Wine, Sight and Sound

00:00:00: These people are into the same wax company.

00:00:03: Yes!

00:00:06: We're ready when you all...

00:00:07: Okay,

00:00:09: okay?

00:00:09: Are you kidding me or am I just gonna bang?

00:00:14: Bang?!

00:00:18: Hello and welcome to Just Another Wine Podcast with me Doug Regg

00:00:23: And me Jamie Goode

00:00:25: And me Emily Harmon.

00:00:26: Thank

00:00:27: You.

00:00:28: Um we're going talk today about a couple of subjects that aren't really so much touched about.

00:00:34: when we talk about the appreciation of wine.

00:00:37: One is our sense of sight, how uh...we judge by looking at a wine.

00:00:44: perhaps we judge too much by what we see and how our perceptions can be deceived by false clues.

00:00:53: but The site is important as it often our first encounter with the wine.

00:01:02: I'm not talking about putting in a cork, that's probably my first encounter but they won't tell us anything other than the wine has a corks.

00:01:09: and then we will go on to talk about sound Not only sound which is ambient sound In the background music.

00:01:20: how that affects?

00:01:22: the noise we experience in a restaurant and how trying to screen very loud noises out affects our pleasure, uh...and our appreciation of The Wine In Question.

00:01:40: So we'll do that later but I'm going to start with Sight.

00:01:44: Jamie what?

00:01:46: Talked to me about the way we look at wines and um..the sort language they use.

00:01:51: Very interesting because when we taste wine, we're perceiving it and our perception is like a unified conscious appreciation of the wine that involves... It's multimodally.

00:02:08: It involves lots of different senses.

00:02:10: We don't I think put enough emphasis on just how important are visual senses in terms to the food that we eat and the wine drink.

00:02:21: So i think you know How the wine looks In the glass, the expectation it's created by sight of a bottle on a table.

00:02:30: The glass that we're drinking out off and actual ambiance at restaurant.

00:02:34: what setting are we in?

00:02:35: Restaurant or home?

00:02:36: you know things around us.

00:02:38: That really I think prime our senses.

00:02:41: And best illustration for this was an experiment Frederick Brochet did famously with a group of wine professionals where he served them one week.

00:02:50: He said they were serving on block.

00:02:52: a couple of weeks later served in the same serving and block that have been coloured red with some neutral food dye, it doesn't actually affect the flavour.

00:03:01: And he got them to record each time they're notes on their wine!

00:03:07: What he found is just by changing colour of the wine suddenly the frame of reference for that wine changed totally... Suddenly there were pulling up descriptors more appropriate for red wines even though they were perceiving through taste & smell exactly the same things.

00:03:21: So I think her sight is just an important sense when it comes to wine appreciation.

00:03:27: Emily, i've got a story which has related to the brochure's story Which are relate now and tell me what you think about It.

00:03:34: so A friend of mine runs a Wine Appreciation class but its more than that.

00:03:39: Its like she teaching them about various aspects of wine.

00:03:47: She asked me to come and do a tasting, I thought i'll do blind tasting Not because I just want to trick people but because I wanted see how they respond To certain stimuli anyway.

00:03:59: so the wines were really unusual But the tasters are pretty good.

00:04:03: They was really nailing the wines in question.

00:04:06: And then the fourth wine I presented was a red wine and they looked at it, and they smelted.

00:04:15: They came up... And i said what are you smelling?

00:04:17: What do you tasting?

00:04:18: They say strawberries, red cherries, raspberries, red berries.... I said oh very good okay!

00:04:24: ...and what do you think is this?

00:04:27: They all said Gammay or Pinot Noir.

00:04:29: pretty well fifty-fifty split.. ..and then I said its a shabby!

00:04:34: And just put a couple of drops whatever and they were like flabbergasted.

00:04:39: And I said, now what do you smell and taste?

00:04:43: Chalk apples lemon...and i wonder about people's perceptions.

00:04:51: are we so governed by what we see that we smell what we think we see?

00:04:57: um So if you're in that position Do you think you would be able to immerse yourself so much into the wine?

00:05:06: Or do you think the colour is such an important clue or cue for your appreciation?

00:05:14: Because we appreciate a lot.

00:05:17: The

00:05:17: colours are really important scents and our sight's really important, but... Our brain is playing tricks on us.

00:05:24: Our brain sees red and thinks red wine could be anything in a wine-shaped glass.

00:05:31: so already like.

00:05:33: where does that taste come from?

00:05:36: Is it in our mouths and our perception?

00:05:38: Or is from eyes which are getting four signals, the eyes relaying the message red to the brain.

00:05:46: The brain saying red cherries, strawberries, raspberries whatever.

00:05:51: And that's what you say.

00:05:52: You convinced your right.

00:05:54: Then when you find out they're wrong then completely change Because its a bit like sort of hypnotist or magician giving you the cues of the cards.

00:06:10: Is our sense of sight reliable in this respect or is it just a trick that we play occasionally?

00:06:18: Yeah, I mean i think... It works both ways actually!

00:06:21: It works in reverse as well..I think maybe the brain and the sight are not reliable because often I mean the tricky thing.

00:06:33: when you first start tasting wine, right?

00:06:35: You first start getting into it and then you see something.

00:06:37: You see multiple glasses that almost look the same often but they smell really different.

00:06:41: And its very different to how we experience...how we eat food Right!

00:06:45: Like..you see an orange.

00:06:46: your brain anticipates a flavour of an orange.

00:06:48: That's why already when you eat an orange or like comparing all the other oranges you've ever had before because you have this backlog history Oh

00:06:56: yeah!!

