{"id":1121,"date":"2026-03-01T17:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T17:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2026-03-01T18:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T18:06:15","slug":"wine-art-or-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/2026\/03\/01\/wine-art-or-science\/","title":{"rendered":"If wine were only art or only science, what would be lost?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was recently a Fellow at the 2026 Wine Writers\u2019 Symposium<\/a> hosted in California by Meadowood Napa Valley<\/a> and Napa Valley Vintners<\/a>. As part of the application, I was asked to answer the question \u201cIf wine were only art or only science, what would be lost?\u201d Below is my attempt.<\/em> Photograph by me from a recent trip to Domaine Jean-No\u00ebl Gagnard in Burgundy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019d be a shame if wine were only art or only science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only art? Chaos. Like it or not, wine is science. It\u2019s polyphenols and acids and thousands of other microscopic things. Without them, we\u2019d have no wine. The maker can be as creative \u2014 as artistic \u2014 as you like, but if they can\u2019t get to grips with fermentation and temperature control, we\u2019ve got a problem. Before wine becomes wine there are innumerable obstacles that can derail its course. Our winemaker-artist may have a clear vision in their head, but if they\u2019re not careful, they\u2019re ending up with grape juice or vinegar or an explosion. So that wouldn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only science sounds more promising. We might lose a little of the romance or the magic, granted. Perhaps we start treating what\u2019s in our glass not as a Pauillac or a pet-nat but as objective data: a certain measure of acidity, tannin, alcohol and the rest. But hey, at least the maker knows what they\u2019re doing \u2014 winemakers are scientists, after all, not artists. The wine is wine and it\u2019s correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it\u2019s just science then it\u2019s not art. The maker is analytical and the wine is the inevitable, repeatable result of deliberate actions. Their own subjective preferences, their tastes, their idiosyncrasies do not and should not enter into this equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, the hand of the maker is a tangible, valid part of what makes wine wine. There are heavy hands and elegant hands and everything in between. Some makers are determined to leave no mark at all. Most producers today understand enough about the science of wine to know what\u2019ll happen, or not happen, when they decide to do X rather than Y. But if wine were only science, there\u2019d surely be no place for something so imprecise and fickle as the producer\u2019s judgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s lost here, then? The smudge, the flourish, the indelible mark of the human being who did it their way. The freedom, and the courage, to engage more than just their logical faculties. Remove that and wine loses its variety, its difference, its breadth. The things that drew me to the subject in the first place, that have held my curiosity for well over a decade. If they went away, I\u2019d probably go away too. I\u2019d take a closer look at cider or seafood cookery or languages or something else entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, wine is art and it is science. If I had to choose, I\u2019d say I\u2019m Team Art. Most of the time, at least. In some settings, I\u2019m perfectly happy to chat malolactic fermentation and cold maceration. When I\u2019ve got a glass in front of me, though, the last place I want to be is some sterile lab. But it\u2019s not like I want to stand back and observe wine from behind a rope, either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, I don\u2019t have to choose. Other options are available. Wine is more than art and science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently a Fellow at the 2026 Wine Writers\u2019 Symposium hosted in California by Meadowood Napa Valley and Napa Valley Vintners. As part of the application, I was asked to answer the question \u201cIf wine were only art or only science, what would be lost?\u201d Below is my attempt. Photograph by me from a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20251020_140714-scaled.jpg?fit=1930%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1134,"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions\/1134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charliegeoghegan.wine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}