Everything Intuition

In my never-ending search to bring you the best about intuition in the world today, I came across this jolly article in The Washington Post. It has the delightful title, ‘Leave The First Impression To Your Sixth Sense‘ and is about the role of intuition in wine, wine-making and allied viticulture crafts.

The authors speak of the book which has helped them most ‘to expand our appreciation and enjoyment of wine than any other’. Now, I bet you’re thinking of some hefty tome or some diligent treatise about the craft of wine-making. I hate to tell you, but you’d be wrong.

The book, in fact, is by Laura Day and is called ‘Practical Intuition’ (See link with picture to the right)

In case that doesn’t make much sense, I can do no better than to quote from the article itself…

“Learning to hone intuition has much in common with learning to enjoy wine: Both processes are too often hampered by participants’ fears of making complete fools of themselves. But the former can open you to facts hidden in your brain that aren’t accessible through your five senses — and those same facts can serve to deepen your appreciation of wine. Studying intuition with Day included eye-opening exercises: in one, participants who were asked to intuit the mystery contents of a brown paper bag from more than 10 feet away came up with adjectives that included “yellow,” “sour” and “fruit” to describe what turned out to be a lemon. After that, being able to detect notes of raspberries and cream in a ros� or hints of violets and earth in a syrah that you’re actually tasting doesn’t seem crazy at all — even if it is only fermented grape juice.”

Now I find this kind of interesting; the fact that intuitive skills are seen as being of broad practical use.

The authors (Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg) go on to quote a number of wine-makers and how they rely upon their intuition.

“I stop and listen to the fruit,” says Chuck Reininger of Reininger Winery in Washington state. “My greatest tools are my palate and my intuition.” He said he uses them to determine how to capture and enhance the best of that fruit in his wines.”

Then there’s Brad McCarthy of Virginia’s Blenheim Vineyards who

“…credits “100 percent” of his winemaking success to intuition. He says he uses intuition to “see” the path his grapes will take from the vineyard to the bottle to the table.”

These are real life people doing real jobs and crediting their intuition with helping them be better at it.

How refreshing!!

In conclusion, I’ll let the authors of this piece have the final word, because it’s apt….

“Intuition, not reasoning, is what immediately informs us upon first experiencing a wine that “I don’t like this,” or “I’m glad I tasted this” … Identifying what is responsible for that knowing is elusive to even the most aware and articulate among us, but that only adds to the eternal mystery of wine at its best. “

Intuition is a wonderful thing…

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