The Wine Lexicon Project: A Worthy Pursuit?

The notion of “decolonizing” wine is a fool’s errand that can’t be accomplished and we ought not to be so insulting as to try. However, the idea of “rethinking the lexicon of wine” has some merit. But this project needs to be much more thoroughly understood before the bandwagon is unhooked from its tether.

Most recently, SevenFifty Daily promoted the notion of rethinking the language of wine when Tina Caputo authored “Why Industry Professionals Are Rethinking the Language of Wine”. Caputo’s article came on the heels of Meg Maker’s “We Need To Talk About Wine Talk” and was followed up by the republishing of “Decolonising the wine lexicon” by Malu Lambert at Jancis Robinson’s website.

Together these articles present a picture of a “Eurocentric” language of wine that is imposed upon students and drinkers. It is claimed the language lacks an inclusivity geared toward a more diverse wine world and more diverse America. There are nods toward “social justice” in the articles. Most of all, the calls to examine the lexicon of wine claim that the euro-centric language fails to provide descriptors that reflect the palate experience of a diverse world of tastes and peoples.

Some of this is true. Some of this is silly. Some of this is fixable in the most obvious of ways. And some of this just doesn’t matter.

We ought to begin by acknowledging that within the English language lexicon of wine, there is an obvious reason why it possesses a Eurocentric character. Wine is a product of the West; of western civilization. It was under the eye of Europeans and with the aid of the British merchants that this product we love was perfected; that its character was closely examined and defined; that the norms that made wine an ambassador of Western Civilization were established. of course, this Euro/English-centric language and jargon would be exported to those parts of the globe where Westerners traveled, colonized, and set down roots. There could be no other option than this.

Yet it’s true, as it is argued in Caputo’s and Maker’s articles, that the U.S. has become more ethnically diverse over the past decades. This is particularly the case with more Hispanics and Asian cultures occupying important space in American culture. With the expansion of ethnicities in America has come a broadening of tastes and “palate cultures.”

I’ve lived through that broadening. When I was a child in the 60s and 70s, our family counted the Greek restaurant down the street as exotic. It fell into the same category as the Chinese restaurant on the other side of our town. Even French restaurants were just outside our American culinary orbit defined as so many Americans’ food experience was by a blander culinary experience I now describe as “midwestern common”.

Growing up in California, I was exposed to authentic Mexican food before others of my generation, particularly when I went on excursions into San Francisco. That too put me in contact with sushi, Thai food, and Indian food at a relatively young age. By the time I began working in the wine industry in 1990, it was not uncommon to see articles or discussions of which wine to serve with these more “exotic” cuisines.

What did not happen ad what generally has not happened since is the replacement of Euro/English-centric flavor descriptors for wine with descriptors connected to the larger world of flavors.

In Caputo’s article, Miquel De Leon (the author of the award-winning article, “It’s Time to Decolonize Wine”) speaks to what it means to him that wine’s lexicon and descriptor set has remained Euro/English:

“When you start talking about fruits that come from anywhere in the tropics, it’s just ‘tropical fruit’ or ‘mango.” I grew up with four kinds of mangoes [in Manila] and each one is different. That’s what I mean when I say it’s time to decolonize. We need to get out of that practice, because the centricity of it solely falls on the European palate.”

The obvious implication of “getting out of that practice” is that no more than a very tiny set of Americans would have any clue what De Leon is referring to. As he knows, while mangos are pretty easy to get in the States, we don’t get more than one type and we surely don’t have the palate experience to distinguish between four different types. We simply don’t know what a Katchamita mango is and we don’t have access to it. While referring to a “Katchamita” mango in describing the flavor of a wine might appeal to De Leon and the small subset of American wine drinkers that recognize it, doing so would also be foolish—if your goal is to communicate effectively to the largest number of people.

The point here is that non-Euro/English flavor descriptors used to communicate with English-speaking people in the United States are effective only if they are meaningful to a large percentage of the audience. Over time, previously unknown or unfamiliar flavor descriptors have come to be included in the wine lexicon as that flavor or aroma has become more familiar—due largely to the proliferation of that aroma with the increased access to previously “exotic” cuisine.

Cumin is a perfect example. My mother and father, two good folks of midwestern stock would have had no idea what cumin was, what it did to food, or what it smelled like. But today, it’s fairly common as a result of Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine spreading in our culture with the increase of Middle Easterners and Indians settling in the United States. More importantly, it’s not uncommon to see a wine described by citing cumin, particularly wines like Pinot Noir.

Successful new additions to the lexicon of wine evolve, they are not forced upon the wine-drinking public if they are to be meaningful or useful.

In all three articles noted above, there is concern expressed that educational institutions tend to be too ridged with the way they use the wine lexicon. Malu Lambert notes the following:

“As in most wine regions outside of Europe, wine language in South Africa is imported. Many of the traditional descriptors used in educational materials, tasting notes and so on are a verbal hangover of colonialism. The term gooseberry, for example, is confusing to most South Africans. The local version isn’t the tart, green English one commonly used as a Sauvignon Blanc descriptor; the Cape gooseberry is orange, with sweet flesh.”

That the language of wine used in places like South Africa, Australia, New Zealand or Argentina are Eurocentric can’t be a surprise given that no such wine lexicon existed in these places when the wine grape and winemaking was exported to them while the lexicon of wine in England, France, Span, Portugal, and other European countries was already deep and profound.

Yet it is hard to argue that indigenous flavors and aromas derived from local foods and dishes should not be used by those writing and talking about wine, whether we are talking about the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, or any other non-traditional wine-drinking or winemaking country.

