Simplifying or trivalizing?

“Wine” is often dealt with in an unappealing way, driving people away from knowing more about a world that is extraordinarily fascinating, if approached in the right way.

Teaching any subject that is even vaguely technical can be done using terminology that, rather than being specific and reserved for those in the know, can be made understandable and engaging for a broad section of the public. While this may seem obvious, it is not always the case, above all for those who are convinced that is through using big words and complicated and incomprehensible expressions that one exhibits their expertise and demonstrates their intellectual superiority to the rest of the world. When such extremely technical language becomes a kind of insider “speak”, self-referential and unintentionally comic, the die is cast and effective communication goes out the window.

This is very true in the world of wine. There are those who confuse story telling with rhetorical rambling, who think expressing sensations citing countless aromatic references is interesting, and not nonsense, who use ambiguous if not ridiculous terms and definitions as if they were scientific evidence. And among those who do this are journalists, sommeliers, bloggers and wine lovers who write on-line, as well as some enologists and wine producers.

All this drives away many who may just be curious about the world of wine and makes them feel left out and inadequate. Strange as it may seem, those “communicators” end up “communicating, often badly, only to a small circles of people without attracting any proselytes to the world of knowledgeable and informed wine consumption, people who are new and potential wine lovers. And what is stranger still is that in other areas, like science, for example, top sector experts, journalists and writers are able to explain subjects that are much more complex and do so using engaging and effective terms. Examples that come to mind are people like Piero and Alberto Angela, Mario Tozzi and Morgan Freeman.

This said, it should be made clear that simplifying does not mean trivializing. It means explaining, making oneself understood and making what is said interesting, using simple language without losing any “scientific” authoritativeness. This is no easy task but if it can be done for subjects far more complex than wine then it is clear that a problem exists. Perhaps the time has come to revise a terminology that no longer appears efficient, also in consideration of the fact that wine is a subject that increasingly tends to be ignored by the mainstream media.

I do not wish to say that everything is negative and wrong, but too often wine is dealt with in an unengaging way, one that is extremely self-referential to the point of being arrogant. And this does no justice to explaining a world that is extraordinarily fascinating if it is presented in an adequate way to a greater audience than just those in the know.