definitions

[dananne]

Usually when the fur starts to fly on these threads, I just keep my head down and stay relatively amused at the pedantic/semantic arguments. However, this board tends to be a civil and very friendly place, so I'd like to offer a few unsolicited thoughts to, perhaps, help keep it that way.

In my humble opinion, if a novice asks a simple (or not so simple, as the case may be) question that someone answers in a way you feel is incomplete, a more complete answer can certainly be given without any problem. "In addition to the above . . ." or "I would add to the above . . ." or "To clarify the above . . ." would all do the trick. The answers above all are given by people know have a great deal of knowledge and experience with wine and the wine industry, so the immediate assumption that the answer provided by another was done out of a lack of knowledge likely does a disservice to the other party. Ommission of a qualifier, for example, does not mean that the general intent of a statement is necessarily incorrect. If an answer is given that seems to be more "layman" than you'd like, just add the info that you think needs to be added. It can even be done without reference to the other answer, and it can certainly be done without attacking the person who provided it. Not to attack anyone above, but just picking an example of what I'm talking about, consider the debate over the definition of "Reserva." An answer was provided with helpful intent that it is often considered superior to the regular bottling. Technically, this isn't a false statement. I don't know of many wineries that direct their inferior juice to their "Reserva" line. However, others may choose to add some additional information regarding things like aging. Fine. It can certainly be done, using the above examples, without any problem, and certainly without making assumptions about or attacks upon another. The answer, itself, doesn't even need to be attacked. I just pulled one example from the above to illustrate my point, and again, I'm not directing this at anyone in particular. If I offended anyone, that was certainly not my intent and I'll apologize in advance. This was only offered as gentle persuasion to try and help keep the discourse civil. Thanks, and regards to all.