Is wine an art?

For wine connoisseurs and artists alike, the question can be a disparate one. However, I think it is worthy of discussion. At least I talk about it to myself a lot, lol. (And not only to myself, it's an obligate question during our "Winemaker 2 Winemaker" interviews with my colleagues.

Wine is not just drunk for its intrinsic qualities such as taste and aroma. Buying and drinking wine is a means of communication. Wine is bought also because it carries many symbolic meanings, be they social, financial, or cultural.

Aesthetics is another term that can be discussed. Wine, nature, or an object can be beautiful; it can be aesthetic. But and aesthetics are not the same thing.

Bottles of wine are usually reproduced in hundreds and thousands of (quasi) identical copies, it is not just one unique specimen as is traditionally the case with art. (I know the issue of reproduction is not that simple but let's simplify here.) Wine is (save for some exceptions/interpretations) not displayed in art galleries. Therefore, it should probably be more about craft than art.

On the other hand, wine does not only refer to the basic senses of sight, taste and smell. A good wine can evoke an emotional experience comparable to seeing a piece of art or listening to music, create emotions that are often very individual and personal. It elicits the need to share and describe it, often in vivid and rich terms, while simultaneously eluding our capacity to capture them in words.

Winemakers and artists alike send a message through their wines and works. A message in a bottle, literally. The consumer and the viewer approache this message in their own way and the whole interpretation is infulenced (sometimes even distorted) by their own opinions, experience and individuality.

I also find similarities in the approaches available to the matter at hand - whether to let nature speak as much as possible and interfere as little as possible, naturalism or realism one might say, or whether to create our own worlds and reproduce terroir with our own vision, ie a more abstract approach.

The way in which winemakers interact with their terroir can often be so sensitive and so personal that it can produce something that can approach art or perhaps a more ephemeral artistic performance.

There's probably no definitive answer to this question, and that's fine, let's just enjoy the discussion go on. Personally, I usually come to the conclusion that wine can be a work of art, but we winemakers are artisans, not artists. The artist here is the vine. The interaction between the grower and the vine is therefore essential.