No, Wine Writers Are Not Still Needed

A Response to the Masters of Wine

I’m not convinced anyone actually likes the act of reading. It’s a tedious physical affair, running your eyes over a series of symbols that form sounds. And while the transmission of those sounds transform into meaning in your brain smacks of pure magic, that too isn’t what we like about reading. What we really love about reading is the thrill of absorbing ideas. Boom…out of the brain of someone else, onto a palette of some sort then into our brain. Talk about real magic.

I thought about the act of reading as I considered one of the questions that was posed to participants in the Masters of Wine exam that was administered to candidates in late July in Adelaide, London, and Napa. One optional question that MW candidates were able to choose to answer was this:

DOES ANYONE STILL NEED WINE WRITERS?

It’s an interesting question because the answer is so obvious it really could be answered with one word: “Yes”. Moreover, if any of the MW candidates chose to briefly busy themselves with this kind of brevity in response to the question, it’s doubtful any of the test proctors would challenge their response. Because of course folks still need wine writers. Instead, the response of the test proctor upon seeing that correct one-word answer would likely be: “Which of the many reasons why folks still need wine writers do you hang your “yes” upon?”

Quite obviously the designers of the MW test tossed in this question to determine if the candidate understood the various functions that writers play in the world of wine. Any explanation of a “yes” response would almost surely seem pedantic there are so many good reasons wine writing is still needed.

What would be really interesting to read is a well-constructed argument for why wine writers are NOT needed any longer.

It would be an achievement to see even a semi-convincing written defense of the proposition that there is no group that has any need for explanations or explorations into the nature of wine. And of course, it would be hilariously ironic to see a Master of Wine candidate, who is attempting to accumulate a body of actionable knowledge about wine, make this case.

I’m not now pursuing, nor have I ever had any desire to pursue, an MW certification or anything like it. But if I were sitting for this MW exam, it would be in my nature, upon seeing that ludicrous question, to take a stab at the negative.

Despite the romance that has too long infected the business of making and drinking and serving wine, in the end, all those activities are undertaken for one reason and only one reason that requires absolutely no deep thought, let alone scribes dedicated to expounding upon them: quenching thirst with an option to alter one’s brain chemistry.

In fact, if we could rid the world of those who attempt to convince us through their writing that there is something mystical or romantic or meaningful about tipping a cup of wine, drinkers could then set about the task of inebriating themselves without the distraction of words on a page—words that really just get between the wine and the brain.

The indictment of wine writing and wine writers’ utility is also laid out in the economic argument against them. Seeming unable to write simple, objective facts about wine and instead almost always finding some way and excuse for ranking wines, wine writers inevitably increase the perceived value and, hence, the cost of some wines, which serves no one who, in the end, really wants only to alter their perception of the world around them via the consumption of alcohol in the form of wine. Access to inebriation ought to be as easy and affordable as breathing air. Wine writers needlessly increase the cost of this natural act.

None of this is to suggest that writing and writers aren’t profound and necessary gifts to humanity. The communication of ideas—simple, utilitarian, profound or beautiful—is necessary for human progress and for the well-being of our species. But the competent, as well as the expert writer who turns their attention to simple, fermented fruit juice, inevitably injects unneeded folly and ideas of privilege and rank into a process that is and always ought to be a simple physiological process of inebriating the mind. We would not give any serious consideration to a writer that turned their attention to the natural movement of the bowels. Neither do we need to be similarly distracted from the task of adding the filter of alcohol to our perception of the nasty world we live in.

No! Nobody has any need for wine writers and their glorification of one wine over another, their unnecessarily romantic view of the science behind fermentation or the cost they add to the simple process of swallowing wine along with its most important ingredient: alcohol.

Surely this would not pass by the MW exam graders without notice. Though I have a feeling I might offend most of them, and with obvious good reasons. Still, were I in the position to have taken this test I’m not sure I could help myself.