Daydreaming Idly

Do Wine Professionals Get More Sensual Pleasure Out of Wine?

hedonics:

Hell no! Here’s why I think not.

There is more than one kind of pleasure that can be derived from drinking wine. There is sensual pleasure, the experience of smelling a tasting the wine itself, and there is also cognitive pleasure, the pleasure that comes from thinking about wine, discriminating, judging, and talking about the stuff.

Wine professionals and those who have become wine connoisseurs through passionate exploration and learning can definitely derive more total pleasure from the wine drinking experience because they develop a capacity for the cognitive pleasure side of things, much as a lover of literature can do after reading a great many classics. But this is total pleasure, and says nothing of the sensual pleasure itself.

It doesn’t take any special ability to enjoy a great wine. Just because you can’t name it, judge it, talk about it like a Robert Parker wannabe, and give it a number, that doesn’t mean you can’t smell and taste it in exactly the same way a wine critic does. In fact, I’ve read reports on brain imaging studies done on wine critics to see what’s going on with them while drinking wine and how they differ from the rest of us, neurologically. You know what the difference is? It’s the linguistic centers of the brain lighting up like a pinball machine that differ. Nothing else.

So if you want to improve your total enjoyment of drinking wine, you can do so by adding to your wine knowledge and vocabulary. But if you have no desire to indulge in this kind of cognitive activity while drinking, and simply want to enjoy that magical stuff, by all means, do so.

Sensually speaking, you aren’t missing a thing.