What Makes a Wine Worth Drinking: Are You Your Own Best Critic?
In today’s world, we’re all critics. Whether you Letterboxd the latest movie you saw, or Yelped your favorite restaurant, it seems like fewer and fewer people are consulting the “experts.” The same might apply to wine. If taste is subjective, and “judgments of taste are matters of opinion and not matters of fact,” as philosopher Barry C. Smith posits, then “each taster is the final arbiter, and no person’s opinion of wine is better than anyone else’s.”
So what, then, is the role of the professional critic in judging a wine? And if we decide to rely on our own evaluation, can we agree on criteria for what makes a wine worth drinking? How can I even be sure that the cherries I’m tasting in my Cabernet are the same as yours when we both know there are really no cherries in that glass at all? And why does the wine I drink at home taste so different from the same wine drunk with friends in a restaurant setting?
We’ll learn how experts assess a wine, do some blind tastings of our own, as well as tastings preceded by the critics’ notes. Recording our impressions, we’ll share our findings to determine areas where we agree and diverge. Are you your own best critic? Let’s find out!
What we’re reading: Excerpts from What Makes a Wine Worth Drinking, by Terry Theise, and The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting, by Barry C. Smith.
Wines we’re tasting: A variety of wines from different regions.
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Mountainview Studio, 20 Mountain View Ave., Woodstock, NY
6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
$75
In today’s world, we’re all critics. Whether you Letterboxd the latest movie you saw, or Yelped your favorite restaurant, it seems like fewer and fewer people are consulting the “experts.” The same might apply to wine. If taste is subjective, and “judgments of taste are matters of opinion and not matters of fact,” as philosopher Barry C. Smith posits, then “each taster is the final arbiter, and no person’s opinion of wine is better than anyone else’s.”
So what, then, is the role of the professional critic in judging a wine? And if we decide to rely on our own evaluation, can we agree on criteria for what makes a wine worth drinking? How can I even be sure that the cherries I’m tasting in my Cabernet are the same as yours when we both know there are really no cherries in that glass at all? And why does the wine I drink at home taste so different from the same wine drunk with friends in a restaurant setting?
We’ll learn how experts assess a wine, do some blind tastings of our own, as well as tastings preceded by the critics’ notes. Recording our impressions, we’ll share our findings to determine areas where we agree and diverge. Are you your own best critic? Let’s find out!
What we’re reading: Excerpts from What Makes a Wine Worth Drinking, by Terry Theise, and The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting, by Barry C. Smith.
Wines we’re tasting: A variety of wines from different regions.
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Mountainview Studio, 20 Mountain View Ave., Woodstock, NY
6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
$75
In today’s world, we’re all critics. Whether you Letterboxd the latest movie you saw, or Yelped your favorite restaurant, it seems like fewer and fewer people are consulting the “experts.” The same might apply to wine. If taste is subjective, and “judgments of taste are matters of opinion and not matters of fact,” as philosopher Barry C. Smith posits, then “each taster is the final arbiter, and no person’s opinion of wine is better than anyone else’s.”
So what, then, is the role of the professional critic in judging a wine? And if we decide to rely on our own evaluation, can we agree on criteria for what makes a wine worth drinking? How can I even be sure that the cherries I’m tasting in my Cabernet are the same as yours when we both know there are really no cherries in that glass at all? And why does the wine I drink at home taste so different from the same wine drunk with friends in a restaurant setting?
We’ll learn how experts assess a wine, do some blind tastings of our own, as well as tastings preceded by the critics’ notes. Recording our impressions, we’ll share our findings to determine areas where we agree and diverge. Are you your own best critic? Let’s find out!
What we’re reading: Excerpts from What Makes a Wine Worth Drinking, by Terry Theise, and The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting, by Barry C. Smith.
Wines we’re tasting: A variety of wines from different regions.
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Mountainview Studio, 20 Mountain View Ave., Woodstock, NY
6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
$75