Invinity- because wine has its own infinity

“’Humor can be dissected, as a frog can be,’ E.B. White once wrote, “but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.’”- William Zinsser, On Writing Well.

I feel similarly about wine, both in its description and in its chemical makeup. But second part first. 

The concept of wine science and “fixing” and the chemistry that happens behind winery doors unnerves me. It creates something still and predictable and not entirely wine. It drains the mystery from the bottle. 

The most magical of productions are left to their own devices, sometimes unacceptable, but sometimes raucous, confusing and inspiring. 

Which leads me to my first point. 

I like writing wine descriptions. It’s good practice for my nose, to define all those phenolic compounds. But I don’t think I’m really saying anything. Anything interesting anyway. One can read a laundry list of fruit species only so many times before becoming bored. When I taste like that, it is as a somm, looking for clues to use in my next blind test. But when I write the actual experience of a wine, I want to be closer to The Drops of God, a synesthesia experience, or a story, someone’s face in your mind or a crackly old voice in your ear. And wines that are made without the “fixing” are harder to pin down that way. The chemically dissected ones sit pretty and predictable for the camera, while those that raise themselves have another dimension, another element that defies easy knowing.  

I want more of that. And I want wines that pull me out of my seat and send me around the room singing opera. I want them to make my job as a writer even harder.