Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the complex multi-sensory responses required to experience and evaluate wine. We suggest that wine tasting be recognized as an aesthetic experience that allows individuals to enlarge their understanding of wine and experience pleasure. Through interviews, observations, and wine tastings with novices and experts, along with metaphor and blending analysis, we interpret similarities and differences, with the concept of taste referring not only to flavor but also to culture capital. Embodiment processes in wine consumption can be understood at the conscious level using Merleau-Ponty's concept of perception and virtual enactments. We argue that while the structure of perception is given by imagination, fanciful imaginings—in particular those used by experts—to identify wine in blind tastings can also be understood through the foreground/background effect. The perceiver and imaginer are the same; what links them is the imagining body. At the unconscious level, we use conceptual metaphors and conceptual blending processes to elaborate on embodiment to understand the taste regime processes associated with wine. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of embodiment processes through the application of Merleau-Ponty's theory of perceptions/virtual enactments, as well as through metaphor and conceptual integration analysis.