Do you consider yourself a "connoisseur"?

When I hear the word applied to me, it is usually when a friend is introducing me to a third person, and said with the tungue firmly in the cheek.

Do you have Jancis Robinson's "Confessions of a Wine Lover"?

In it she has a very precise (and probably not widely held) view of what constitutes a connoiseur. You can find it in the index, but it is a bit long to quotehere in full. By that definition I would be proud to call myself a connoisseur, and actually I think I am.

Usually I would assume that when a person calls another a wine connoisseur, they are complimenting that person in their own way. I have been called a wine connoisseur, but they were people who know less than me, and I assume it was for that very reason. I believe it is just a cliche and wouldn't be offended.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a guy in a wine shop about the case of wine he was ordering. I said that I would be afraid to order a case because it might be corked; he didn't know the word corked, or never had had the experience of having a bottle of corked wine. Was I a connoisseur to him, an enthusiast, or just someone ruining his purchase :-))

Defintiion: a person who has expert knowledge and keen discrimination in some field, esp. in the fine arts or in matters of taste.

Dee Dee

Dear St. I'm with you. The self-titled "con-o-sewers" I've met in Oz tend to be sniffy wine snobs of the greatest degree.

Cheers! Martin

I think they think I know more than they do. Which may or may not be correct. :)

JJ

This interests me. Martin, your comment implies a great deal of contempt for anyone who considers them self a connoisseur. (Part con artist, part waste disposal! ;))

The definition of the word according to the dictionary is clear enough. As Dee points out it is often used -- in much of the world -- in a complimentary way. Although he may be reluctant to qualify himself that way, for example, I'd certainly consider Dale a connoisseur. I don't really consider myself that way, although I have a reasonably discriminating palate and some knowledge; so maybe indeed we reserve the term for those we feel are "more skilled" than us. But I think according to the strict definition I'd "qualify" as would yourself and his Lordship.

Is it considered effete or unmanly to be a connoisseur at the antipodes?

Is this related to our over-hyped SUV "bigger-is-better" and "only-the-very-best-will-do" culture? Maybe a true connoisseur is more interested in what's in the bottle than its reputation, or score? There has always been a cultural tendency in the US to value things based on price rather than quality; hence the "connoisseurs" will diss Screaming Eagle, which they can't afford anyway. (I've never tasted it so I can't weigh in one way or another.) Is this what we're seeing down under -- known after all worldwide for the quality of food and wines!

In Europe I don't think there is such negative connotation. Certainly I think many wine professionals I know here are connoisseurs. I've heard them introduced as such. Although I can't think of anyone calling themselves that, it's a little close to boasting.

Still, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck... It's probably a duck.

-E

I suspect that

DaleW wrote: []

I don't make that association, to me she just sounds like an ignorant snob. ;)

But it's entirely possible that the word has developed a popular and somewhat pejorative shading which hasn't yet made it into the dictionaries. It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've missed a trend, and it takes the dictionaries a while to catch up with spoken idiom.

Anyway that's what interests me about the discussion. Language evolves rapidly and Martin's usage suggests that in Oz the word has developed strong pejorative connotations.

Sounds like a connoisseur to me, the root of the word comes from knowledge after all. (Hence someone ignorant enough of wine in general, beyond the price or score, cannot by definition be a "wine connoisseur.")

-E

Strickly speaking the work simply means "to know" so there shouldn't be anything perjorative about it. However, I cringe when I hear the word and like Dale I prefer "wine geek" which tends to be a bit self deprecieating. I think it the U.S. it now has a negative "elitist" connotation to it.

From an Australian perspective.

Connoisseur, and many other words that originally had a more reserved, and respected intent, are often bandied around with its new intent being simple. The addresser is acknowledging you know more than they do. I can be a hero, if I do something you would not have the courage to do, I can be a guru if I have significant knowledge on any given topic (regardless of the obscurity of the subject...:>), and a legend because I kicked the winning goal in a "bush" grade footy final.

So James Halliday, Sir Weary Dunlop, Buddha and Dermott Brereton are always on alert.

In wine speak, connossieur 40 years ago was still misused. Then, in a society of beer drinkers, wine was for the "sheilas" (white iconic wines like Ben Ean Moselle), cheap reds were for "drunks", and any decent reds were for the "toffs". The gap between good and bad wine was astronmic, hence, not a lot of middle ground to encourage a potential "enthusiast". The perception some overseas readers seem to have is connossieur has an effeminate taint. Back then, yes. Now if an insult is required, you'd be called wine "snob" or "w*nker".

