wine."
"A prophet in a cave."
"And this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck."
"Like a swan."
"Like a unicorn."
[...]
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