Certain statements about life are certain. Crows are black. Silk is soft. Wine can be red, or white, or pink. There are shades of gray between these observations where more descriptive terms can provide pinpoint accuracy. Perhaps the crow is jet black, or a wine is more magenta or violet. These are small differences of opinion, but in the end they are basic observations, upon which a certain level of agreement must be reached if the conditions of reality are to be respected and believed. That being said, a wine tasting good or bad does not fall into this objectivity. There is no objective state of taste because different people can taste different flavors, which they either find pleasing or do not. The question I proposed in my last post (link) was whether a wine can be objectively good or bad, and if so, what would that mean?

There seemed to be some misunderstanding in my conclusion by both some colleagues and by others who read the piece. I used a statement from Henriot to jump into the debate, where he stated that he was alright with someone not liking his wines, but that they could not tell him that the wine was not of good quality. What I wanted to discuss was NOT whether Henriot’s wines were of a good quality, which I believe they are, but rather why someone would have to submit to a second subjective state of being; isn’t “good quality” also a subjective opinion?

The point I wanted to make was NOT that a wine could be good even if I didn’t like it. I firmly believe that it is possible. However, when I don’t like a wine, I am not thinking about whether it is well made or not. More important to me is the idea that “well-made” is also not something that everyone can agree upon; it is not necessarily an objective quality of wine that exists whether someone recognizes it or not. Does “good quality” fall into the “the crow is black” state of being?

If I think a wine is of good quality but somebody else does not, would they be wrong? How can you be wrong if that is your opinion? If someone looked at a black crow and said that it was pink, they would be incorrect. If someone ran their hand along a silk scarf and claimed that it was hard as a rock that would also be false. It would most likely stem from a misunderstanding of terms. However, I don’t think that “good quality” is a defined state of being that has certain fixed conditions like “soft” or “black” do, otherwise there wouldn’t be such controversy about critics’ opinions.

The overall argument is philosophical: that “well made” and “good quality” can exist outside of taste, but are they not still a matter of taste? I must taste a wine to know if it is of good quality, and still what does that mean when I say that it is? Does that mean that it doesn’t have any flaws from winemaking? If that is the definition then there are a lot of great cheap wines out there that would be just as high in quality as the expensive Burgundies. What I want to know is why we feel it is necessary to defend our tastes by throwing out what we believe are qualities that cannot be debated; as if to say, “Well, you may not like it, but it is undeniably good,” in order to put them in their place, or assert authority in the matter. If I recommend a wine to someone that I think is dynamite, and they say, “I’ve had it and I don’t like it,” all I can do is shrug my shoulders and move on. When I spend a lot of money on a bottle for dinner and my girlfriend Cecilia doesn’t like it, it is frustrating, but what can I do? That’s my point. Certain people just don’t like things and that’s that—even when we think they’re out-of-this-world. Whether the wine is of good quality is irrelevant. Maybe most people believe that it is, but who’s to say that it’s an objective fact?

—David Driscoll