A Practical Guide to Pairing Wine and Music

By Dwight Furrow and Clark Smith

This book explains how to choose the right music for any wine and for any occasion. The book is suitable for novice wine lovers as well as seasoned experts to enhance their enjoyment of any wine. It also provides guidance for restaurateurs and winery tasting rooms to select background anthems, as well as advice to winemakers to anchor their styles' emotional modalities from vintage to vintage. Playlists for numerous wine types are provided as examples. Because wine and music pairing is guided by our emotional responses to music and wine, A Practical Guide to Pairing Wine and Music includes a discussion of how to identify and characterize those emotions and use them to find good matches. A brief history of wine and music pairing is included as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735983233

Book preview

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Copyright 2021 Dwight Furrow and Clark Smith. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact

Dwight Furrow at [e-mail] or Clark Smith at [e-mail]

ISBN: 978-1-73598-323-3

Published by Probe Head Publications, San Diego CA and Vitality Publishing, Santa Rosa, CA

https://pairingwineandmusic.wordpress.com/

Cover Design by April l’Orange

Accolades for A Practical Guide to Pairing Wine and Music

To think that we’ve been spending decades worrying about food and wine pairings; we should have been thinking more about the suitability of the Trout Quintet with a light-bodied Pinot.

Randall Grahm, Winemaker, Bonny Doon and Popelouchum Vineyards

Rich with specific examples of pairings between various wine styles and musical selections, Smith and Furrow’s book takes the reader on a spirited and entertaining journey. Whether you are a wine enthusiast, an industry expert, or simply curious, you will come away with ideas of your own to liven your own explorations of wine and music.

Susan R. Lin, MW

In a revolutionary approach to the aesthetic assessment of wine, authors Dwight Furrow and Clark Smith focus upon the emotional resonances of both music and wine to propose strategies to integrate them. Simply put, they seek to reconcile right-brain and left-brain processes through wine.

Doug Frost, MW and MS

Smith, who is both an inspired winemaker and musician and Furrow, a noted voice on wine aesthetics, share a deep understanding of how music can be used to further the enjoyment of wine.

Deborah Parker Wong, DipWSET, and Global Wine Editor for SOMM Journal and The Tasting Panel magazines

Not only for the music lover - an analysis of an uncharted form of wine pairing and practical uses with scientific research backing.

Mattia Scarpazza, DipWSET, Looking Into Wine podcast

Forward

Ninety-seven men and women are seated in a quaint meeting room in the back woods of Sonoma County, California in 1993. They represent over a millennium of professional experience in the wine industry. They are the collective think tank for Glen Ellen Winery, the fastest growing winery on Earth. Forty winemakers and 57 sales reps gather here each quarter to think deep thoughts and press the envelope.

They have no idea that in the next five minutes everything they thought they knew about wine’s true nature will be turned upside down, and they will never experience it the same way again.

Don Blackburn: Don Blackburn / John McJunkin

Three red wines are poured as a tall, lank man with a wicked mustache and twinkling eyes takes the podium. This is Don Blackburn. Don has a reputation as a brilliant maverick, a shit-disturber of the first order. Today will be no exception. He is about to play three pieces of music. He asks us to pair them up with the wines. There are six ways to do this. A random distribution would have 16 votes in each of the six boxes. But 86 participants paired the Beaujolais with the Mozart, the Pinot Noir with the Liszt, and Cabernet with the Carl Orff. The odds of this happening by chance are less than one in a million.

The dark, angry Carl Orff piece made the Cabernet appear smooth and sweet, while the Beaujolais was harsh and bitter. The Mozart had the opposite effect, rendering the Beaujolais delicious and the Cab undrinkable.

Heads spin. People walk into walls. The experience challenges every idea we all hold sacred. We can no longer believe that wine quality resides in the bottle alone. Now we know that the environment changes the experience. This calls into question the basis of wine journalism, competitive judging, and modern sensory research. Now we know that wine carries resonant emotion.

We are beginning to understand that wine is literally liquid music. And just maybe, why we dedicate our lives to it.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Outrageous Claims

Chapter 2: Working Strategies

Chapter 3: Applications for Different Purposes

Chapter 4: Dwight’s Method for Creating a Playlist for a Single Wine.

Chapter 5: Creating a Musical Background to Guide Wine Purchase for a Restaurant Wine List

Chapter 6: Finding the Anthems for Your Winery

Chapter 7: Event Planning

Chapter 8: A Guide for Winemaking

Chapter 9: A Guide for Aspiring Growers

Appendix 1: Suggested Playlists

Appendix 2: Human Emotions

Appendix 3: History of Wine and Music Research

Appendix 4: About the Authors

Chapter 1: Outrageous Claims

With the help of this book and a bit of practice, you will never experience wine the same way again. Music offers a deep inquiry into wine’s vital nature, distinct from other beverages. Here are our guaranteed results:

You will be given the tools to enhance the experience of every wine you drink for the rest of your life.