A Word about Vocab

I was listening to a podcast not that long ago on which Karen MacNeil, author of the Wine Bible, was being interviewed about why her book has been so successful. She gave the pat answers about how most people are highly intimidated by wine and her book 'broke the mold' by making the subject easily understandable for the masses. As we all know, this claim is a yawner by now (who hasn't made wine accessible to the masses, I ask you) but then she went on to talk about something that was actually interesting....the words we use to talk about wine.

She made the point that the descriptors so often used to describe the smell, taste, and experience of a wine have nothing to do what's actually in the glass or the real definitions of the terms used. When we talk about a cab being fruity, and smelling the roses and berries in its nose, we don't really mean we taste apples and smell flowers. We're only grasping at language that may, kind of, sort of, convey the impression we're trying to communicate. Not an exact science, to say the least.

So two questions come to mind: 1.) why did early wine critics and writers choose to reappropriate common nouns and adjectives to describe ths particular alcoholic beverage, rather than coming up with their own unique descriptors, and 2.) why use mostly food and earth labels? Why not use words associated with art, or music, or sports?

Perhaps the answer to this second part is obvious, but I like thinking about the alternatives that might have arisen.

"The harmony in the nose of this chard is just grand."

"I can really sense the muse of the winemaker behind this cab."

Can you imagine?