Does Adam Gopnik enjoy wine?
Adam Gopnik, who wrote the Paris Journal column for the New Yorker for several years and is author of Paris to the Moon, likes France but does he like (French) wine?
In a story on the woes of France this summer in the current New Yorker, he slips in a gratuitous reference to French wine makers:
“The European idea had been at the heart of both right- and left-wing policy for almost fifty years and, by every rational accounting, has always benefited France more than any other country, from the huge subsidies that pour in every year to French farmers and winemakers to the directing role it has given France in controlling German expansionism and energy…”
Unfortunately this presentation just reinforces perceptions in the English speaking world that French wine production is massively subsidized (there is no disputing that it is subsidized but it is the declining number of vin ordinaire producers who gobble up most of the public funds). Consider these figures from the Times of London:
“French winegrowers received £213m in subsidies from Brussels in 2002 out of the overall £6.75 billion allocated to French agriculture.” (3%)
Couple this with his scathing article from last year about wine criticism and one might come to the conclusion that Monsieur Gopnik does not even enjoy the fruits of the vine. Quel horreur! A sample from last year’s article:
What they rarely seem to be about is drinking wine. Remarkably, nowhere in wine writing, including Parker’s and Echikson’s, would a Martian learn that the first reason people drink wine is to get drunk…For it is not wine that makes us happy for no reason; it is alcohol that makes us happy for no reason. Wine is what gives us a reason to let alcohol make us happy without one. Without wine lore, and wine tasting, and wine talk, and wine labels, and, yes, wine writing and rating—the whole elaborate idea of wine—we would still get drunk, but we would be merely drunk. The language of wine appreciation is there not because wine is such a special subtle challenge to our discernment but because without the elaborate language—without the idea of wine, held up and regularly polished—it would all be about the same, or taste that way.
On August 23rd, 2005 at 9:14 am ,Terence Hughes wrote:
I read this article when it was published, and I was struck by its reductive argument (it’s all about getting drunk). Well, yes, getting a good buzz on is definitely part of the attraction of wine, but you could buy a bottle of vodka and do it more efficiently.
If Gopnik was trying to provide an antidote to a lot of the hyperbolic BS that passes as wine writing, his dose was too strong.
On November 13th, 2005 at 11:32 pm ,Anonymous wrote:
I too read read the article when it was published and I’m struck by Terence Hughes’s (and other people’s) use of the term “reductivist” to describe an argument that they disagree with. Gopnik’s argument was not “reductive,” it was merely “simplistic.” “Reductivism” implies breaking down an argument or a philosophical framework or an historiographical movement, etc. to its constituentt parts. By implying that Gopnik’s argument was “reductive” Hughes is assigning to it a complexity that it lacks. Use your dictionary.