"why wine matters" begs the question. wine doesn't matter. if wine did not contain alcohol, and if people were not obsessed with rationalizing the introduction of alcohol into their bodies, wine connoisseurship would not exist. the measure of that obsession at the extreme upper end of the social spectrum (and those who aspire to simulate that status) is the unbelievable preciousness and...extreme effeminacy of whingeing wine-whining. course i say this as someone who's...kinda pissed off at the substance alcohol.
In among such adventures, Nossiter makes a passionate case for the cultural importance of wine. Disdaining “winespeak,” he uses literary and historical metaphors. Bordeaux wine, for instance, is structured like “a hefty novel,” whereas a Burgundy has the “staccato lyricism” of a poem. (That sounds pretentious, but when I tried it out on my wine buddies they thought it hit the mark.)
this leaves it open whether these liquids taste more like a limerick or more like paradise lost, more like war and peace or harry potter and the goblet of fire. i'd suggest not trying to pay off on the metaphor, but there's no stopping a sommelier. does it taste more like a vermeer or picasso? the protestant reformation or the battle of stalingrad? the rockies or the andes? brahms or cage? robert johnson or natalie imbruglia? conceptualism or neo-expressionism? mars or saturn? anyway one kind of feels that substance abuse has been confounded with art: just go to the museum. then come home and cut to the everclear.