Coming soon – a new, semi-regular addition to our blog.Have you ever wondered what the descriptions on the back of a wine bottle, or the tasting notes in your local wine shop actually mean? Then the Wine Decoder is for you.Using real examples, we’ll help you get the most out of picking and understanding wine. Learn why some wines smell like green apples, others like bubblegum, and others like bacon. Learn why some tannins...
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I have a problem with ‘natural wine.’ The more I think about ‘natural wine,’ the more I object to it. There is nothing natural about it. As an anthropologist, I think it needs to be consigned to the compost heap.Now that I have your attention, let me be clear: I am very sympathetic to the philosophy behind what is often called ‘natural wine.’ I’m running a research project that focuses in large part on it. It is the term itself I...
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Sometimes it is. Or at least –ish. Often it isn’t, being more of a golden yellow, or amber, or some other colour, as the photo suggests. But the colour isn’t all that interesting, except for what it is indicative of.So what is ‘orange wine’? In addition to not always being orange, it also isn’t made from oranges, as I’ve been asked more than once. Orange wine is, essentially, a white wine made in the manner of a red one. By this...
Read MoreAnthroenology are pleased to announce that we will be presenting at the Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food in January 2016. The Symposium topic is ‘Fire, Knives and Fridges,’ and we will be talking about ‘The unproduction of wine: eliding technology in natural and post-modern wine making.’ For more information, see our Talks page: http://www.anthroenology.org/talks/or theSymposium’s page, here:...
Read MoreI’m both happy and proud to announce that Camille Lardy’s dissertation ‘Cognac houses and bottlenecks: information networks in the international Cognac trade’ has won the 2015 Sue Benson Prize for best undergraduate dissertation in Social Anthropology at Cambridge. I will claim a tiny modicum of credit – mainly in being smart enough to let Camille do her own thing – for her success as I was her dissertation supervisor. (Also smart...
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