(This is a draft of a review that will appear in the Philosopher’s Magazine – please refer to the published version)
Philosophers of perception often begin their lectures by pointing at a convenient desk or at the white wall at the back of the room, and ask their students what they think the precise object of their perception is? In epistemology classes, philosophers move on to the problem of scepticism by conforting their students with the worry that the desk, the wall, and even the whole room, may just be an illusion, with the experience crafted by a malecious demon. What this book shows, is that there could be an even more intriguing way into philosophy by looking at a glass of wine, and sipping it. The philosophical problems that pour out of philosopher Roger Scruton’s guide to wine go noticeably beyond perceptual and epistemological ones – but also, and that is certainly the challenge – succeed in going beyond the fact that wine could be an occasion for philosophy (something the Greeks knew long ago).
There has been a lot of recent philosophical interest in the topic of taste, and especially the taste of wine, with first Questions of Taste (OUP, 2007) and then a Blackwell’s collection, Wine and Philosophy, to which this book offers a very enjoyable extension, from a single – and singular – voice. But it also serves a highly valuable function in exploring, in more detail, certain new and under-developped connexions between philosophy and wine. Wine, admits Scruton, is evocative in the sense of favoring associations, and this book has certainly been written to commemorate wonderful bottles. The enthusiast will recognize the great and the good, from Ausone to Romanée Conti, but the novice can just trust Scruton’s descriptions and selections to guide him through a far from dull landscape. Wine is also highly enjoyable, and makes you merry, and this book does its best to be true to its topic in being highly pleasurable. The last pages, on wine and philosophers matching, are hilarious– especially when you come to appreciate their good taste and judgement. You wouldn’t open a bottle of champagne when reading Wittgenstein.
Clearly, refusing the academic definition of philosophy as the disembodied exercice of an impersonal mind, Scruton shows why it can be defined as the ability to care for the general and the exemplary in one’s individual experience. An autobiographical journey takes us from intimate confessions — the first stolen mouthful, the initial transgression, not of jam, like in Rousseau, but of a Bordeaux, to the first offered glass of a village Chassagne-Montrachet, and how the experience is enough to call for the scaling up to a tour of French vineyards, punctuated by human encounters and tasting experiences, and then round the world, where the personal meets the political.
Scruton’s literary and philosophical references are no less fine than his wine references. While the initial journey reminds us that wine is a question of experience, memory, knowledge, and a question of sharing, it is also connected with themes that would be familiar to Scruton’s readers – the role of knowledge in musical experiences, the sacred nature of sharing in both its erotic and religious forms.
The book is not short of theses, expressed in the form of firm and flamboyant claims, and it’s surprising to see how many connections the author makes with wine, including : the objection against globalisation, conformism, ignorance, the praise of nature, the wisdom of the land, the necessity of individual moderation in the use of pleasure. Thus, the book takes the reader beautifully from the anecdotal and descriptive, to the normative, in a way that requires the reader to give in to some rather big claims. But the novelty of the topic, and Scruton’s colorful tone make it an enjoyable surrender.
Wine also brings a full crop of questions to the philosophy of perception ( do we taste places, as we may hear sources ? ) and raises further conceptual issues (is intoxication a natural kind, and does it divide into distinct forms ? ). Still, one could regret that some of the argument goes missing – and that some of the solutions are offered as the only possible ones, and the only rescue in a world where binge drinking, narrow-mindedness, narcissism and stupidity have become so common. It is as if a position was justified alone by its occupying a certain place in history in the context of a certain culture. Still, in closing the book, you may wonder whether this isn’t another intimate connexion between wine and philosophy.
5th and 6th November 2009
Centre de coopération franco-norvégien
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme 54, bld Raspail 75006
THURSDAY 5/10
14:30-14:45 : Welcome speech
14:45-16:00: Barry C. Smith (Institute of Philosophy, University of London) The art and science of a balanced wine.
16:30-17:45 : Dominique Valentin (University of Dijon) tba.
18:00-19:00: Tasting
FRIDAY 6/10
10:00 – 11:15 : Ole Martin Skilleas (University of Bergen) On the standard of taste in Wine
11:15-12:30 : Stephen Charters, MW. (Chair of Champagne Management, Reims Management School) A defence of the idea of quality in wine.
14:00-15:15 : Douglas Burhnam (University of Staffordshire) Toward a phenomenology of wine tasting
15:30-16:45 : Ophelia Deroy (University of Paris XII) Tastes and shapes : synaesthesia or metaphor ?
