I never have quite binged on Evelyn Waugh’s novels, which is probably a good thing. I was 15 when I first read Decline and Fall, which I loved, but then was disappointed by his second novel, Vile Bodies. I suppose that 15 year olds do not quite get the irony and the self-deprecating social commentary about the mores of that era.
That did not stop me reading Put Out More Flags soon afterwards, and Brideshead Revisited at age 16. I was at university when I read the Sword of Honour trilogy, and read A Handful of Dust just after graduating.
By the time I read the latter, I had assimilated a good basic understanding of the underlining themes of repentance and redemption that drive Roman Catholicism, and which make up a large part of the subconscious hard wiring of myself and many other Westerners, even those of us who are only nominally Catholic.
And hence I finally ‘got’ Brideshead Revisited, a mere five years after reading it.
I have not reread it since 1985, although I think that I really ought to, and my copy of it is sitting on the desk next to me as I type, for reasons which are soon to become self evident.
Thumbing through it last night, I found the episode in Chapter Four of Book One in Brideshead where the narrator, Charles Ryder, along with his friend Lord Sebastian Flyte, decide to taste a large number of the wines from the castle cellar, aided and abetted by the family butler, Wilcox, and a book on wine tasting to guide their adventure.
Here, for your literary edification, is the passage in question:
“We would sit, he and I, in the Painted Parlour with three bottles open on the table and three glasses before each of us; Sebastian had found a book on wine-tasting, and we followed its instructions in detail. We warmed the glass slightly at a candle, filled it a third high, swirled the wine round, nursed it in our hands, held it to the light, breathed it, sipped it, filled our mouths with it, and rolled it over the tongue, ringing it on the palate like a coin on a counter, tilted our heads back and let it trickle down the throat. Then we talked of it and nibbled Bath Oliver biscuits, and passed on to another wine; then back to the first, then on to another, until all three were in circulation and the order of glasses got confused, and we fell out over which was which, and we passed the glasses to and fro between us until there were six glasses, some of them with mixed wines in them which we had filled from the wrong bottle, till we were obliged to start again with three clean glasses each, and the bottles were empty and our praise of them wilder and more exotic.
‘…It is a little shy wine like a gazelle.’
‘Like a leprechaun.’
‘Dappled, in a tapestry meadow.’
‘Like flute by still water.’
‘…And this is a wise old wine.’
‘A prophet in a cave.’
‘…And this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck.’
‘Like a swan.’
‘Like the last unicorn.’
And we would leave the golden candlelight of the dining-room for the starlight outside and sit on the edge of the fountain, cooling our hands in the water and listening drunkenly to its splash and gurgle over the rocks.”
It is rather funny, looking at those elegant yet crass words which were published some eighty years ago.
I was thinking of the wine tasting scene specifically because I just got back from a road trip to Rutherglen with my best friend and his 18 year old son, who happens to be my godson. Rutherglen happens to be my favourite wine region, with its fantastic big dry Shirazes and Durifs, destined to last for very many years, and its magnificent fortified wines.
I came back with five standard bottles of various dry reds, a magnum of a back vintage of Calliope (my favourite wine), and a bottle of fine fortified wine.
[Plus the inevitable hole in my bank account.]
I did look at a few tasting notes on my travail through the vineyards and cellar doors. I will share the brief description of various wines from one of the various cellar door newsletters I regularly receive from the region:
. Juicy mid palate with subtle tannin and savoury finish
. Ripe berry fruit and robust tannin
. A pristine core of black fruit, deep tannin, touches of clove and black pepper
. Succulent cherry structure and fruit, velvety tannins
. Joyous combination of red fruits, blueberries and spice on the nose. Blackberry, mocha and elegant tannins.
Similar descriptors was applied to tasting notes for wines at just about every cellar door we visited.
It does get me thinking about who writes those tasting notes, and how accurate they might be.
Last Friday, I was at the Kelvin Club (one of the private clubs in the city, and the only one to which I currently belong) for the monthly luncheon of the Bottle Club. Since retiring, I have decided to get more involved in the social life of my Club, and hence have started attending the Bottle Club from time to time.
The members tend to be about two decades older than I, far better travelled, wealthier (or at least better situated in their residential suburbs), and with far more experience and knowledge of wine (although in my usual circle of friends, I am one of the more knowledgeable wine buffs).
Someone at that lunch said something which got me thinking. Apparently where there is a blind tasting of wine, where you cannot see the colour (a flask with a straw), most people cannot tell the difference between white and red. Similarly, if you feed people strawberry flavoured ice cream which is coloured brown, people think that they are eating chocolate ice cream.
This was interesting, and combined with my trip to Rutherglen and pondering about the common sorts of descriptors on tasting notes, it has really got me thinking.
Could some sort of Artificial Intelligence program, such as Chat GPT, successfully take over the writing of wine tasting notes, or even of entire wine guide books? Would Chat GPT be more accurate?
Would anyone even notice?
Or care?
Of course, I am being a little spiteful. Wine critics and commentators get paid to both drink wine and then write about it. Wine consumers pay to drink wine, and then might, as in my case, occasionally blog about it for free. This does cause wine consumers to feel a certain degree of resentment about wine critics.
Hence, whilst I am usually reluctant to support the introduction of Artificial Intelligence into areas where humans should have an exclusive preserve, I think, possibly out of spite, that an experiment in getting Chat GPT to write wine tasting notes would be very interesting.
Lost For Words! 