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Home , History of wine, Stephen Pepper

Is an Object? Author(s): William B. Fretter Source: The Journal of and , Vol. 30, No. 1 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 97- 100 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/429579 . Accessed: 11/11/2013 11:45

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This content downloaded from 131.130.253.60 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:45:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WILLIAM B. FRETTER

Is Wine an Art Object?

IT IS COMMONLY SUPPOSED that the idea hicle of aesthetic communication, and the of is only a metaphor and can be ap- concept of fusion are discussed in successive plied chiefly to choices one makes in the chapters. of sight and sound. Taste itself, taste liter- Perhaps my comments on wine and its ally interpreted, is not supposed to perceive aesthetic qualities will illustrate in another unities which are art works. Thus way Pepper's ideas and will show that their cannot be works of art. This I dispute. applicability is not limited to , I begin with some disclaimers and an ac- , music, and literature. knowledgment. I do not intend to discuss beings have valued wine for thousands of the "art of making wine," or the "art of years, as they have valued painting and drinking wine"; nor shall I give advice sculpture, and the depiction throughout about stocking a or the virtues history of wine in , drawings, and of an even temperature in a limestone ; sculpture2 provides beautiful illustrations and I shall not write about the relative mer- of the interaction among these arts. its of California as compared with French It is particularly important in the case of or German wines. non-verbal aesthetic communication to be Some years ago I bought a copy of Ste- able to look at the object, or hear it, to look phen Pepper's The .' As a non- at pictures, or listen to a song or a flute or a professional I found it fairly heavy going record. Words are inadequate and particu- but yet rewarding. I had been interested in larly so for the aesthetic appreciation of art and music for a long time, and had wine. But the basic question is: can wine be rather unsuccessfully made a quest for an considered as a work of art? Before I discuss understanding of greatness in music and this in terms of Pepper's question,3 What is art, partly to light me on my search for an a work of art? the question of particularity understanding of greatness in scientific must be raised. We must consider a particu- achievement and discovery. Pepper's book lar wine, in fact a particular glass of wine. concerns itself more with an analysis of aes- Just as all paintings are not works of art, so thetic communication than with the reasons all glasses of wine are not works of art. why one artistic object is a masterpiece and Paintings can be ordinary and inartistic, another is not. The book as it describes the commercial music can be "musak," and process of aesthetic communication creates wine too can be ordinary. Wine can be a light of insight that intensifies on succes- spoiled and too old, and paintings can be sive readings. What is a work of art? Can a faded and deteriorated. Thus not all wine judgment of be true? The dynamics is art, any more than all painting or all of the masterpiece, the control object, a ve- music or all writing is art. Also some wine, while classifiable as art, is not as good as WILLIAM B. FRErrTTERis professor in the physics de- other wine. partment, University of California, Berkeley. Stephen Pepper discusses the work of art

