Last week during The Symposium for Professional Wine Writers New York Times chief wine critic Eric Asimov called for an end to tasting notes.

At least if I read blogger Alder Yarrow (Vinography) correctly. Yarrow, who is one of my favorite wine writers, nicely recaps Asimov’s presentation called “The Tyranny of the Tasting Note,” mostly agrees and then disagrees a bit. He also has a link to another of his own posts you must read: Messages In a Bottle: Appreciating Wine in Context.

But back to what Asimov had to say, channeled through Yarrow:

The biggest barrier to increased wine appreciation amongst the general public, Eric began, lies in a chronic anxiety that marks most novice’s relationship to wine. This anxiety arises from most people’s assumption that to enjoy wine they need to know something about it, and manifests most obviously in the conversations that they have with wine critics and writers whenever they meet them, e.g.:

“I know I should know something more about wine, and I really would like to learn. I’ve been meaning to take a class…or is there one book that you really recommend?”

In short, most people assume that the key to enjoying wine lies in the path towards connoisseurship, rather than simply drinking wine with a meal as if it is just another food group. Most people, it seems, wrongly put wine on a pedestal, according it some status that is not reserved for anything else.

Not a place we should want to see beer headed. To understand what I mean make sure to read the comments, like this one:

When two or more people get together in the same room with a glass of wine, the same peculiar dance begins. One or more folks will swirl it and make a comment on the legs as they perform the Viewing of the Wine; one or more will wave the glass under their nose and raise their eyebrows as they enact the Smelling of the Wine; one or more will take a drink and immediately swallow in the Tasting of the Wine. Then, almost synchronously, a quiet reflection will come upon the room as the entire gaggle, even those who have not performed The Tasting, engage in the Judging of the Wine. Some will over-emphasize the importance of the Tasting of the Wine and not enough of the Judging; those folks will often follow up with the Spilling of the Wine, and sometimes (sadly enough) the eventual Purging of the Wine.

My point is that this is not natural human behavior.

Beer — or at least those who brew it, who sell it, love it and speak on its behalf — would like to be afforded the same respect as wine. But it is one thing to be taken as seriously as wine and another to be taken as seriously as wine.

History should not be a moving target, but sometimes it seems awfully hard to pin down.

I was already thinking about this before we visited the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, yesterday. I’ve been sifting through a bunch of stories about Belgian White beers pre-Pierre Celis and many contain altogether different facts.

So two things from the Blues Museum. First, they’ve framed pages from a 1990 Living Blues article about Robert Johnson that includes maps to possible sites of the famed crossroads (where Johnson sold his soul to the devil in order to become a great musician) and to the various locations where he might be buried. The crossroads stuff is myth, of course, but the fact is nobody seems to be able to say for sure where his body ended up.

This doesn’t keep folks at each graveyard — in the early 1990s we used both sets of maps when we spent several weeks blues hunting in Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee — from claiming Robert Johnson is buried right there.

Second, the biggest display in the museum is set inside the sharecroppers cabin Muddy Waters lived in before leaving Clarksdale for Chicago. (Sierra isn’t into the blues, but she was pretty excited when she heard one of the songs. “Hey, Dad, that’s your ringtone.”)

The documentary showing on a screen behind a life-size wax statue of Waters (extra credit if you know his given name . . . without using Google or Wikipedia) includes an entertaining interview with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. He tells a particularly colorful story about when he first met Muddy, and the bluesman had white paint dripping off his head because he was up on a ladder painting when Richards walked in.

Problem is, Marshall Chess of Chess Records points out Richards’ story is ridiculous. You never would have found Waters in overalls, paint brush in hand. That’s in the documentary, but how many times has Richards told the story when Chess wasn’t there to offer a correction? Chess doesn’t doubt Richards’ sincerity. He says that could be the way Richards remembers what happened, just that he’s wrong.

I’ve experienced the same thing recently, talking to two different brewers about a conversation they once had. Each remembers the details differently. Is one right? Must the other be wrong?

Do we need an absolute answer? Do we discard both versions? Or make them both part of history and figure the “truth” will sort itself out? The thing is that Richards’ story tells you something about him, but in this case leaves a false impression of Waters.

The photo at the top is from Dockery Farms, one of the stops on the Mississippi Blues Trail. Notice that despite the title on of the sign the following words acknowledge the blues didn’t have a single birthplace. That’s the way history works sometimes.