Goût du vin antique : enrichissement lexical et censura vini
This study will start from two fundamental principles. Firstly, it will consider the taste of wine as a complex construction which, through the exercise of tasting, convokes at the same time the sight, the ability to perceive flavours, and the olfactory memory. Secondly, it will conceive taste as the aesthetic and discriminatory relationship that one can maintain with an object. To that extent, the argumentation will explore aspects of tasting in the "broad Antiquity" by systematically comparing Greek literature with Latin literature. Because the vocabulary used to talk about wine is as sensory (bitter, sweet) as it is extrasensory (robust, full-bodied), we will propose in this study a new reading of the sources to see how the Ancients characterized the wine they tasted. All of this, while demonstrating how color, harmony, tastes and textures play a role in the understanding and development of the taste of wine. The comparison of Greek and Latin sources will try to show that a real refinement of vocabulary is perceptible during the first and second centuries, in connection with the constitution of a more specialized sphere of tasters. The exercise will therefore be carried out without forgetting the necessary basics of agriculture to understand the fundamental principles of winemaking. Taken together, suggesting that the flavor terminology and agricultural techniques of antiquity are capable of capturing complexities similar to those of today. The examination of the sources will also aim to demonstrate that with the undeniable enrichment of this vocabulary, a real exercise in social distinction for the Roman elite in tasting situations is taking shape. Through a dialectic specific to wine, we will try to see that from the vine to the cellar and then from the cellar to the table, the practice of tasting in a social environment both includes and excludes, builds and deconstructs, honors and mocks.
vin sens Wine Winetasting Sense Taste Vocabulary Antiquity Oenology