With only a cursory glance at the topic for this week’s show, you might be surprised to notice that John and Ken even had an hour’s worth of radio-worthy material to discuss. However, only a moment more in the company of our hosts is needed for it to become apparent just how expansive and incisive the domain of the philosophical is. Considerations of wine open the door for Ken and John to ask questions about the secondary qualities of wine and whether taste is an attribute of the wine or the drinker. They consider how the act of drinking wine might actually differ experientially for a wine connoisseur and a layman, and whether the qualities we assign to a wine denote objective facts or subjective judgments.

The guest Barry Smith enters into the foray and argues that although the taste of a wine and the qualities we assign it are a personal experience, it verily reveals something about the external world. Like our other senses, taste provides us with knowledge about objective facts of that which we taste. In response to a question from John concerning a hypothetical bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild falling in the woods with no one around to drink it, Barry is confident that it nonetheless possesses the same qualities of taste.

然后，巴里带领大家思考当一个知识渊博的人“分析地喝酒”会发生什么。他认为，与那些没有发展出评估葡萄酒品质的感觉的人相比，他/她的体验实际上是不同的。他们可能都喝同样的酒，但只有专家才会把他的经验分解成无数的成分。学会这样做的人会改变他对一种体验的欣赏方式，这实际上会让他对葡萄酒有新的体验。然而，在评估了葡萄酒的品质之后，仍然需要一个点来判断葡萄酒的品质是否令人愉快。肯对这些想法提出了质疑，并想知道当专家们对葡萄酒的质量产生分歧时发生了什么，以及通过盲品可以得到什么。此外，葡萄酒特定历史的重要性，以及它是否真的会影响它所拥有的审美品质，是我们的主人和客人争论的焦点。关于葡萄酒如何与品酒时唤起的多种感官相互作用、与葡萄酒相关的期待、历史如何与我们的实际感知相关联，以及这段插曲中的对话给读者留下了大量的思考。

• Roving Philosophical Report(SEEK TO 00:05:12) - Zoe Corneli visits a wine appreciation course at the South Beach Yacht Club to find out about the attendees’ different philosophies on wine. Here, guests are asked to evaluate a set of Rieslings that will be paired with different dishes in their meal that evening. They learn a lesson or two about the relating the flavors in the wine that come to mind with other experiences they have had from their chef and instructor, who walks them through the lesson.

• Sixty-Second Philosopher: Ian Shoales, in his own segment today, takes us through the history of alcoholic beverages. In comparison to some of its relatives (beer and liquor), wine has been able to keep a low profile throughout the ages. But one should not be fooled by the seemingly docile nature of a wine and cheese party . . . wine can be a vicious business indeed, particularly when fraud and numerical ratings enter onto the scene.