Today, as wine drinking has much wider appeal, and economics of being an enthusiast are favourable, it is no longer uncommon to find folks quite coversant in "wine speak". The continued growth of our wine industry is aiding and abetting higher wine and less beer consumption, so with so many new "players" in the market, it is quite easy to be labelled a "connossieur", for simply knowing "more" than the other . DeeDee was spot on the money there!

I laugh if referred to as such, as 90% of my wine knowledge is the home grown product as most of you know.

Many of you guys are way too humble however. I consider many of you "connossieurs", but I mean in in the traditional way. I shall remain an "enthusiast", but love the option of becoming a "'geek" when my tastes go international.

hooroo....

Hello, With hands trembling in apprehension I hit the keyboard to explain my view of this subject of vital importance. I do not THINK I am a con-u-wa-sewer. I would hazard that this is something that you could be called by somebody else - the word exists in the eye of the beholder, if you please - sooo, Dale would not purport to be a connoisseur, but could use the word of somebody else (Broadbent has figured in the thread, but not Big Bob).

So, I could claim that His Lordship is a connoisseur (even if it somehow does not really fits his NG-personality) and vice versa (likewise), but none of us would claim the distinction, and, we would perhaps blushingly deny being in any way connoiseurs.

Dale, who arguably tastes more wines than anybody posting here regularly (at least, he records more tastings than anyone else), OTOH, claims to be a wine geek. I wonder. I took a test last night, serendipitouosly (sp?) found on the Internet, wherein you could find out wether you were a nerd, a geek, or a dork - implicitly claiming that these three terms were operationally defined in such a way that no confusion could exist.

I have taken a similar test before, which, however, only rated your nerd score (I was very nerdish). It contained question like, have you built a recursive descent parser? which at the time I thought odd -what is nerdish about that? Hasn't everybody?

Anyway. The test concluded that the nerd was a person with a willingness to learn and with a broad scope of knowledge. The geek had deep and highly specialised knowledge concerning a narrow subject, often obscure. The dork was, on the whole, simply socially incompetent.

This leads me to the thought that in fact, if these definitions are valid, most of us are wine NERDS. A wine GEEK would then be somebody with a lexical knowledge of, say, wines made from the Concorde grape, or a cellar full of wines from Val d'Aosta, but only made from Morgex ... Do I have to tell you who the wine DORK is? It is the person who bumbles in, making sweeping and blanket statements concerning things he (or, very rarely she) obviously knows little or nothing about, angrily denouncing anyone who dares challenge him as a snob.

I suppose it would be possible to set up a webbased test to distinguish between the three.

To paraphrase, It's hip to be nerd!

Cheers

Nils

Fascinating taxonomic analysis, Dr. Chips! In deference to the memory of the late, lamented Joe "Beppe" Rosenberg, I'll suggest that the "dork" contingent be referred to as "cork dorks." ;-) In this discussion of on whose broad shoulders we bestow the mantle of connoiseurship, I am reminded of the use of the now-deprecated term "hacker." No self-respecting hacker would ever apply the name to him/herself, as that would be an act of almost unthinkable hubris. Rather, it was a term used only in the third person.

Nerdily yours, Mark Lipton

So, what's wrong with Morgex?

Are some of us connoisseurs in the original sense - indubitaby, for we love and study wine. But the negative connotations given to anything that hints of superiority has made this almost a negative in the eyes of the great unwashed - I'm sure you have all noted an anti- intellectual climate at least in North America, where the eyes roll up into heads when you talk about anything even slightly abstruse.

Rather than get into the whole thing I prefer to be known as an amateur, in the original sense, meaning a lover or devotee of a subject.

In one word, aboslutely nothing! I shared a fairly old (1994?1993?) bottle with Mike T and our respective SOs about a year ago and it was clean, had a fresh acidity, possibly a bit anonymous.

Tell me. You have a cellar full?

Cheers

Nils

Amateur is where I place myself, too. But when you have to explain what it means, once again the eyes roll up... :)

Nils, love the analysis!

-E

Certainly noone would claim Da Bep was socially incomptent - nor his perennial sidekick, Murray J Freeman (where is he these days? A lady dromedary in the Copenhagen Zoo keeps pestering me for his adress)

Cheers

Nils