Pour une esquisse terminologique dans le domaine de la dégustation du vin
A Terminological Outline in the Field of Wine Tasting

Summary/Abstract: The verbalisation of gustatory experiences implies the use of a stock of words that not everyone can understand easily. As regards lexis, the sense of taste employs a rather deficient language; descriptions are fairly vague and hazy, and one fails to find any descriptors that are particular to this field. The lexical phenomenon that one can come across most frequently within the sphere of this specialised language is polysemy. This process results especially from the semantic borrowing of other, more “touchable” or “visible” meanings (for example, a wine can be velouté ‘mellow’ or rond ‘round’). The adjective “gustatif” (‘gustatory’) designates a class of lexemes that are borrowed from other semantic fields, most often as a result of metaphorisation (by means of analogy). The characteristics of wine take after human features: physical traits: thin, fleshy, elegant wine (maigre, charnu, élégant); psychological traits: discreet, aggressive, forward, honest wine (discret, agressif, franc, sincère); personality traits: generous, delicate wine (généreux, délicat); or after architectural aspects: solid (well built), balanced, broad (ample), robust, round wine (charpenté, équilibré, ample, robuste, rond). The corpus consists of examples taken from articles on wine tasting or wine labelling (especially from texts in the magazine Cuisine et Vins de France [French Cuisine and Wine]).

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