00:06:57: This one is not as sweet as i remember.

00:06:58: Its really acidic and tastes bit like this.

00:07:00: so there's that kind of frame of reference, of taste which is trickier with wine because we have an object for a lot of the time can look quite similar.

00:07:10: So you sort-of have this reprogramming of the brain to understand something looks similar then tastes completely different from its neighbour glass next to it right?

00:07:20: But on the flip side I mean...it's also tricky thing drops into a wine like that because when you're ever going to search for flavours, I think maybe because your searching something else based on the flavour.

00:07:35: You just completely turn off things.

00:07:38: it could be.

00:07:40: And I don't know, if you did that to me... ...I think i'd probably maybe fall for the trick.

00:07:47: But it doesn't suggest that sight is a primary sense and wine appreciation.

00:07:51: but when we do like wine courses or what we teach It's the least relevant.

00:07:56: All of your

00:07:57: information from your sense of smell and taste.

00:08:01: What about sort-of?

00:08:02: Again sounds tricky.

00:08:04: black glasses.

00:08:06: This is interesting, no because I think that obviously in some sensory work what they've done to try and remove the influence of sight and the way it can imprint over everything else is to serve the wine with these black glasses And...

00:08:22: The

00:08:22: problem with this is such an awkward odd thing to be doing.

00:08:26: tasting out of black glasses.

00:08:28: That kind of throws people a bit are trying to do their job really well in the sensory work, but they're doing it such an unusual context that I think that skews a result.

00:08:38: It's almost like you've got kind of keep things a little bit normal if want get good results is likely.

00:08:43: experiments have been done with functional magnetic resonance imaging so i'd never had an MRI scan but I seen what happens and basically bundled up into tube and it's very noisy, surprisingly

00:08:58: relaxing actually.

00:08:58: Have

00:08:59: you had?

00:08:59: Yeah

00:09:00: I've had three in total every time i always struggled to stay awake

00:09:04: really going into like oh so they have done some studies on wine where basically the only way that you can taste wine is put them through tubes then squirt a rinse of water.

00:09:19: unusual situation.

00:09:20: You need someone to taste laying down, having it in that way... To get used to it first?

00:09:24: In a tunnel

00:09:26: or maybe not making the noise and then you'd

00:09:29: have to be like not in a tunnel

00:09:31: laying

00:09:35: down.

00:09:35: Normalising the weird experience yeah!

00:09:37: So so this is an great idea.

00:09:39: but I wonder how realistic the situations whether they're experiment being so weird its gonna change their results.

00:09:47: But i think there's thing about sight.

00:09:51: like there's an experiment I heard about which i've never really managed to find the actual source for this but it was to do with a group of people that were eating under artificial light, they're eating steak and chips.

00:10:02: And then their lights normalized normal white lights and they saw that their steak had been coloured

00:10:06: blue!

00:10:08: Then what they found previously to be perfectly delicious steak now almost gagging... They just couldn't eat because of the discordance between expected colour and what they were seeing.

00:10:19: So nobody wants to eat blue food, it's like Bridget Jones' string you know?

00:10:24: But I like my steak blue!

00:10:25: Oh

00:10:25: very good Doug, very good!

00:10:28: And blueberries of course!

00:10:32: They're awake!

00:10:33: What this shows us is that maybe the site isn't a major part in our actual perception.

00:10:38: we experience the wine but its that journey from The conscious experience of the wine, the perception and perceptive event.

00:10:48: Two words that I think is then affected by... So you probably taste the wine.

00:10:54: You're probably experiencing one saying even if it's a different color.

00:10:56: Well i don't know.

00:10:57: but this interesting question Does not change how we experienced the wines?

00:11:00: But assuming they were experienced in the same way the thing thats messed around with By the colour Is our ability to go from perception To descriptors.

00:11:11: And another thing about this.

00:11:14: Brachet's work, you know with the coloured wine and how it fools people kind of shed some light on How we might be as professionals tasting a wine?

00:11:24: So with novices they've done studies in novices.

00:11:26: They get their wine There looking at what's in that glass.

00:11:28: You know there they're going into them experience of the wine whereas Professionals goes to get experienced when this straight way again two words so pulling out of their Experience have lots of different wines.

00:11:39: It's almost like a template for what this one might be in diverse ways decide What wine were dealing was And then we've got a ready stock of descriptors, I think for different wine types.

00:11:49: So if it's Sauvignon Blanc...I know there are lots of descriptor that i can use for Sauvion Blanc

00:11:53: but is

00:11:54: this wine good or not?

00:11:55: Has its wine gone well enough?

00:11:57: and so people who describe wines very honestly often find their tasting notes weird because they're telling us about what the experience through likening to other things in the wine trade.

00:12:10: we tend to use as descriptors for those sorts of wines.

00:12:13: So it's this idea that what this site is doing, is interfering with that journey from perception to tasting though... That's my take

00:12:23: on it!

00:12:23: But maybe it isn't outside also and the way it's toured in WST courses not part of us a robotic way of appreciating wine.

00:12:33: so I remember I think it was the higher certificate in those days, and you were inculcated to look at the wine but not really see it.

00:12:44: You had to look for its clarity.

00:12:47: where their bubbles... Was it cloudy?

00:12:49: And there is an implication that wine which is cloudy or turbid or little bubbles around the rim ... There's something wrong with this!

00:12:59: If it was clean That was an indication that the wine was clean.

00:13:02: and then you go through.

00:13:03: does it smell clean?

00:13:04: Does it taste clean?

00:13:06: do all these things reinforce each other.

00:13:07: I mean, this is a very two-dimensional approach.

00:13:09: because nowadays if i look at a wine And I see its very clean or...I think It's very filtered!

00:13:16: Its been stripped Whatever..i look for turbidity Because I look for texture.

00:13:21: To get back to their black glasses Is not just the tricksyness of it.

00:13:26: There's a restaurant called Dominoir in London I think it's one in Paris, which you are in the dark and taste food.

00:13:35: What your really doing is amplifying your sense of smell because you're not distracted by the food.

00:13:41: The black glasses aren't distracted by this binary choice as if they were white or red.

00:13:48: I haven't even come on to orange and amber wines yet!

00:13:50: It was the wrong colour.

00:13:53: By doing that you immerse yourself in things that not necessarily like broad-colour spectrum, like reds taste this and whites tastes there

00:14:02: but texture.

00:14:03: You look at it you experience wine in a more three dimensional way Not on advocating people to taste everything Like blindfold.

00:14:10: But I'm just saying That is the purpose of doing It Is to think less about This white Red dichotomy and more about what the wine truthfully is inside.

00:14:24: What do you think of

00:14:25: that?

00:14:25: Yeah, I was just thinking about the two thousands when there are chefs like Heston Blumenthal also doing like petty falls And then like the orange one would be red in the strawberry one The beetroot

00:14:34: jelly and the orange jelly they were reversed.

00:14:36: yes yeah They're

00:14:37: reversed around and i think it can be fun.

00:14:39: It could very playful to to sort of do that.

00:14:42: But then I also feel like maybe for some people it could be a bit of stressful experience, right?

00:14:47: Like this idea about eating in the dark...I mean i'm curious with lot things but I have no curiosity to eat in the darkness whole meal and trying lots of stuff because I don't know if I'd necessarily able get better experiences on those things Because I think in that setting A lot of people would be lost even find flavours or whatever.

00:15:08: Maybe thats not point.

00:15:11: I tried it once in Ryoka.

00:15:13: Was that a nice experience?

00:15:16: That was horrible!

00:15:17: It's ridiculous, i'd love to sit down with friends and open the bottle of wine, share glass have some food... The visual experiences are part of this.

00:15:27: when you eat your food....I love looking at them and then they're part of the appeal of their way of plating.

00:15:35: You really enjoy the whole thing.

00:15:37: And the idea to deprive yourself of a primary sense, you know in order To ramp up.

00:15:42: The other senses.

00:15:43: it sounds good but my experience was It's just so weird

00:15:48: We do lose.

00:15:49: one very important thing is like looking at something creates anticipation Creates this sort of hunger or thirst for it.

00:15:55: So let's talk about actually yeah Let's look around the pleasure of looking into wine and again we don't probably Talk about that enough.

00:16:03: tasting notes are very they're very analytical, it's always a comparison.

00:16:08: This is like this or this is like that but I think you can't really necessarily describe the color of the wine or the timbre of the wind maybe as better description in just a couple of easy words.

00:16:21: so how important... yeah!

00:16:24: How important is looking at a wine?

00:16:26: But actually sort of looking into a wine to the whole experience.

00:16:32: Hmm, I mean it's interesting because i usually teach people that is the least important part of wine but does play a role obviously.

00:16:40: But you know just simply in during day sunlight streaming through glass of wine as beautiful thing seeing their reflection like even by the candle red wine and the little red wine reflections...I think thats kind of a beautiful element.. I don't if ever really looked at a wine Ooh, that looks... I mean actually you know i have.

00:17:03: I've had those experiences when you have something very natty You know and it goes from this sort of- I want to say like an orange wine color It starts turn a bit green And then if you see these ones the colour just starts to fall out.

00:17:16: Then can be unappealing.

00:17:18: But I feel there was a move away From talking about colour post parkerisation Because think they were such focus on wines being specific colour.

00:17:28: The darker the better, wasn't it?

00:17:30: For a long time I remember when i first got into wine and you know we liked to like...the old style Le Carve was south-west France where some of those wines

00:17:40: were

00:17:41: black.

00:17:41: And

00:17:42: there's something thrilling about pouring

00:17:45: dark

00:17:45: coloured wine.

00:17:46: but now its like....we've gotten a couple of wines to try!

00:17:49: Now

00:17:49: actually quite

00:17:50: like light red.

00:17:51: if I say light red I'm getting excited.

00:17:53: in the past a light red was a deficient wine.

00:17:56: So they're our appreciation of color.

00:17:58: and also with whites, you know when You've got the spectrum of colors in white's.

00:18:02: And for some people The only acceptable is a very pale almost translucent sort Of um Very very pale yellow wine.

00:18:09: I had uh Shen & Blanc from Centro Targo Sato Really really amazing wine.

00:18:16: i poured it.

00:18:17: It was like quite A full Yellow Color But actually it was so delicious.

00:18:22: It was fantastic, you know.

00:18:23: and So when you get wines that have a maybe I typical color?

00:18:28: Its quite hard to kind of then reconcile your expectations with the flavor And sometimes there's discordance in.

00:18:34: you can think of wine past here but actually tastes delicious.

00:18:38: Also rose, I mean come on how many times you pour a dark rosé for someone the association with sugar that just seems to be so embedded in people's minds and your like.

00:18:47: How have we not got past this?

00:18:49: Like why it doesn't look water.

00:18:51: Rose

00:18:51: is really interesting because its very hard To write a tasting note of a rose Without letting that colour move towards cherry, strawberry.

00:18:58: You know when you taste it probably more like white wine sometimes but That colours led into using some red fruit descriptors.

00:19:06: It was very hard not too.

00:19:08: It's like it primes you a bit and I think that also exposes the weakness of tasting notes generally.

00:19:16: There is a way to capture in the essence of wine, we all do but its not ideal.

00:19:24: I try write about what makes me feel like.

00:19:29: What i really look for when i find most appealing and appetizing Sometimes when, if you look at the wine and it seems to be shiny not just because we stuck a candle behind it but because genuinely The grapes that make them are so healthy It's been made in such way as really exhorting natural colour.

00:19:51: A lot of colour in wines doesn't come from particularly natural sources.

00:19:55: They might come form like new oak,

00:19:57: lacquered,

00:19:58: off or the extraction that Jamie mentioned on South-Western Bordeaux over certain periods.

00:20:05: and color isn't like dark colors necessarily a good thing, but beautiful colour is.

00:20:10: And it's quite difficult to describe what is beauty because we each have our different sort of perceptions of this... But sometimes there's this beautiful pale transparency that you can see through it!

00:20:24: I also think You Can See Into It.

00:20:26: ...I'm not interested in the colour per se.

00:20:30: what it is on the chart I'm more interested in.

00:20:33: The feeling that the color gives me doesn't invite me into next stage, which is to open my nose and mouth to explore further.

00:20:44: And sometimes i just look at them thinking like... I don't even like looking of them!

00:20:49: It certainly affects.

00:20:51: I proceed with them afterwards.

00:20:54: I'm almost like screwing up my nose and twisting my palette away from there, but something which is really beautiful.

00:21:01: And i have so many different favorite things that are really youthful exuberant purple wines But it's as if they're an explosion in a hedgerow sort of type thing... ...and I love the pale you know pretty poussars authentic old-fashioned Pinot Noir because I think less color Is indicative of delicacy and prettiness, things that I appreciate in reds.

00:21:25: And i like orange for you know the fire within especially yeah really deep amber wines because i think that's a very emotional

00:21:34: colour.

00:21:34: Thank

00:21:35: You.

00:21:35: Emily do feel the same way about color?

00:21:37: Just

00:21:37: thinking about Lord Of The Rings when you're saying it...

00:21:40: I

00:21:40: don't know why.

00:21:42: so

00:21:45: they forged in the fire these

00:21:47: amber wines!

00:21:48: Yes um Yeah I want to taste this.

00:21:48: let's start right into this Socorrel, microcella.

00:21:53: Was

00:21:53: this your pick?

00:21:53: or was these Dugs?

00:21:54: This is one

00:21:56: I changed and got a sex

00:21:57: pack of it so I wanted to... It's Montenegro so its from Mallorca.

00:22:02: And this i think is very interesting because when you pour it will see why.

00:22:08: Wow yeah that in the Pulsar spectrum there of colour isn't it?

00:22:12: Yes

00:22:13: an orange

00:22:14: rose colour!

00:22:16: I invented the word pulsardisation which the way that a lot of like more natural producers are moving towards this thing which is yeah it's somewhere between rosé and red.

00:22:29: I call it

00:22:30: The In-Between Land, also you've got the paliette style.

00:22:32: Like a fairy tale!

00:22:34: The

00:22:34: in-between land?

00:22:35: Let us go to See In Between

00:22:37: Land... The Inbetweeners!

00:22:39: Do remember when we were at the Isle Of Wight we tried the Cerro Sualo

00:22:44: from

00:22:44: Amidio Pepe And that's an in-between wine, is it red?

00:22:49: But its a rosé but not either.

00:22:51: I call the undefinable

00:22:53: wines almost

00:22:54: like this!

00:22:55: So for the benefit of the tape It has a very pale red with a hint of orange maybe.

00:23:02: So it

00:23:02: was made by two thousand twenty three soccarel microcellar.

00:23:06: Is microcella the name of the winery?

00:23:08: They are also called soccarell microcellars.

00:23:10: Oh okay microcells small size.

00:23:11: Yeah and this is the Mantea Negroes The Grape variety Nice Twelve and a half percent alcohol.

00:23:18: But this is, This Is A Wine Where There's Very Visual Aspect When We Pour It.

00:23:22: And Also The Other Thing I Said About Pouring.

00:23:23: Well Just Poured The Wines Into A Nice Salto Glass.

00:23:26: And Its' A Beauty Even Before You Come To An Even It'S Not Independent Of The Colour of the Wine.

00:23:31: Taking A Bottle of Pouring into A Glass Like That i Think Has A Very Nice Experience.

00:23:36: It Comes Back to In What I Said.

00:23:38: when you Look At A Wine It's Appetizing And it Holds Light.

00:23:43: in Some Way it's shiny and because its shiny so you think is going to be fresh,

00:23:48: bright

00:23:49: lifted eye tone all those sort of things.

00:23:53: What would you deduce Emily from just by looking at?

00:23:55: I

00:23:58: would assume like infusion style maceration thin thinner skinned grape.

00:24:06: yeah short maceration as well.

00:24:07: yeah shorter maceration then maybe in concrete or steel as a vessel.

00:24:14: because of that and it's supremely textural, its quite warm around here.

00:24:17: Maybe even a

00:24:17: whole bunch or some carbonic just because

00:24:20: of the... I'd say I would say semi-carbo and then press off from

00:24:25: finished fermentation.

00:24:25: Also smells like carbo.

00:24:26: doesn't have as touch of bubblegum there

00:24:28: but not

00:24:30: intensely fruity either.

00:24:31: i mean sort of reminds

00:24:34: me bit about an ice cream.

00:24:37: yeah In fact, it's a chap, isn't?

00:24:41: It just won't be on the safe side.

00:24:43: Yeah exactly you've put it back in...

00:24:44: A bit like vanilla ice cream!

00:24:46: It smells of that vanilla ice-cream for me.

00:24:49: So this is sort of wine I find quite interesting because The color is going to be at a shop from most people.

00:24:55: they definitely not rosé.

00:24:56: its red wine You know.

00:24:58: and then when it feels in your mouth everything

00:25:00: And there's

00:25:02: no retanic slow extraction.

00:25:06: Probably could be fridge temperature maybe.

00:25:10: But I think this is an example of where the colour, a major factor in wine.

00:25:18: It's like first thing you notice it hard to move away from

00:25:20: that.

00:25:22: Yeah because immediately my brain was like mmm bramble fruit but then i get a little bit bitter chocolate actually and the wine is quite intriguing.

00:25:31: And so you mentioned Heston, Blimtolla earlier on.

00:25:35: So with food side things there were also interesting dish he used to do which involved, I don't know if he still does it but they'd involve people wearing headphones.

00:25:47: Sounds of the sea?

00:25:48: Yeah being played as sort of like a maritime sounds you know.

00:25:52: um as they ate a particular dish and what i guess that is showing us how the influence of our hearing is on our perception.

00:26:00: But I suppose the biggest one is what you mentioned earlier Doug Is um The tendency for restaurants to be really noisy Interfers Certainly with me, my pleasure in eating and drinking because it's like as you can't have a normal conversation across the table.

00:26:15: And because of that You end up shouting and everyone then noise kind of amplifies Up-and-up to the point but It's very tiring.

00:26:23: Yeah we use a lot of energy To screen out unwelcome noise and noises Unwelcome sound is not I

00:26:31: never mind if your like on the spectrum as well, because then it can even be painful to be in a situation where... Well

00:26:38: they measure.

00:26:39: you know most restaurants and London when their full are eighty decibels which is actually harmful to hearing.

00:26:45: Now you can imagine how that is going to detract from your enjoyment of wine.

00:26:51: uh food

00:26:51: actually?

00:26:52: And things will become tasteless!

00:26:53: Because using every part of your tasting equipment thinking I don't want to be listening this person's conversation or you know, i can hear what that person is saying and i want here.

00:27:07: What?

00:27:07: That person say said the food in wine almost just in the background And that's like that.

00:27:13: considering how much one has to pay for wine in a restaurant It's really disappointing.

00:27:18: um and yet noise or sound rather than noise Can help with ones enjoyment

00:27:26: and we know.

00:27:27: Also being in a restaurant full of people having good time making lots of noise also could be an enhancer as well for some people.

00:27:33: yeah, I think it's some setting the celebration setting.

00:27:36: so in Canary Wharf always walk past this.

00:27:38: just outside the station entrance is you're going into one of those shopping centres.

00:27:43: there's The Alchemist right?

00:27:45: It's SO noisy!

00:27:46: You can...you know..the music there is pumping And some people love that because it gives them energy.

00:27:52: But they can drink more quickly then.

00:27:55: They'll be going drinking but not necessarily drinking to appreciate the nuances of some delicate natural wine that is mainly chugging, whatever their chuging with their colleagues

00:28:08: I think sitting around a table and having lovely food in wine.

00:28:13: it's very civilised as well occasion what you don't want them doing the uproar around you.

00:28:23: so I'm not saying we go out to appreciate wine as like professionals necessarily but obviously, we want to be open to the experience.

00:28:34: You know well...you know..we wanna taste the food and have an opinion on it.

00:28:37: We want a taste of wine having an opinion about it.

00:28:39: But if its impossible because really we just don't want that environment And were not enjoying any aspect of it That's one noise i think becomes an imposition.

00:28:52: Yeah, which is why I think...I don't know about you but certainly at home i get so much more out of wine and not just because I swear everyone to silence it's- I love the thought

00:29:05: this that the reg family now its our silent time.

00:29:10: Why in an

00:29:11: hour?

00:29:11: Why in progress?

00:29:13: Zip It!

00:29:20: But also like when we're drinking together sometimes I notice my wife, she doesn't really sort of analyse anything but sometimes I know it's when she is enjoying it and that gives me more enjoyment as well.

00:29:34: So you pick up these small cues from people And i think the enjoyment in any thing is amplified with everyone having a good time if someone isn't having a great time.

00:29:44: unfortunately this affects wine.

00:29:46: The wine just does not seem to taste as well.

00:29:49: And it's not the wine's fault, its us!

00:29:52: We can't get away from these distractions.

00:29:54: No and also you're going to imagine that some of the greatest wine in the world is just a breakup situation or something.

00:30:02: I was

00:30:03: thinking about staying at like a swanky hotel then having an argument with your partner where this is rubbish.

00:30:09: i wish i wasn't

00:30:11: here.

00:30:14: They feel stiff and they don't feel soft, you know?

00:30:18: You just find any fault in anything then.

00:30:20: Yeah so we do bring ourselves to the occasion very strongly but sometimes there are things outside our ability to control them that affect the taste.

00:30:32: And when brought up with a taste of wine it's seemingly an objective thing isn't it?

00:30:39: Wines look like this, smell like this or tastes like this.

00:30:43: That's the simple assessment.

00:30:44: But in real world, The way we experience wine is all these other factors you know... Contexts to everything!

00:30:50: ...the movement on a day and how we feel who were with it And the environment All of this things impact enormously So much so that same wine will taste completely different On two days.

00:31:02: for that reason

00:31:02: and others There are some quite interesting experiments done on these sorts of topics.

00:31:08: Charles Spence and also Barry Smith was involved as well.

00:31:11: I think Campo Vieco sponsored them to do some experiments with regular consumers, where they first of all went into different rooms that the light colour would be changed and then people report how they'd taste the wine.

00:31:25: And if you're looking over a large number samples there was an insistent shift in the taste according to the color whether it's red or green or blue obviously...

00:31:35: But even though your under a red light versus under a blue light the temperature in your body changes, even though there's no difference and a heat coming from the lamp that you actually think... You get colder seeing a blue light than you do.

00:31:50: There are all things like this which impact their bodies.

00:31:52: so it's cool!

00:31:53: That is interesting on back-on-the-colour thing but I'm just sighted

00:31:55: to see something.

00:31:56: So they're colour?

00:31:56: But also hearing as well, matching music.

00:32:00: how have you matched certain wines with music?

00:32:06: You've got some glasses in front of you.

00:32:07: I don't know if they're experimental, but this idea... ...you could give people a set of maybe four wines and play some different musical pieces And would people then describe those wines as matching to the certain sorts of music consistently?

00:32:23: So it's very indirect sort of perceptive thing.

00:32:26: Then in New Zealand Jo Bezinska has done a PhD on looking at the influence of Music or wine tasting Weipra, Pegasus Bay many years ago probably about ten years and she did one of these sessions where we played different music and tasted the same wine to see how that altered our perception.

00:32:48: That was obviously a very informal non-quantitative experiment but I think she's done quantitative experiments.

00:32:54: so if you're dealing with... Havana

00:32:55: Club did this with their rum though professional bartenders in like a whole day and then they were getting them to taste the rum, in a black glass.

00:33:03: And then they would change their music...and the bartenders weren't told that it was the same run the whole time.

00:33:07: this you're gonna be trying lots of different runs!

00:33:09: The tasting notes completely changed based on whether there is heavy metal or classical like in some instances, I think with the heavy metal they've picked up maybe the alcohol and different things.

00:33:20: And then with classical music... The lighter notes and the brighter notes.

00:33:25: it's kind of fascinating!

00:33:27: I think a confounder here could be that music is quite personal right?

00:33:30: So some people would so not enjoy heavy metal.

00:33:35: That would interrupt their... They'd actually feel disturbed.

00:33:37: if you liked it It

00:33:39: will be very different

00:33:42: But I think it must be also, maybe the consistency will come through to BPM.

00:33:47: So like how many beats per minute that you have in so heavy techno?

00:33:53: There's a reason why runners run with higher BPM music Faster techno, for example.

00:34:02: Generally it would be much easier them to run faster.

00:34:05: There's

00:34:06: all this training.

00:34:07: I'm not necessarily sure about like...I mean yes these experiments have been done About liking the wine but also what you taste in the wine.

00:34:15: So we're talking about a room which is actually throbbing with hip-hop or techno Or whatever.

00:34:21: We are talking about ambient things

00:34:23: And suddenly your tasting

00:34:25: notes will change as mentioned In the bar.

00:34:28: Your tasting notes were changed accordingly because subliminally you're absorbing this sort of background music and it's bringing out, in your taste notes certain aspects to the wine.

00:34:39: But

00:34:39: I think what i was trying to make is not about preference but how.

00:34:44: maybe a different speed of music will just make you feel differently regardless if whether or not you like it and then you'll perceive

00:34:51: it.

00:34:51: It's about perceiving elements from the wine.

00:34:55: so it focuses on your attention mediates your attention on certain elements of the wine that stick out more with a certain sort music.

00:35:04: I suppose we could look at film scores, you know if took away from films there would be huge hole and I don't think this story will tell even half as well.

00:35:13: I'm missing a documentary about film music.

00:35:18: fill in stuff, and Jaws is the most famous example.

00:35:21: You'll never see a shark but you know exactly where the shark is because of the music it's like... so I think there's film music.

00:35:28: i think its one of the most clever forms of music Because your kind of mediating people expectations

00:35:35: and emotions

00:35:39: telling stories.

00:35:40: So emotion maybe is what mediates it?

00:35:42: The music changes our emotion.

00:35:43: that then changes to how we approach the world.

00:35:45: I think that's it actually, yes.

00:35:47: With films obviously the music matched to the action.

00:35:50: so there sort of describes the action or prefigures the action.

00:35:55: people have themes.

00:35:56: yeah if you're listening to your favorite music but its like being with your favourite people as well.

00:36:02: talking about a subject we really liked to talk

00:36:04: then

00:36:05: the pleasure is going to be increased.

00:36:08: i think its in dolphins when it comes down.

00:36:11: Right,

00:36:13: I'm pouring a second wine.

00:36:14: This is the one that Doug bought

00:36:17: Just to be playful with us about our sight and not being able see the vintage.

00:36:22: How much dust there was on their bottle?

00:36:25: Could you tell us in decades?

00:36:27: There were decades of dust.

00:36:28: this

00:36:29: is a chignon And it's from Patrick Corbigno Corbino

00:36:38: yes

00:36:39: and It has no vintage on the label.

00:36:43: It has no back level, so there's not lock code either and...

00:36:48: Oh this is proper wine

00:36:50: isn't it?

00:36:51: Jesus!

00:36:51: No information on the cork.

00:36:52: So

00:36:54: we're estimating forty years.

00:36:57: Look at the colour here.

00:36:58: This is slightly cloudy Its' not perfectly clear.

00:37:02: I love that theres a phone number in there.

00:37:04: Shall we call him?

00:37:06: It's a phone number!

00:37:07: He passed, he passed.

00:37:09: So yes... He probably doesn't know how old it is?

00:37:13: I want you to tap once for the nineteen

00:37:16: eighties twice in the nineteen nineties.

00:37:20: Imagine

00:37:20: because obviously when you don't have your phone number any more it goes to someone else doesnt' always say fix your phone numbers Like these calls that you get and then someone's like bloody hell stop calling.

00:37:31: I don't know what vintage the wine is Just some random person.

00:37:35: That

00:37:35: could be a bit of a Clarkson move.

00:37:43: I think it was really interesting though because it's like.

00:37:46: It's like information helps you to really appreciate your wine sometimes.

00:37:50: so not knowing The Vintage, its a little frustrating cause.

00:37:52: i really liked the wine but My relationship with this wine would be very different if I knew it was in the year of two thousand and four versus what is nineteen eighty eight.

00:37:59: You know, It's like...I think for me its fantastic because Its mature but its

00:38:04: elegant.

00:38:04: But that lovely like..its sexy red pepper Because red pepper isn't always sexy in wine but its got this very charming alluring

00:38:13: supple.

00:38:13: its

00:38:14: dry as textural.

00:38:15: its pure.

00:38:17: I mean there's a tiny bit of earth in

00:38:19: this.

00:38:19: It is quite farmy, you know?

00:38:21: Quite like that though it almost looks like a really funky cheese on the nose.

00:38:26: Super smashable!

00:38:27: It's just thirteen percent alcohol but i think its one of the label styles where everything is thirteen percent and no measurement has been made for decades or anything in terms of actual alcohol level.

00:38:38: The acid

00:38:39: line in that is lovely though.

00:38:40: It's seamless, I mean Chinon was on those... Chufa soils or whatever the soils are which just presents such freshness.

00:38:49: and The wines from this appellation, and his up winds particularly obviously They live forever.

00:38:56: I mean you know we've had thirty forty year old examples And they don't really change much between twenty thirty forty years old.

00:39:06: Going back to the site of the thing I just like I love the color of this.

00:39:10: I didn't-I used to love maturity Looking at it and thinking that's a really mature wine, but then when you taste it It's still so vibrant in that look.

00:39:21: And yeah the acidity is so fresh So like its still light on its feet?

00:39:25: Its not clunky.

00:39:26: It's not going over there Over the hill.

00:39:29: I mean we can try later on When we do another one.

00:39:32: But just uh...I love this wine very nourishing natural wine No sulfides added.

00:39:39: He was sort of Godfather.

00:39:42: Natural wine although didn't have you

00:39:45: know much and now I don't suffice

00:39:46: it's really pretty sure nothing.

00:39:48: Yeah, love this.

00:39:49: You know being a certain famous wine publications say natural wine.

00:39:53: but just make sure your drink with any year of release is like

00:39:56: Try try three to four decades.

00:40:01: Well, this isn't?

00:40:02: I mean his wines were always released with the minimum about ten years on the clock.

00:40:08: But he'd always keep back parcels or older.

00:40:12: You know, you have a bit of cellar where they'd had twenty-thirty year old wines and I don't know whether he topped them up?

00:40:20: Or being in Chino that part of the world The sellers go on for miles underground And the ambient temperature is so cool That basically the wines just... They don't move!

00:40:30: They seem to get older.

00:40:35: the Loire needs to be, because the wines from The Loire even today that haven't seen the same increase in price as many other regions.

00:40:42: but I'm just waiting for this to be a new zikast again.

00:40:45: Because it feels like its about time first of all and second of all is when you compare it with Alcageur.

00:40:52: let's not get started on that.

00:40:54: But the wines have really held their prices And quality For what we got was unbelievable.

00:40:59: I didn't

00:41:00: think so, Chloë Richard Richard Loire, two examples where the pricing has gone.

00:41:06: One might argue that at least one of those is overpriced.

00:41:10: Khourijad is over-pricing?

00:41:11: I also think Richard Loir is over priced!

00:41:13: Well it's when you find.

00:41:14: if she could find a close to release price then happy days.

00:41:17: But they're proportionately, even to the next best growers like Thierry Gemma who you work with.

00:41:23: You know?

00:41:24: Who was basically...

00:41:25: Thierregyammon's ones are fantastic but his top one is a bit punchy pricing now at their top

00:41:29: price.

00:41:29: Still cheaper

00:41:33: than most

00:41:35: euro wines!

00:41:36: I think the Loire is super exciting and we just don't spend enough time.

00:41:41: I think it's because its hard for people to get their head around a bit.

00:41:44: It is called the Loire, but there are many different regions that all have their own identity.

00:41:50: You can see why Cabernet-Fronk has considered being like the sort of forebearer of Cabernets-Sovignon and this what Bordeaux would've been about thirty forty fifty years ago.

00:42:03: Yeah,

00:42:04: the mummy of that dad?

00:42:06: Yes.

00:42:06: The mummies!

00:42:07: Who would

00:42:07: you pick to be a mummy and who'd you pick as daddy at the Sovignon in Cabiney-Fronk?

00:42:13: You could kind of like colour sexist say the red is the father...and the sovignon is the mother.

00:42:20: I

00:42:20: feel this

00:42:22: might have

00:42:23: been my feminist view.

00:42:26: Can they not both be the

00:42:27: mother?!

00:42:28: They don't

00:42:32: have to.

00:42:32: Is

00:42:34: that your new book?

00:42:35: Six Great Varieties and...

00:42:37: I'll actually need to produce a baby, so then you can do it.

00:42:40: Yeah yeah!

00:42:41: You can perfectly... I'm vines.

00:42:42: i'm sure they most of them just fertilize themselves but its like.

00:42:47: we know this was not the case.

00:42:49: This is deliberate crossing.

00:42:52: And one would have been The Mother.

00:42:55: One Would Have Been The Father because the mother's the one with the seed.

00:43:00: This is a wonderful wine.

00:43:01: I think also it's got these you know like when you have um dishes or drinks with um jalapeno, but the heat has taken away Like empirical spirits did this in Copenhagen and they had this jalapen.

00:43:13: yo Oda V. that was just unbelievable.

00:43:15: So you've got all the aromatics But not the heats.

00:43:17: You could perceive It?

00:43:24: Very Moorish as well, that's a result I think.

00:43:26: That means this sort of wine is just joyful and it delivers complexity.

00:43:31: its lightness being gets got fragrance.

00:43:35: It has good acidity.

00:43:37: Its got a bit structure Man!

00:43:39: Its drinking in perfectly now.

00:43:42: This is why people sell our wines, isn't

00:43:46: it?

00:43:46: It's

00:43:46: a good bottle to start the year off with.

00:43:48: Yeah

00:43:49: yeah and I think if you looked at the wine go but...to try this sort of tie up...

00:43:52: I thought we'd started the year-off quite a bit.

00:43:54: I'm

00:43:55: a bit behind!

00:43:55: You're

00:43:56: not

00:43:56: doing dry February now are ya anyway?

00:43:58: uh But when you look at the vine um again i think you see Quite a bit of the story in The way that it looks And there Is like maturity But also and development.

00:44:09: obviously What I love is to be surprised by something By a wine.

00:44:17: so although there was these indications then when you put in your mouth You still don't know it might fall two bits for all we know like it might.

00:44:24: It might just turn start turning brown.

00:44:27: but no, it isn't.

00:44:28: It's like holding its Holding at shape.

00:44:31: yeah get this like rolling tobacco.

00:44:32: But then it that limestone freshness

00:44:35: Yeah, you've got.

00:44:35: the seriousness of the line

00:44:37: exactly starts to go into like the savouriness and then it just Continues on.

00:44:42: What a wine!

00:44:43: Yes, and I feel that we're coming to the close of this discussion.

00:44:49: I wanted bring up one other thing because i know were doing Sight & Sound.

00:44:52: but you know We talked about like emotional feeling also Like for example being on an aeroplane.

00:44:59: there's sound in That But There'S Also The Pressure.

00:45:02: Charles Spence has done quite A few studies isn't he?

00:45:06: I think actually the kind Of Wines that I hate To Drink Usually tastes quite good.

00:45:11: well yeah there's this lot of studies looking at.

00:45:14: they've got a place in Germany where they can simulate the pressure and the noise off.

00:45:18: it's an airline cabin isn't?

00:45:19: that is an airline hull basically, but they simulate this.

00:45:23: And they do gastronomic work there...and people do change what they like!

00:45:27: This is why the big anomaly in the air is the amount of tomato juice.

00:45:32: I was going to say Bloody Mary's generic champagne Yeah.

00:45:36: Oaky wines, they all taste good on the plate!

00:45:38: I

00:45:39: have to say i fly so much in economy and being given sort of like bulk shipped cheap spanish red.

00:45:47: um you know little bottle.

00:45:48: but to be honest when you're on a long haul flight and you watch your movie even the terrible one is quite nice you know?

00:45:54: Sitting there for...I'm sitting here for nine hours or eleven hours quite like a comedy

00:45:59: class.

00:45:59: As long as

00:46:00: it's good films to watch and you want just get yourself but actually when no airlines now are noticed is that they really are restricting.

00:46:07: British Airways used give me two or three of those little quart bottles, I'll have an extra one!

00:46:12: Now there're lots of airlines coming around with the bottle in their plastic cup.

00:46:18: then you've got one glass of wine.

00:46:20: That's okay.

00:46:20: Do you remember when

00:46:22: we flew back from Georgia and they were pouring all the wine out of glasses?

00:46:25: And the aircraft was so, I mean temperature could be another thing altogether.

00:46:29: It was so hot that we were sweating.

00:46:31: it was Georgian airways... You are a bit of veteran going to Georgia!

00:46:36: So

00:46:36: he went

00:46:38: on a wing then!

00:46:39: Remember this crazy flight where they ran out of wine halfway through because they're pouring like Metsvani.

00:46:45: It felt like it was fifty degrees on there, and then halfway through the flight I think I came up to you because you'd fallen asleep in your seat.

00:46:51: And i tried to wake him up... ...and said The Cabin Crew are napping at back of the plane!

00:46:56: And they were all

00:46:57: asleep!!

00:46:58: Maybe that's where the most funny went?

00:46:59: Yeah, I know it's crazy!

00:47:03: Anyway well on a happy note thank-you for listening.

00:47:09: You can find us

00:47:11: On Instagram.

00:47:12: just another wine podcast

00:47:14: and

00:47:15: that is it

00:47:17: until next time.

00:47:19: cheers, sound effects too.

00:47:24: That's quite good for a zelto because sometimes they're not so easy to cheers

00:47:31: with.