The letter "B" in wine selection

Unwrapping a new book over a glass…
Graham: How do you choose a good wine?
Bruce: Easy. It has to include a letter B.
Graham: A bit limiting?
Bruce: B appears in a lot of wines be they grapes, areas, or brands: Burgundy, Barolo, Bordeaux or Barossa. Even Malbec, allowable even though it's in the middle.
Graham: That's mostly reds.
Bruce: Admitted. But it restricts my intake and makes selecting easier.

__________
Voice-over

This approach to selecting a wine, among many other wine stories, is explored in a book To Wine edited by Graham Bathgate, published December 2020.

Wine descriptions

Paul waxes lyrical to Pierre over tonight’s wine.

...

Paul: Rich with lots of spicy, earth-scented black cherry and berry flavors, hinting deliciously at chocolate on the smooth finish.

Pierre: It had a good nose. But it wasn’t a chocolate finish. More like an earthy resonance.

Paul: You can’t be serious. You’re talking about that sweetness at the back of the palate?

Pierre: The very spot.

Paul: Not earthy though.

Pierre: One man’s sweetness is another’s earthiness.

Paul: If you say so.

_________

Voiceover:

Of the five basic tastes of sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, salty, perhaps only the first three can be used to describe wine.

Beyond that, the wine writer has to become creative and inventive. As they do.

Using words to describe taste sensations is like trying to use words to talk about music; friendships can founder.

...

Indicator bars for rating conversation

AlainP, a wine analyst, is telling DenisD, a conversation analyst, about a rating system for wine involving indicator bars.

...

AlainP: It’s a five point scale. Runs from light bodied through medium bodied to full bodied. It’s on the label at the back of the bottle.

Light bodied

Medium bodied

Full bodied

DenisD: I could use that idea. Couple the Likert scale to a rating system for conversation as art.

AlainP: And what would body equal?

DenisD: Body could be like information. Running from something already known through clarified facts to new and startling new insight.

Already known

Clarified facts

Startling new insight

But wine has other rating categories besides body?

AlainP: Of course. There is a scale for palatability, taste, ranging from sweet to dry.

DenisD: And I think for conversation I need other categories too. Perhaps attitude, running from attack to empathy, shall we say?

AlainP: And style, do not forget style.

DenisD: Yes, yes. We could go from wooden or formulaic through amusing to highly original and/or witty.
...