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Guy Woodward: Language matters

The grizzled Bicknell is one of the old guard and has been making the wines at Oakridge in Yarra Valley for 20 years or so. I was chatting to him about the use of ‘appropriated language’ in Aussie wine speak, and the balance between accuracy and pretentiousness.

To make clear the stylistic difference between the two wines, Oakridge markets both a Yarra ‘Syrah’ (light, perfumed) alongside its Yarra ‘Shiraz’ (big, burly). Bicknell argues that since Syrah is “an internationally accepted synonym”, the gallicisation makes sense. “But if an Aussie winemaker started talking about millerandage [which Aussies call ‘hen and chickens’] I’d think they were a wanker.”

It got me thinking about the use of language in wine. For years, winemakers from the New World (a term that is itself problematic) have described their wines via Old World reference points – most notably via the catch-all term ‘Burgundian’ for any Pinot that aspires to any kind of elegance. It’s an effective but ultimately lazy form of shorthand that, to my mind, betrays a certain insecurity in trying too hard to ape the Côte d’Or and convey a certain sheen.

The habit is dying out as winemakers become more confident in the merits of their own sites, but I was struck recently by Anthony Hamilton Russell of the eponymous South African producer saying quite happily that “the best analogy for our wine is Burgundy”. He went on to add, more usefully, that his house style was somewhere between Gevrey-Chambertin and Morey-Saint-Denis.

I suppose this approach makes more sense to wine lovers – and has less potential for causing offence – than the long-standing habit of equating wines with human characteristics. A few years ago, the department of modern languages at Spain’s University of Castilla-La Mancha published a report entitled ‘Translating the Senses: Figurative Language in Wine Discourse’. By studying 12,000 tasting notes from a range of publications, it documented and analysed the types of metaphors used.

“Wine folks use metaphor all the time,” said one of the authors of the report. “Most of the time, we personify wine. It has character, it’s endowed with human virtues and vices. It can be generous, sexy, voluptuous, whimsical, shy, demure, bold or aggressive. We almost cannot conceive wine without personifying it.”

Some of these terms, of course, have become problematic. No one apart from French and Italian winemakers of a certain age thinks it’s acceptable to refer to wines as feminine or masculine these days. I shudder to recall some of Michael Broadbent’s descriptors that I had the challenge of editing in my Decanter days – nubile nymphs were not uncommon.

So what are the best ways of describing wines? Should we adopt a reductionist, literal approach that breaks down wine into its component parts? Or is a holistic, figurative approach more useful?

I’ve never been a fan of the fruit-salad formula that simply reduces wines to a list of ever-more unlikely and obscure flavour descriptors. To me, the result is merely a showcase for tasters’ olfactory prowess and vocabulary via impenetrable terms that mean nothing to most consumers (south-Malaysian kumquat skins, anyone?).

But then certain more generic terms are now loaded with inferences, to the extent of almost becoming euphemisms. No one wants their Chardonnay labelled buttery, oily or vanilla-laden these days. In Australia, I had the temerity to describe one Chardonnay as ‘fruity’ – intended as a compliment amid a river of increasingly lean-and-mean examples – and the winemaker was not amused. “I’ll give you melon, but I’m not going as far as apricot. And definitely not pineapple,” he sneered.

Likewise Robert Hill-Smith, who bristled at hearing the term ‘kerosene’ applied to one of his Yalumba Rieslings. In the same way, ‘powerful’ and ‘rich’ are no longer considered positive traits for reds. Conversely, ‘a touch of greenness/stalkiness’ can now be seen as a good thing in some quarters, while the term ‘lean’ is often a plus, whereas I was always taught it indicated a lack of fruit.

I still prefer figurative to literal language – it’s more lyrical and also more fun. Two phrases I heard Down Under particularly made me smile. Winemakers refer to Grenache as ‘blue-collar Pinot’, while the critic Anne Kriebel MW, discussing Cabernet Sauvignon, labelled it “cultural imperialism via viticulture”. If only we could all be so pithy.      

• Guy Woodward
• language
• wine descriptors