Journal of Wine Economics Volume 3 | 2008 | No. 1

The essays in this volume are based on a December 2004 conference sponsored by the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study. The con- ference was entitled Philosophy and Wine from Science to Subjectivity. The ten chapters in the volume either had their roots in the proceedings from this conference or were com- missioned pieces following the conference. The list of contributing writers includes seven professional philosophers, a wine educator, a biochemist, a wine critic, and a wine-maker (albeit one with an undergraduate degree in philosophy).

In her forward to the text, noted wine writer Jancis Robinson asks “could this book represent the most fun you can have with wine without drinking a single drop?” (p. viii). For the casual reader, the answer to this question would be no. This book is not a bedside reader. The essays contained in this text are serious academic works prepared by philoso- phers, wine writers, and natural scientists. The chapters require study and contemplation by the reader to reach their full meaning. Approached from an academic perspective, the book becomes informative and pleasurable to read.

Plato, Locke, Hume, and Kant all discussed the wines they enjoyed and favored (p. xi). They, like other philosophers, however, have not applied their craft of philosophy to the study of the enjoyment of wine. For those who enjoy fine wine, this enjoyment is a very reflective process. Care is taken to buy wine from specific vintages. Wine is kept at con- trolled temperatures to safeguard its quality. Discussion takes place regarding when to open certain wines. Writers provide instruction on deciphering labels on foreign bottles of wine. Books are written concerning the pairing of food and wine. The intricacies of enjoy- ing wine are to be contemplated. It is this contemplation and reflection of the taste of wine that provides a role for the philosopher.

When individuals discuss and reflect upon wine and its taste, the assumption is made that they taste the same thing. But is that actually the case? In ontological terms do we know what we are actually tasting (p. xiii)? To speak like an economist, the question is, does the utility from drinking wine come from the wine itself or does it come from the experience of drinking the wine? If it is the experience, what is it that determines the characteristics of the experience? Does a drinker of wine learn how to appreciate the experience and how is that appreciation learned. To paraphrase an often used quote, is it the case that “I don’t know wine, but I know what I like” or is it that “I have to know wine to know what I like.”

Wine critics can subjectively describe their impression of a wine. Chemists can objec- tively list the physical properties of a wine. Is the tasting of wine a subjective or an objective experience? That is the question of this text. As is the case with the review of most conference volumes, the tendency is to want to give a chapter by chapter summary of each presentation. That would be droll. A few of the chapters, however, warrant special mention.

Chapters one, two and three of the text, to varying degrees of depth, discuss the subjec- tive side of wine tasting. In chapter three Barry C. Smith slightly changes the question. The subjective versus objective experience of tasting wine is not based on the metaphysi- cal versus physical properties of wine but on one’s ability to describe what they taste. The key issue for Smith is communication. Can a wine drinker communicate what it is like to drink a particular wine and are others able to share the same pleasure from drinking the same wine. Smith uses the analogy of describing pain (p. 58). Most everyone can recognize when they are in pain. Attempting to accurately describe that pain to another individual may be another story. The taster can recognize recurring elements in various wines sam- pled. Putting definitive names to these elements is where the problem begins. Individuals rely on wine writers and wine critics to help them describe what they taste. The subjective tasting of wine implies that one does not find the advice of all wine critics equally valuable. The valuable wine critic is the one whose personal tastes and preferences are most closely aligned with one’s own.

Chapter six of the text by Adrienne Lehrer later returns to the topic of wine vocabu- lary. This vocabulary relates to the description of a wine’s color, appearance, bouquet, aroma, taste, and mouth feel. Philosophers of language will find the choice of words used to describe wine quite interesting.

Chapter four of the text by Jamie Goode focuses on the objective or natural science approach to questions of taste. Namely, Goode explores the taste experience from a biological perspective. For those interested in the different reactions in the orbitofrontal cortex of trained tasters versus untrained taster when sampling wine, this is the chapter for  them. Goode’s discussion is on psychophysics the field of study that concentrates on how physical taste stimuli are perceived by the mind (p. 93). The physical stimuli most wine drinkers are familiar with are appearance, scent, taste, and tactile feel. The reader interested in a more complete statement of Goode’s views should consult his book-length treatment of the subject in either Wine Science (2005) or The Science of Wine (2006).

The inclusion of Ophelia Deroy’s contribution to the text is quite appropriately placed as chapter five. Deroy tries to reconcile the subjective versus objective debate over the taste of wine. Unfortunately, as is true of most of the questions in the book, the debate cannot be resolved. The chemical properties of a wine obviously affect its taste. Yet no chemical diagnosis can of itself decide the quality of a wine. In the case of wine as in any tasting experience, it is quite hard to say when the evaluative (subjective view) stops and when the purely descriptive (objective view) starts (p. 106).

Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine is not a book written with economists in mind. The Journal of Wine Economics is written with economists in mind. This reviewer would therefore be remiss if he did not mention the two economic studies cited in the text. The studies cited address the reputation effects of the French Bourgogne and Bordeaux Classification System versus the California 1978 Appellation System. The study mentioned with respect to the French classification system is Landon and Smith’s 1998 article in the Southern Economic Journal entitled “Quality Expectations, Reputation and Price.” The study mentioned concerning the California Appellation Classification System is Podolny’s 2005 “The California Wine Industry,” that appears in the text Status Signals.