This content downloaded from 131.130.253.60 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:45:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 98 WILLIAM B. FRETTER in terms of three objects: the vehicle, the Next there is the wine's odor. Its aroma object of immediate , and the ob- and bouquet are a complex of various ject of criticism.4 In the case of a painting, odors: the smell of the fruit, of the alcohol, the vehicle is probably a canvas with oil of the many organic compounds formed by spread upon it. It is "the instru- the vine in the and by the ment for the production, preservation, and in the processes of vinification and storage. control of the object of aesthetic worth." The object of immediate perception de- For wine, the vehicle is a mixture of water, pends also on the glass container, the tem- alcohol, organic chemicals, and the pig- perature, and sometimes on the length of ments contained in a glass. The alcohol time the wine has been in the glass. But to serves to preserve the rest of the wine and appreciate wine as an aesthetic object, the together with the water makes it possible sense of smell is essential. for the observer to sense the qualities of the The third sense used in connection with wine, just as the canvas holds the paint in the object of immediate perception is that the position the artist intended it to be and of taste. Like the smell of the wine, taste allows the observer to view the painting. has many components, subtle differences in The vehicle has in itself no aesthetic worth the development of the flavor caused by in either case, although the monetary worth time and strong interactions among the ol- may not be inconsiderable. factory sensations. Flavors may be complex, The object of immediate perception is or simple, or distasteful, and the intensity described by Pepper as: of the flavor often determines whether or the experience a spectator has at any one time not it is acceptable. when stimulated by the vehicle. This is the ob- Thus, as with painting and music, in a single ject we see and feel and fill with meaning. It has perception of a work of art, we run into some a date and location. Many will set the location unexpected complexities. What is usually called within our bodies. Definitely our bodies are much a single perception-say the first time one hears involved in the object of immediacy. Our sense a musical composition or sees a picture-is al- organs, our eyes in this instance [a painting] give ready not one act of perceptual response but a us the colors and the line and the shape; and our succession of such acts. Yet somehow we obtain brains of presumably give us the meaning the something of an integral perception of the work represented objects dependent on learning and and of the series of perceptive immediacies.P memory; and our endocrine systems presumably contribute to our emotion. Our bodies are in- Finally, the full appreciation of the ob- volved in the perceptual response. The duration ject of immediacy requires what aestheti- of an object of immediacy is a certain spread of cians call which is the fusion of time, the time that can be taken in intuitively at "funding," a single act of attention.5 meanings from past experiences into a pres- ent experience.7 It implies memory of past For illustration uses the Pepper perception experiences, of pictures seen, of symphonies of a like or of painting Breughel's Winter, or quartets heard, of books read, and of a statue which must be observed from all wines tasted. The experience of hearing a sides over a period of time. H.ow does this late quartet of Beethoven is enhanced if apply to wine? earlier one has heard it, or other late quar- The object of immediate perception is tets, or ones, or else Bee- first observed visually. We look at the wine early anything thoven wrote. And the of in the glass for the character of its color, for experience tasting a Chambertin is its clarity, the degree of its viscosity, the enhanced if earlier one has pattern of the liquid on the inside of the tasted Chambertin, or Chambertin of an- glass above the wine, the gradations of color other year or from another in in the meniscus of the liquid, and the shape Chambertin, or even a Gevrey-Chambertin and color of the wine as it moves in the from the region. Past experience is essen- glass. The glass is analogous to the frame of tial, and the continual renewing of the ex- a picture and should be consistent with the perience is desirable, especially where the and color of the wine in that a fine memory of subtle flavors, odors, and colors wine should be served in a beautiful glass, is not always reliable. not in a water tumbler. We now come to the object of criticism,

This content downloaded from 131.130.253.60 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:45:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Is Wine an Art Object? 99 the third of Pepper's objects following the us to call the object "beautiful." Saying a vehicle and the object of immediate percep- wine "is beautiful" implies that we find a tion: "The object of criticism is the totality fully funded aesthetic satisfaction. The wine- of relevant material based on the percep- maker or the winegrower is a craftsman. tions stimulated by an aesthetic vehicle .... He may also be an artist, but unless he is It is the object perceived by a person who skilled at his craft, he will not produce a has become a competent spectator."8 Rele- work of art. Control of the vehicle is as vancy has two components: first, the direct important in as it is in paint- stimulus, the sensory calling up a ing. normal response. Wine should not taste like Is wine an abstract art? I suspect that lemon juice, and it should not have even a most people will concede that abstract art strong component of lemon flavor. Nor can be beautiful. In a sense all art is ab- should it taste like vinegar or smell like stract, and nonrepresentational art can be sulfur dioxide. Second, the internal compo- beautiful. A certain painting by Hans Hof- nents must be relevant to each other. A mann, for instance, brings to my mind the should not have a strong tannin thoughts and feelings I have when I taste a flavor, which is consistent with and relevant certain of a type called to the complex of flavors in a . Trockenbeeren Auslesen (literally, selected This concept of relevancy is similar to one dry berries). It suggests farms or invented in physics by R. T. Birge,9 that of in autumn, ripe yellow wheat, sweet , internal consistency and external consist- orange and red leaves, the richness of life. ency of the data resulting from a scientific Both the painting and the German wine experiment. seem to abstract from a large accumulation A competent spectator, also, is needed to of memories, , emotions, certain perceive the object of criticism. Compe- ones, and bring them together in relevance tence implies discrimination, intelligence, and internal consistency. Both give me and a certain cultural conditioning for the great aesthetic satisfaction, and to me both perception of a style of art or a type of are beautiful, abstract art. A fine cham- wine. The competent spectator can observe pagne gives me the same feelings as the internal consistency in a painting, the con- scherzo in Beethoven's string quartet in C sistency of style, form, line, or representa- sharp minor: in both cases a kind of practi- tion. Consistency of style is particularly im- cal joke seems to be played on the specta- portant in painting, music, or wine. A par- tor. Both abstractly evoke internally consist- ticular sweet wine may be considered a ent emotions, the components of the aes- great wine, but sweetness is inconsistent in thetic vehicle being fully relevant. other styles of wine and is recognized by the Then there is the control by the wine- competent spectator as undesirable. The de- maker. He must be a craftsman; he must velopment of sensory discrimination is thus grow the vines properly, pick the grapes at essential in the education of the competent the right time, vinify properly, and store wine spectator. He notes whether or not the the wine in appropriate containers. As he wine has the quality of aesthetic relevancy creates an object of abstract art, the wine- -internal consistency; flavors must not maker, like the abstract painter, also deals clash, colors must be consistent with odor with accidental qualities. Each year the and flavor, and all must be determined by weather is different, or the vines grow old, fully funded impressions. or rain molds the grapes before they are But can wine be beautiful? The aesthetic picked (some of these contingent factors satisfaction gained from what Pepper calls add desirable flavors). Somewhere there is the consummatory response with respect to the artist, however, who may be the wine- the stimulating aesthetic vehicle determines maker, or the proprietor, or the wineseller whether or not we call the object beautiful. who insists on a certain type of wine. The Experiences "controlled by the craftsman- artist chooses the basic components: the va- ship of artists through an aesthetic vehi- riety of grape and soil, the exposure to the cle"10 give us aesthetic satisfaction and lead sun, the type of barrel used, the age of the