One of the strongest “wine-dogma” certainly concerns serving temperature : white wine must be served between 8° and 12° C, and red wine must be served at “room temperature” ( you can’t but love this expression : a wine put for a while in any room will be at room temperature, no ? ) – which basically means between 18° and 22° C. But where does all this come from ? Does it affect wine sensory properties, or is it just a matter of convention ? More of the later, say researchers from Washington State University (1). 
Surprisingly enough, whereas there has been some research on the relations between temperature and taste (2) , there is little scientific published research describing the effect of serving temperature on the perception of different wine attributes. This is corrected by Carolyn Ross and Karen Weller’s experimental study, testing the widespread hypotheses that “in white wine, the typically cooler serving temperature is thought to suppress sweetness while enhancing acidity. Serving red wine close to room temperature is thought to enhance wine aroma while diminishing perceived bitterness and astringency typically associated with red wine.”. The experiment is straightforward : let’s serve white wines at 4°, 8° and 18° and red wines at 14°, 18° and 23° and see !
Conclusion : In white wine, lower temperature affects sweetness and acidity, as expected, but also means lower overall aroma intensity. In red wine, serving temperature significantly impacted aroma intensity but did not affect the perception of bitterness or astringency. So despite the “room temperature iron-rule”, red wine would be less affected by temperature.
But can this really support the authors’ tentative conclusion that ” the serving temperature of wine is more dictated by convention rather than sensory considerations” ? I don’t see why this would follow, or at least the author’s owe us more on what they mean by convention. After all, the effect of serving temperature on sensory properties is demonstrated, so at least the convention has to be grounded in recommendation of certain sensory experiences. Plus, given the role of habit in shaping flavour experiences and taste preferences, : even if there was nothing intrinsically “better” about having an ice-cream at 4° rather than melted and at 25°, we are used to have such and such aromas delivered at a certain temperature – and this is not just a matter of arbitrary convention. Still, it opens room for thinking about taste : does it need justifications, or is it just a matter of arbitrary decisions ? What would a “taste convention” be like ?
(1) Carolyn ROSS and Karen WELLER (2008) “Effects of serving temperature on the sensory attributes of red and white wines”, Journal of Sensory Studies 23, 398–416.
(2) For instance :MCBURNEY, D.H., COLLINGS, V.B. and GLANZ, L. (1973). “Temperature dependence of human taste responses”. Physiol. Behav. 11, 89–94. ; MOSKOWITZ, H. (1973). “Effects of solution temperature on taste intensity in humans”. Physiol. Behav. 10, 289–292.PAULUS, K. and REISCH, A. (1980) “The influence of temperature on the threshold values of primary tastes.” Chem. Senses 5, 11–2 ; ZELLNER, D.A., ROZIN, W.F. and BROWN, J.M.(1988) “Effect of temperature and expectations on liking for beverages”. Physiol. Behav. 44, 61–68.
( Why wine-buyers raise an paradox for rational choice theory, and how they get “free drinks” )
Imagine, for example, that you and a friend each bought a Chasse-Spleen in 1986, and decide to drink it tonight with dinner.When you drink your bottle, it might feel that it costs you nothing, since you bought the bottle long ago. But if your friend accidentally drops the bottle and breaks it, it feels that it costs her what it would cost to replace the bottle now, considerably more.
Why would wine have such a “liquid value” ? Eldar Shafir (Princeton University) and Richard Thaler (University of Chicago) have inquired into possibles rules for what they kindly call “creative accounting” in situations where buying and consuming are distant in time. They illuminate many of the idiosyncratic (and sometimes apparently lunatic) behavior of wine-buyers. Nothing to do with them not being smart. Take this quote from a retired Bank Treasurer, with a MA in Economics :
“I find I have no difficulty drinking a bottle from my wine cellar which has a current market value of $75 and an original cost of $20. However, I do have a threshold of resistance which begins somewhere around $100. Bottles at that market value and
higher, I tend to save until they show signs of decline.”
Of course, there is no reason to acknowledge a threshold, if they all cost the same thing. As there is no reason to feel that a wine out of your cellar costs you nothing, but costs the actual market price if it is stolen or broken. But don’t you just forget the initial price ? Or isn’t the initial price just irrelevant, as prices are constantly updated (and not only for wine) ? Doesn’t wine have its “proper value” when it’s actually best to drink?
Still, as the authors conclude, the ‘‘invest now, consume later, spend never’’ frame is obviously an attractive one for the wine connoisseur, and seems to be “within the limits of self-deception (…) Rational is not necessarily happy, and irrational gives you the rare opportunity to enjoy ‘‘free’’ drinks.”
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(1) Eldar Shafir and Richard H. Thaler (2006) “Invest now, drink later, never spend : on the mental accounting of delayed consumption”.Journal of Economic Psychology 27, pp. 694–712
( Recent research shows why timing is crucial for the influence of critics’ ratings on our tasting)
Should you warn your guests that the wine you’re serving has not been rated very highly by critics, or wait and see what they say? Better to wait. But if it is a 94 points, shouldn’t you say it upfront – in case they just sip it without the respect due to its rank ? Is it good to read tasting-notes and ratings before buying a wine, or should you wait and make your “own” judgment ? Hard to tell. It all depends. Are we irrational in not doing the same thing in all these situations, or are we just smart in adopting different rules in different contexts ?
Timing for information is crucial, as suggested in a recent paper by Michael Siegrist and Marie-Eve Cousin, from Zurich University (1). They designed an experiment to show that positive and negative ratings had an influence when given before tasting wines, but very little when given afterward. Knowledgeable wine-tasters were given a wine to taste, and partitioned into three groups : the first group was told beforehand about its ranking, the second was told nothing at all, and the third was told after they sipped the wine. Shortly after this, they were all asked to rate the wine. People from group 2 and 3 came very close in their evaluation – suggesting that the information given after tasting didn’t influence the ratings that much. On the contrary, the ratings of the tasters in group 1 were higher when they had been told the wine was great, and lower when told it had a poor score.
This is a very interesting result, complementing the famous “Coke© – Pepsi © experiment” run by Samuel McCLure and his colleagues (2), which is a bit too quickly transferred to wine. The experiment showed that prior knowledge of the brand of soda given to the taster had a strong influence on their evaluative reports : basically, most people were saying that the soda tasted better when they were told beforehand it was Coke©. The experiment, which also included fMRI studies, showed that the information about the brand had an impact not just on the reports, but also on the experience : the hedonic response was higher in participants who knew they were drinking their favorite soda. This intriguing experiment raises several questions, especially for those who are eager to understand wine tasting : where do people get their positive expectations from ? would the same effects be observed for negative expectations ? what if the information was given after the tasting ? how does the format of the information affect the responses (imagine the taster is told “this is the best soda in the world” or “it is made by a very prestigious company”) ?
Are there more direct results with the wine rating experiment ? First, it suggests that you are right : if you serve a highly rated wine, say so beforehand, whereas, if it is poorly rated, wait till after your guests have sipped. But does this research help you to know whether you should read notes before or after tasting ? Not really. You can’t know beforehand whether the ratings will be good or not, and the question as to whether the critics’ influence is good or bad is a big debate (3).
What this shows is that your experience may be influenced by what you’ve been told. The title talks about expectations and sensory experience in general, but this has to be taken with caution : the paper deals with expectations that have just been formed and recent information which is very vivid in one’s mind (what about “older” expectations, and ratings you have read weeks ago?). It also targets the hedonic aspect of the experience, not its qualitative – or indeed specifically sensory – aspect. Still, this is another great step in showing that beliefs and expectations have some influence on the experience itself, and not just on our way of reporting it.
(1) Michael Siegrist and Marie-Eve Cousin (2009) « Expectations influence sensory experience in a wine tasting », Appetite, Volume 52, Issue 3, Pages 762-765. Click here to connect to the editor’s website .
(2)Samuel M. McClure,1,2 Jian Li,1 Damon Tomlin, Kim S. Cypert, Latane´ M. Montague, and P. Read Montague (2004) «Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for Culturally Familiar Drinks » Neuron, Vol. 44, Pages 379–387 (a version is available on Samuel McClure website, in Stanford.
(3) A good question for philosophers : see for instance Gloria Origgi (2007) “Wine Epistemology : the role of reputational and ranking systems in the World of Wine”, in Barry C. Smith (ed.) Questions of Taste : The Philosophy of Wine. New York : Oxford University Press, pages 183-198.
Mentioning “terroir” has not always been the way of promoting “authentically French wines”. In the old days, there were less direct methods….
(01/01/ 1982 – Source : INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, Advertising DataBase))
