Unreserved Wine Talk 340: Why do wine descriptors like cat's pee alienate many wine lovers? Charles Jennings and Paul Keers answer that and more in "I Bought It So I'll Drink It"
How does using everyday metaphors make wine writing more relatable? How has the pressure to be an expert in everything turned simple pleasures into social competition? Does buying your own wine versus getting free samples make you a better wine writer?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Charles Jennings and Paul Keers, co-authors of the hilarious book I Bought It So I’ll Drink It.
You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks
Giveaway
Three of you are going to win a copy of their terrific book,, I Bought It So I’ll Drink It. To qualify, all you have to do is email me at natalie@nataliemaclean.com and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast. I’ll choose three people randomly from those who contact me. Good luck!
You can find the wines we discussed here.
Highlights
How did Charles and Paul meet?
What was the first bottle of wine they shared, and how did they realize they had the same approach to bad wine?
What was it like to meet legendary wine critic Oz Clarke?
When did Paul and Charles discover their love for writing?
What were Charles and Paul's best and worst moments in their writing careers?
How did their Sediment blog create a stir with the PR people in the wine industry?
Where did the title “I Bought It So I’ll Drink It” come from?
Did buying their own wines give them a different perspective than other wine writers who are given promotional bottles?
How did the collaborative approach to writing I Bought It So I’ll Drink It work?
Which writers have influenced Charles and Paul’s writing?
Is the tension between wine snobbery and enjoyment unique to wine?
What was the most pretentious wine moment Paul and Charles witnessed?
How did Charles and Paul develop their distinctive vocabularies for describing wines?
Which overused wine descriptors do they find cringy?
What's changed about wine criticism or writing since they published their book?
Key Takeaways
Charles and Paul explain that they drew their descriptions from real life. There's a tendency in wine writing to use metaphors that you wouldn't necessarily experience. I mean, I've got a cat, but I really wouldn't use the term cat's pee in describing any wine. I don't know what cat's pee actually tastes like. Whereas if I talk about wine smelling of ink, well, people know what ink smells like, and it seemed more appropriate to use ink as an analogy.
The authors say that everybody has to be a bit of an expert about everything these days. It’s not just a question of, “Oh, we've been to France, we've gone to Italy, we've made it to the United States,” or something like that. It's how you did it, and where you stayed, and what you did, and what tours you went on, and it's so full of itself. Then it becomes a transaction when talking with friends.
As Charles and Paul think the fact that they did buy thei wine is quite fundamental to a difference between Sediment and other wine writing. They had to do the same thing, go out and buy it. Maybe that gave us a slightly different slant on wine buying and drinking as well.
About Charles Jennings & Paul Keers
Charles Jennings and Paul Keers are award-winning writers based in London, England. Charles and Paul co-authored the wine blog Sediment, described by New Statesman writer and Guardian literary critic Nick Lezard as “the finest wine blog available to humanity.” The blog became the basis for their book, I Bought It So I’ll Drink It. Book-Prize-winning novelist Julian Barnes called it “The funniest wine-book I’ve read in a long time. Not just laugh-aloud funny but snortingly, choke-on-your-cornflakes funny – up there with Kingsley Amis and Jay McInerney.” Their book won the prestigious André Simon Award.
To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/340.