This is from Chris Waters in The London Free Press.

There's a scene in the charming new movie, Julie & Julia, that I can't stop thinking about. Julia Child and her husband Paul have just arrived in France and are having lunch. Child, as portrayed by Meryl Streep, tucks into a plate of sole meuniere and the floor drops out from beneath her. The floor doesn't actually collapse -- Julie & Julia isn't a special effects blockbuster -- but a part of Julia does as she experiences a culinary epiphany by ingesting a piece of fish served in a sputtering butter sauce.
Wide-eyed and struck mute, she looks imploringly at her husband and tries to give voice to the inexpressible perfection of what she tastes.

"I know . . . I know . . ." he commiserates.

The remarkable scene stands out as the imagining of the moment that Julia Child became the food-loving francophile that would bring fine dining to North American television sets. But it's also interesting to note its depiction of how words can fail to capture the sensory appreciation of something that's devastatingly delicious.
As a wine writer, I'm continually looking for the right words to put meaning to the aroma and flavor the wines I review.

The trick is to find common, meaningful language that captures illusive perceptions concerning sight, smell and taste. Often times, however, that plain speak can suck the magic -- and the fun -- right out of a wine.

I can't help but think the accepted practice of stringing together flavor descriptions based on fruit, vegetable and other common terms does a disservice to wines. Take classic descriptors for Sauvignon Blanc like gooseberry or tomato leaf. Many Canadians haven't the foggiest notion of what a gooseberry looks like, let alone how it tastes.

But there's peril in trying a more dramatic approach, too.

Certainly, it's easy to mock extravagant styles of wine writing. I have never forgotten reading about a wine described as being "like a shy gazelle." More recently, Robert Parker Jr. referenced a 2008 red from the St.-Emilion region of Bordeaux as having "stunning texture (akin to a Shanghai skyscraper)."

I actually bought that particular wine, but I haven't a clue what Parker was getting at with his architectural reference. I suspect that not having been to Shanghai is only part of the problem.