This review began by asking the question, is the tasting of wine a subjective or an objec- tive experience? As with many philosophical discussions, this text does not definitively answer that question. The writers of the chapters for this text do, however, thoroughly dis- cuss why this is such a difficult question to address. In closing, the words of Roger Scruton (p. 18) seem to be appropriate for those who either subjectively or objectively enjoy a glass of fine wine. Scruton states, “Nothing else that we eat or drink comes to us with such a halo of significance, and cursed be the villain who refuses to drink it.”

In this excellent research monograph, John Nye challenges the conventional belief that Great Britain was transformed into a free trading-nation beginning in the nineteenth cen- tury with the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. It is the culmination of his research into Anglo-French trade from the late seventeenth century through the nineteenth. Some of this research previously has appeared in journal articles, but it is most conveniently combined in this book. Of most interest to readers of this journal perhaps will be the author’s emphasis upon the trade in French wine, and the protectionist actions of Britain against French wine, even through much of the nineteenth century.

The author surveys British trade policy from the Glorious Revolution to 1900. Until the end of the seventeenth century, Britain imported substantial amounts wine, mostly from France, and such wine formed the greatest part of Britain’s large trade deficit with France. (The author uses the term “Britain” and “British” before the union of England and Scotland in 1707, though “England” and “English” might have been more appropriate.) Early in the seventeenth century, wine was nearly a fifth of all imports into Britain by value. Old political and religious animosities between Britain and France, mercantilist economic poli- cies, and domestic economic interests all combined to play a role in British trade policy after 1689. Britain increased tariffs to levels that basically eliminated the importation of the cheaper classes of French wine in the eighteenth century. This increase in tariffs benefited the brewing and distilling industries (whiskey, gin, and rum). These interests were protected in exchange for submitting to effective and enforced domestic excise taxes on beer and distilled spirits which came to be a very important source of revenue to the British government. Their cooperation was secured by the possibility of lowering tariffs any time on foreign alcoholic beverages, including French wine. The author also notes the lower duties on Portuguese wine that prevailed because of British interests there. Some movement toward trade liberalization in the later eighteenth century was cut off by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. After peace came in 1815, a movement toward freer trade was supported by the relative decline of agriculture and the growth of industrialization along with changing ideologies expounded by Adam Smith and others. Tariffs on wine, brandy, coffee, tea, sugar, and rum remained essentially unchanged, however, and continued to prohibit the cheapest classes of French wines from entering Britain. Only after 1860 did an agreement with France cause Britain to modify her tariffs on French goods, including those on wine, in exchange for France lowering her duties while removing all prohibitions on British products. The opening of the British market for French wine, however, was set back by the outbreaks of the blight of oidium in the 1860s, and the more famous scourge of phylloxera in the 1880s.

In a discussion of the brewing industry and British fiscal policy, Nye examines the reasons for the British government to rely upon indirect taxes. Modern economic theory would suggest that direct taxes upon income and wealth would be more efficient because indirect taxes distort consumer choice. His answer is that the ease and cost of collecting taxes on customs and excises make these more practical to collect (transaction costs of collection were lower). Also, the British squire was well represented in Parliament by the eighteenth century, and landowners wished to avoid higher property taxes and put the bur- den upon consumers.

Though an unrealistic alternative in the world of mercantilism, the author considers what might have happened in the British-French wine trade had free trade existed. He suggests that consumption of French wine in Great Britain might have been forty times greater than it was in the absence of any discouragement of alcohol consumption, in gen- eral, and of French wine, in particular. In the appendix, he also attempts to estimate the effect of British tariffs on national income with detailed statistical analysis. The results of static models suggest a fairly small impact on British economic welfare. The many caveats to these speculations are carefully considered by the author, however. It is, of course, impossible to measure the loss of satisfaction to those British consumers who might have preferred wine to beer and distilled spirits.

The major contention of the book remains that Great Britain did not become the great bastion of free trade in the nineteenth century that conventional wisdom suggests. The story goes that in the eighteenth century Britain was a major European power with colonial ambitions that followed mercantilist policies of trade protection. In the 1830s, however, new interests rooted in growing industrialization, and supported by the ideology of the classical economists and groups like the Anti-Corn Law League, led to the elimination of tariffs and the rise of free-trade policies. The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 is a central part of this story. This view persists today (see the announcement for a session at the North American Conference of British Studies in 2008 which states: “From the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 through the First World War, free trade served as a cornerstone of Britain’s economic, colonial, and foreign policies. Britain’s unilateral adoption of free trade and its subsequent agreements with other European powers quickly extended free trade not only across Europe, but also throughout the rapidly expanding colonial empires.” This is quoted from an online announcement of Eh.News, January 18, 2008.) Nye’s estimates of the degree of trade protection (as evidenced by average tariff rates) were greater for Great Britain than for France until about 1880. However, one must note that it is also clear from the author’s data that there was a trend toward freer trade in the nineteenth century on the part of both nations, even if a world of completely free trade did not come into being.

In the end, Britain became a nation of beer drinkers while French consumers remained attached to wine. John Nye has written a superb tale of the economic policies that shaped this story, as well as the tastes of consumers in the respective countries. It is one that will serve to correct old views and greatly improve our understanding of the forces responsible.