August 8, 2008, by Victor Ginsburgh (Journal of Wine Economics)

Now, we know that Adam Smith (1723-1790) may have been the father of wine economics (AAWE blog, July 14), and that Karl Marx (1818-1883) may have gotten his inspiration for Das Kapital while being president of the Trier Tavern Club Drinking Society (AAWE blog, August 4).

We also know that the first was the forefather of globalization, while the second lost some credit after the fall of the Berlin wall (and probably even a couple of years earlier).

I prefer Joseph Stiglitz’s views on globalization to those of Adam Smith and I also prefer a bottle of Mouton Rothschild to the “Karl Marx Pinot Noir,” which I opened yesterday after Karl Storchmann provoked me in his latest blog.

Let me therefore turn to two less controversial and wiser greybeards, who were both born before Smith and Marx, and can be considered (I am sorry for Robert Parker) as the fathers of wine tasting: Sancho Panza (1547-1616), Don Qixote’s squire, and David Hume (1711-1776), a Scottish philosopher cum economist (he thought that there may be gains from trade), as well as a prominent figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is also the author of an essay “Of the standard of taste”, that is still considered today as an important contribution to aesthetics.

Here is their joint contribution to wine tasting.

"But as our intention is to mingle some light of the understanding and the feelings of sentiment, it will be proper to give a more accurate definition of delicacy than has hitherto been attempted. And not to draw our philosophy from too profound a source, we shall have recourse to a noted story in Don Quixote (Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II, chapter 13).           

"It is with good reasons, says Sancho to the squire with the great nose, that I pretend to have judgment in wine: this is a quality hereditary in our family. Two of my kinsmen were once called to give their opinion of a hogshead, which was supposed to be excellent, being old and of a good vintage. One of them tastes it, considers it; and, after mature reflection, pronounces the wine to be good, were it not for a small taste of leather which he perceived in it. The other, after using the same precautions, gives his verdict in favor of the wine; but with the reserve of a taste of iron, which he could easily distinguish. You cannot imagine how much they were both ridiculed for their judgment. But who laughed in the end? On emptying the hogshead, there was found at the bottom an old key with a leathern thong tied to it." (David Hume, 1757, Of the standard of taste, in On the Standard of Taste and Other Essays. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965).

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs…