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Château Sucker
Even at Rudy Kurniawan’s coming-out party in September 2003, there were questionable bottles of wine. -
Graphite, currant, camphor: Wine descriptors tell us more about a bottle’s price than its flavor.
The seventh edition of Robert Parker’s Wine Buyers’ Guide is 1,513 pages. It weighs 4.1 pounds, more than a magnum worth of wine, and eve… -
Does All Wine Taste the Same?
Editors’ Note: Portions of this post appeared in similar form in an April, 2011, post by Jonah Lehrer for Wired.com. We regret the duplic… -
The Language of Food
What characterizes inexpensive chip advertising? Text on these chips tend to use simpler sentences and simpler words, with writing and vo…
Château Sucker
Character
–What kind of character is Rudy? How is he similar (or different) to characters you know from movies and books?
–How does Wallace show you aspects about Rudy’s character, without telling you directly?
–Who’s in the supporting cast of characters? Do they matter?
Technique
–What is ‘bewitching’ to you, as a reader, about the world Wallace is describing?
–What words does Wallace use to create this world? (e.g., ‘rarities’, ‘irresistible’, ‘exalted’, etc) How is his choice of words important?
–What metaphors does Wallace use to explain aspects of the story? (e.g., “a taste library in his head”)
–How does Wallace ‘compress’ the narrative? For example, can you think of a detail or line in the article that tells us more than simply itself?
Structure
–What are the mechanics of the opening? How do the opening lines ‘hook’ you or draw you in?
–Describe the steps Wallace takes in unraveling the story, from beginning to end. (e.g., you might say: “He starts by throwing us into the rarified world of old wine collecting, where fraud is suspected. Then he properly introduces us to our anti-hero, Rudy Kurniawan. Next…”)
–What is the pacing of the article like? Is it effective? Why or why not?
What We Take Away
–Is there a moral to the story? Is there anything you learn about people from it?
–Wallace has a lot to say about wine, auction houses and fraud. Do you feel like you learned something? What sticks in your head?
Ridiculous wine descriptors
This article is notable because Crumme decides to investigate the question herself!
–Crumme is not necessarily the best science writer for a lay audience. Can you summarize, in simpler terms, what the difference is between how experts describe high-priced and low-priced wines? How did Crumme come to this conclusion?
–According to Crumme, why do critics describe higher-priced wines differently? Do you agree with the causal story she’s telling?
–What do you think about Crumme’s claim that, “It’s unlikely [that] experts have such precise sense that they can identify minute variations of tastes and odors that a sophisticated machine cannot observe at all” ? Where might this kind of claim break down?
Does All Wine Taste the Same?
I’ve assigned this post because Lehrer gets a lot wrong in terms of how he interprets the studies he presents here. With your scientist cap on, can you think about any problems with his interpretations and conclusions, right off the bat? (You can also look at the studies he cites, if you want to dig deeper)