This content downloaded from 131.130.253.60 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:45:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 100 WILLIAM B. FRETTER bottling, and even to some extent the vinifi- are dispersed, but in this wine he cation process itself (e.g., the length of time exhibited artistry. the juice ferments on the skins of the The second wine I should like to men- grapes). The artist controls these factors tion is a French red from Cham- whenever he can to produce the work of art bertin made in 1959, a great year in Bur- he has conceived. The beauty of the wine is gundy. The artist in this case was Ronald not like the beauty of an autumn leaf on Avery, a wine merchant in Bristol, Eng- the vine, or of vineyards on rolling hills, or land. His conception of what a Chambertin of the girl who is always in the advertising should be is fully achieved in this wine. posters picking the grapes. The beauty of Made of grapes of the type that wine is a controlled abstract beauty express- produce a heavy-bodied wine, this wine on ing the intentions of the artist. Avery's insistence was produced from To call the winemaker an artist is to pose grapes picked late in the year, sugar possi- practical problems. One rarely knows his bly being added. The wine is a dark purple, name, but one can be sure that associated perfectly clear, slightly brownish where the with every glass of great wine is an artist. wine meets the glass, and streaks of glyc- Rarely does his name appear on the bottle. erine stream down the glass after it is Usually it is necessary to visit the winery to swirled. The bouquet is strong and rich in ascertain his identity, and even then it may the Pinot character, and in the mouth it is not be easy to do so because the true artist unctuous, rich, not very acid, enough tan- and the skilled craftsman in winemaking nin giving it good balance. A wine that ma- may not be the same person. tured early, it is in contrast with another James Zellerbach was an artist of a Cali- Chambertin from the same year that is still fornia wine. He made a wine he wanted to not quite ready to drink. It is a typical be similar to, but distinct from, a great Avery burgundy within the Chambertin French white burgundy, Montrachet. He type. studied the components necessary to such a I do not hesitate to call these wines beau- wine, hired a competent winemaker, tiful. They give me maximum aesthetic sat- bought grapes from growers in the best isfaction. They are complex and rich in the parts of California, and imported barrels varieties of sensual impressions they make. made from grown in the region of Lim- As abstract art, they bring to the spectator a ousin, in France. With these materials he stimulus that evokes in him emotions and produced his work of art, a rich white wine thought according to his previous experi- made from Pinot grapes. It ences and inclinations. And for full appre- was stored in the barrels long enough to ciation they require a competent observer acquire a slightly oaky taste. Its color is who can fuse the meanings of past experi- pale, the wine is clear. The color is consist- ences into a present experience. They illus- ent, a part of the beauty of the wine, but is trate what Stephen Pepper means when he not itself beautiful. The bouquet is strong defines a work of art. and characteristic of the Chardonnay grape having a touch of oak. The taste of the wine is consistent with the bouquet; it is 1Stephen C. Pepper, The Work of Art (Indiana rich and heavy in body, as a white bur- Univ. Press, 1955). gundy should be, but it has a flowery aroma 2Edward Hyams, (New York: Mac- that distinguishes it from other French bur- millan, 1965). gundies. The aromas of French white bur- 3Pepper, chap. 1. 4 Pepper, p. 16. gundies also differ from each other within 'Pepper, p. 17. the type: the point is to make a wine char- 'Pepper, p. 19. acteristic of the type but distinguishable in 7Pepper, p. 21. 8 itself. It is a beautiful wine, a great success. Pepper, pp. 37, 38. 9R. T. Birge, Physical Review 40 (1932): 207. James Zellerbach is dead and his wines and 10 Pepper, p. 66.

This content downloaded from 131.130.253.60 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:45:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions