I’ve recently collaborated with Brian Metters, also known as Dr. B, on his new book “Its Not About Wine” in a chapter about wine and art. We’ve had numerous conversations about the topic of how wine is related to paintings, art movements such as cubism, and my visual tasting notes, which raised some interesting questions about the impact of images on our senses and our experience of tasting wine.
My blog started with mostly visual tasting notes as a sort of illustrated guide to describing wine. As a visually-minded person, I think and understand things through images. By drawing the aromas I smell in a wine, I feel like the description of it comes alive and the illustrations encourage me to focus on the unique character of each wine I taste. I hope that for others it offers a different way of appreciating wine descriptions through the immediacy of images and their intricate connection to our other senses.
This process led me to look into cubism, inspired by its implications on perception and Virginia Woolf’s use of “verbal cubism”. I applied the cubist technique of showing an object from multiple angles simultaneously and fragmenting it to the illustrations of the wine aromas and “verbal cubism” to a written description in an attempt to get closer to what the mind is experiencing when tasting wine. As with all my activities related to wine and art, I’m looking for a way to better understand perception, both in the experience of drinking wine and describing it, as well as its further cultural relevance.
Dr. B’s input on the psychological and philosophical aspects of perception have also inspired me to keep exploring the topic. Specifically, I’m curious about the differences between images and words in gaining a deeper understanding of a wine. So, Dr. B has generously offered to design an experiment using his knowledge as a psychologist for my next wine tasting event to explore these questions, something I’m very much looking forward to and will be posting about in the future.
Please click the link below to read Dr. B’s full article on the art of visual tasting notes and our collaboration in his new book “It’s Not About The Wine”. Also check out his blog, Buddha walks into a wine bar, for posts on English wine, history and philosophy.
Vinthropology is the blog of my internet friend Danell Nelson, an American sommelier living in Italy. Danell is the perfect example of how real friendships can be made over the internet, we email, text and have even video chatted with each other as she designed artwork for my upcoming wine book, It’s Not About The […]
The Art of Visual Wine Tasting Notes. — Buddha Walks Into A Wine Bar ….
Vinthropology 