Clark Smith on Sweet Spots and Food
After my Vinovation piece came out in The Art of Eating, the magazine received a small flood of letters, some of which are published in the current issue. One of those came from Mark Anisman, who asked how a wine's sweet spot did or did not change in the presence of food. A wine's sweet spot is the alcohol level at which it tastes the most balanced; for any given wine, there may be 3 or 4 such spots, scattered about the field of possibilities.
Anisman argues that Vinovation works in a vacuum where food is not considered, even though most people drink wine with food. I agree that this is a failing of wine criticism, but I do wonder how much cellar work—which is how I would label sweet spot evaluation—is done with food in hand.
Anisman left a similar comment here, and I posed the question to Clark. He posted his response, with my original email, on his blog.
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