Unfolding humanistic wine tasting, based on wine professionals’ biographical expressions

Abstract

In our time, wine-related industries express a growing demand for understanding new ideas about wine. This article explores how professional wine tasters develop their knowledge. Based on the idea of bildung as hermeneutic interpretation, we argue that there are three dominant ideas about how knowledge of wine can be approached: first, as an acquired canon; second, as a systematic tool; and third, as a search process. The intertwinement of these perspectives is exemplified by four autobiographical stories about experiences of learning, working with, and developing wine knowledge. One story is the first author's own autobiography; the others are published works by influential wine tasters. Autobiographical stories add a novel humanistic approach to explorations of wine knowledge, focusing on interpretation of experiences. In the discussion, the three different approaches to knowledge acquisition are related to how they support our understanding of different aspects of wine. We argue that canonic and systematic knowledge tends to be limited to conventional and technical aspects, while knowledge of the individuality of more unconventional wines and their aesthetic aspects is acquired through a search process. With increased influences of humanistic expressions in the world of wine, a greater focus on knowledge-seeking approaches to wine is required.

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