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Nick Tosches in Vanity Fair (via sarzha)
One development that I hope occurs in the next decade is the realization that the search for authenticity the 00’s concerned itself with was a load of manure.
If you spend enough time reading critics, “I don’t get it, therefore it must be bullshit” is a fairly common criticism, especially from populist, salt-of-the-earth types who use a lot of vulgar language and concern themselves with uncovering what is authentic. This article is most definitely about the search for authenticity. It’s not about trying to too hard, or pretension, because the author has no problem with tossing off references to Italian culture as though we all grew up spending summers in Florence (or knew or were related to someone who did) or describing the experience of smoking opium entirely in references to literature by dead white males.
It is an article about a man who smokes opium because he longs for the old world, because he sees Giulianified-NYC as inauthentic, because he is rapidly exiting his middle age years and seeks the exotic to rekindle his passion for life, and definitely gets a kick out of describing his experiences with underage East Asian prostitutes, because he thinks wine connoisseurship is excessively refined compared to just getting stoned, and because he sees all other opiates as inferior, profit-driven substitutes for the real thing. Opium.
Manure.
I looked into the matter of tasting manure and pesticides in wine. Given the size of the organic foods industry you would expect someone out there to be on top of any possible contaminants, even in products that are themselves potentially poisonous. And there is. You can find pesticides in wine, and they’re below levels set by regulatory agencies (the USDA and European equivalents.) And you can buy organic wine that would test negative for pesticides, but I do not think that would convert Nick Tosches. (The smell of manure, if you detect it in your glass, is in fact product of a fungal contamination.)
For my sensibilities, being a cafone (Italian slang implying someone is boorish and lower-class — I had to look it up) would encompass denigrating wine by improperly describing its chemistry (rancidification is the oxidation of fatty acids, which is different from fermentation, that is what happens in wine when yeast gets a hold of sugar and makes ethanol, which is also different from vinegar, which is what happens when bacteria gets a hold of ethanol and makes acetic acid) YET later waxing sentimental about the “alkaloids” in opium. Even better, he describes the scent of opium in terms of hazelnuts and flowers, which has to be different than smelling truffles in wine. What a cafone.
But this wasn’t meant to be a rant in defense of wine tasting, it’s about authenticity. And real authenticity is liking what you like, with no justification needed. And if you like something enough and experience it enough, you might develop a vocabulary for describing what it is you like that seems silly to outsiders (such as “oaken” and “currant” and “truffle”.)
This makes you a geek, but that is okay too.
