Bottled Poetry

Wine and philosophy consiidered … a small tasting

Transcript

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Bottled poetry, a term borrowed from Scottish writer Robert Louise Stevenson. In the interest of almost full disclosure, it's fair to say that I know very little about wines. Make that very, very little. I know what I like, usually after the second sip. I know a few whites, a few reds here and there, and occasionally in summer a rose or three. I probably know more about what I don't like, grapefruity citrus wines from New Zealand, cloyingly sweet German and Austrian dessert wines, Greek ratzina, and heavy reds from Italy and Spain. Jug wines I shy away from. I marvel at folks who can discern subtle and nuanced tastes from this varietal or that varietal. They think and speak a language I can only guess at. By comparison, I do know a little bit in the finest Socratic way about philosophies. Very comfortable, well, as comfortable as a philosopher can be, straddling the worlds of metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. I can ferret out the best questions along with the bestest of them, and I'm not particularly dazzled anymore by answers. Just ask any of my students. So I just happened to be in my favorite wine store the other day and find myself reading the marvelous and mysterious descriptions of affordable but eminently drinkable whites, reds, and roses. There were several descriptors that caught my eye. El Libre Malbec Seeing Minimal Oak, this Malbec holds a unique exuberance and verve of blackberry, plum and spice flavors framed by the wine's acidity. Ken Forrester's The Gypsy As the name suggests, this concentrated yet finesse Rhone blend is a free spirited wine. While elegant and harmonious, it possesses a somewhat wild and brambly character, with lush flavors of blackberry, kirsch, coffee and spice. Notwithstanding these terms Alibre and Gypsy, words that have all featured on his blog, I was intrigued by some of the captions and lexical choices, seeing minimal oak, a dusty minerality, wild and brandbury character, all drawing me into forbidden worlds that seemed so distant and so unattainable. On my way to the next station of Friday, I started to think about what it might be like if course descriptions in the uni catalogue were written in this fashion. Try these two on for size. Philosophy of history, seeing minimal truths and carefully nurtured in self-serving casks down through all the ages, this course blends the mysteries of metaphysics with the vagaries of epistemology, along with a soup song of simpering axiology. Aged in musky tomes of questionable virtue, the course is designed to deliciously unbalance you and free you from your preconceived ideas. Or philosophy 101. Expressive notes of liberal truths and accidents of virtue are to be found in this carefully decanted course with hints of certainty, flavors of logic, and adroitly balanced by a Hegelian dialectic. Unripe logical positivism is inharmoniously revealed to arrive at the deftly unsettling truth, a lingering disequilibrium on the palate of the mind. I think it has some distinct possibilities, most definitely. At least students will have something interesting to read while they peruse the overt and covert descriptors of courses to be selected. But then again, it might just be an idea whose time hasn't come yet, an idea still maturing in the lingering casks of time.