The question is should those indigenous descriptors be exported to places like the United States where there is no significant tradition with those flavors and aromas and there are other more traditional and better-understood flavor and aroma descriptors already in use that will provide a far simpler understanding for the American wine drinker. The answer is of course they shouldn’t, particularly if we are talking about wine education, such as the Master of Wine course of study or the WSET.

Wine instruction presented in English in the United States, England, Australia, or South Africa, while needing to be flexible, has an obligation to teach the traditional, well-established wine lexicon that is going to be primarily Euro/English-centric. There is no choice but to do this. Passing on a well-established body of knowledge that has been developed over centuries means using the words that have been associated with that body of knowledge. This must be the case since it is the body of knowledge and vocabulary that the industry uses.

That said, it’s critical that the lexicon that is established and passed on in wine education is not allowed to become stale, let alone archaic. And this can happen. It is the responsibility of educators to regularly review the lexicon they teach, to update it, and to assure it has meaning for a modern ear and palate without discarding important, well-established, and meaningful cannons of wine literature and language.

The key in examining the lexicon of wine is to understand for whom it is being done. In the end, the role of wine language is to communicate to the end user—the drinker. What nearly everyone gets right who has spoken about the need to examine the lexicon of wine is that the drink’s popularity is spreading to places around the globe where it was not traditionally part of the culture India, China, the Far East, and other places are embracing wine today.

While it is useful and enlightening for wine drinkers, educators, and media in these regions to learn and appreciate the traditional Euro/English-centric language of wine, it is even more important that they can describe what they are tasting and smelling with a set of descriptors that are easily accessible. We come back to De Leon’s four mangos. Any wine education, professional or otherwise, undertaken in the Philippines must lean heavily on indigenous cuisine, flavors, and aromas for describing wines, such as the distinguishing flavors of the country’s four mangos.

It is in this respect that wine can and should be “decolonized”.

Finally, I note that this call by some to decolonize wine does not limit itself to layering on local flavors and aroma as wine descriptors in non-traditional wine-drinking nations and cultures where the Euro/English-centric language has been imported and used. This call to decolonize comes to mean something more.

Anyone who is paying attention must know by now that the term “decolonize” means de-Westernize. Moreover, the term “decolonize” asserts that there is something bad and nasty that needs to be shaken.

In De Leon’s celebrated article, he writes:

“Wine is rooted in Europe and its white adjacencies, themselves products of colonial and imperialist histories. From Chile to California, we feel the impact of how winemaking was affected by the conscious, hegemonic spread of Christianity. Even the word sommelier is deeply embedded in the servitude of someone charged with taking inventory of wine on pack animals. The wine world does not take into account current experiences of its BIPOC and LGBTQ+ members. It is steeped in a language that is coded and arcane, tied up with legal jargon and French techniques that only the privileged, monied few are able to decipher.”

In Caputo’s recent article at SevenFifty Daily, Meg Maker admits that “it wasn’t until 2020, after reading an essay in Punch magazine by wine professional Miguel de Leon titled “It’s Time to Decolonize Wine,” that she began to question the traditional model.” Maker goes on to note, “I think there is an appetite toward social justice that many in the industry are experiencing right now.” Part of that movement, she says, is an effort to expand the lexicon of wine.”

If the desire to expand the lexicon of wine is rooted in any way to a desire to achieve social justice, let alone assuage De Leon’s or anyone else’s apparent contempt for the West with its perfection of wine and winemaking, there is going to be a great deal of disappointment in many quarters. In the first place, the traditional Euro/English-centric language of wine is not going to be replaced. Added to and evolved? Yes. But not replaced. Moreover, addressing the language of wine does not have the power to make the wine industry, let alone wine drinking, more inclusive. Finally, there is no appetite to de-Westernize or decolonize wine.

While wine was certainly imposed upon places like South Africa, Australia, Argentina, and Chile by marauding colonizers, my guess is none of these places would choose to see their vines grubbed up and taken away. My guess is that winemaking and wine drinking in these areas, with their white adjacencies and imperialist histories, have become cherished parts of their cultures. And for this, I suspect the peoples of these places are more willing to offer thanks to the colonizers than demand their spawn, fine wine, be stripped away.

Finally, I make a plea that those who are down with the project of examining the lexicon of wine not take it out too harshly on the industry’s technical jargon. In this plea, I refer again to Miquel De Leon. I don’t mean to pick on him, it’s just that he offers the most articulate expression of the desire to change wine to make the world better.

In Caputo’s article De Leon offers this with regard to the problems with Jargon:

“You’ll go to a tasting and people are talking about terpenes and pyrazines. That’s great, but you’ve just alienated the person who is brand new to this space. In itself, the jargon becomes gatekeeping.”

It’s not gatekeeping in the least. It’s specificity. Specificity among professionals is a prerequisite for the exchange of knowledge. And if a person is at a wine tasting where the words “terpenes” or “pyrazines” are in common use and they don’t understand them, then they might want to assume they have stumbled upon a group of wine professionals and hard-core enthusiasts. And the presence of hardcore enthusiasts and professionals who use words they don’t understand shouldn’t be mistaken for folks who want to keep others out through gatekeeping, but rather folks who want to talk to their peers. The better response is to open a dictionary.

Examining the lexicon of wine is a worthy pursuit. However, it should be done thoughtfully and with the goal of better communicating the virtues and science of wine to a wine-drinking public. The goal should not be to increase social justice, because the Wine Lexicon Project can’t do that. It should not be done to bring more young people to wine because using gooseberry as a descriptor is not what’s keeping them away. And it is not a project that should be undertaken in order to punish the West, because no one wants to punish the West for creating and perfecting and spreading the greatest drink on earth.
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