Wine as Experience

​a wine tasting workshop inspired by John Dewey’s Art as Experience; towards the development of an intuitive notion of terroir.

​“Because objects of art are expressive, they are a language. Rather they are many languages. For each art has its own medium and that medium is especially fitted for one kind of communication. Each medium says something that cannot be uttered as well or as completely in any other tongue.” 

​Art As Experience, John Dewey

​There is much that a glass of fermented grape juice can tell you. Wine is superlative for its information density, how attending to its taste, aroma, and appearance can reveal minute details about how the wine was made: where, when, and by whom.

​A standard wine tasting weights the accumulated knowledge of the administrator above the experience of the taster: “this wine is from X, which means you should taste Y.” This workshop inverts that, drawing on ideas from John Dewey’s seminal work Art as Experience to help participants build up an intuitive notion of terroir — the contextual characteristics like soil type, grape varietal, and climate that have perceptible impressions on the finished wine.

​Participants will collaboratively taste three different wines blind, and use them to construct, and then explore, languages which communicate our aesthetic experiences. No prior knowledge of wine is required; we believe it will be of interest even to those with lots of wine experience.

​Program

• ​Welcome and Introduction: some guiding philosophies and talismans

• ​Collaborative Blind Tasting 1

• ​Pickle Break Palate Cleanser (supplied by Northeast Larder)

• ​Collaborative Blind Tasting 2

• ​Pickle Break + Reflection

• ​Collective Blind Tasting 3

​Facilitators

​Benjamin Laufer is an experience designer and chef, opening up a restaurant in Brooklyn in 2026.

​Adam Moritz is an editor, researcher, and community organizer. He currently works at Cabinet Magazine and Discovery Wines.