There are these two young Orient columnists walking through Hannaford, and they happen to meet a managing editor walking the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the wine?” And the two young columnists walk on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes,
“What the hell is wine?”
With apologies to David Foster Wallace, this anecdote offers some insight into the ontological confusion facing your esteemed critics this past week. At some point in the preceding days, we had been visited by the notion to expand the frontiers of our journalistic endeavor and review sake, the traditional Japanese fermented rice wine. Emboldened by this sense of culinary adventure, we set off to procure the necessary ingredient for our review. The Gekkeikan bottle on the bottom shelf of the wine aisle immediately grabbed our attention, with an arrestingly simple typographic label and a luminous green tint to the glass.
Once back in the safe eyrie of Coles Tower, we were soon disarmed by the ease of the screw-off top, which rendered impotent our arsenal of uncorking accouterments upon which we have leaned so heavily this semester in our criticism. Lacking traditional Japanese serving vessels, we were forced to rely on the heretofore-unquestioned orthodoxy of our Libbey stemware.  
Our doubt and uncertainty were further compounded by the handful of serving and tasting techniques offered on the back label. How could we neophytes choose between the hot traditional manner and chilled on the rocks? We split the difference and sampled the beverage at room temperature. Upon pouring, the sake resembled a faint white wine, with a stronger pair of legs than one would expect from a similarly hued Pinot Gris. 
Despite our best attempts to understand the sake within our carefully constructed critical schema, the first sip obliterated our finely woven hermeneutical tapestry. The thin body apparent in the glass belied a syrupy viscosity that assaulted our taste buds and lingered in our olfactory membranes, as if someone had beguiled us into drinking ethanol. Like a work of analytical cubism, the sake broke up the basic flavors of rice into disorienting mix of its component parts without offering any sort of gustatory cohesion. Despondent—and just a bit nauseous—we spiraled into confusion.
Over the past few months, we had immersed ourselves so fully in the world of wine that we seemed primed to take on any challenge. We knew wine and we knew how to taste. But our conception of wine had become so hermetic and self-referential that even something as minimally divergent as drinking beverages fermented from rice rather than grapes could dispel the illusion of this column being our Künstlerroman.
Had we ever really known what wine was? We, as published connoisseurs, loathed our selection for this week, yet many laypersons had extolled its virtues. Were we hindered by our own expertise, or had our column just been constructed upon a false premise, with only witty aphorisms and sly references to support it? If rice can be made into wine, then what should one call the fermented product of other grains if not wine as well? Had the fiat of precedent falsely circumscribed us to view the world in only red and white? Or, rather, were the amber hues of beer part of our journalistic birthright as well?
For our own physical and metaphysical welfare, we will refrain from Gekkeikan sake for the time being, and would recommend doing the same. However, we’ve heard that Ballast Point makes a damn good IPA.

There are these two young Orient columnists walking through Hannaford, and they happen to meet a managing editor walking the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the wine?” And the two young columnists walk on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes,

“What the hell is wine?”

With apologies to David Foster Wallace, this anecdote offers some insight into the ontological confusion facing your esteemed critics this past week. At some point in the preceding days, we had been visited by the notion to expand the frontiers of our journalistic endeavor and review sake, the traditional Japanese fermented rice wine. Emboldened by this sense of culinary adventure, we set off to procure the necessary ingredient for our review. The Gekkeikan bottle on the bottom shelf of the wine aisle immediately grabbed our attention, with an arrestingly simple typographic label and a luminous green tint to the glass.

Once back in the safe eyrie of Coles Tower, we were soon disarmed by the ease of the screw-off top, which rendered impotent our arsenal of uncorking accouterments upon which we have leaned so heavily this semester in our criticism. Lacking traditional Japanese serving vessels, we were forced to rely on the heretofore-unquestioned orthodoxy of our Libbey stemware.  
Our doubt and uncertainty were further compounded by the handful of serving and tasting techniques offered on the back label. How could we neophytes choose between the hot traditional manner and chilled on the rocks? We split the difference and sampled the beverage at room temperature. Upon pouring, the sake resembled a faint white wine, with a stronger pair of legs than one would expect from a similarly hued Pinot Gris. 

Despite our best attempts to understand the sake within our carefully constructed critical schema, the first sip obliterated our finely woven hermeneutical tapestry. The thin body apparent in the glass belied a syrupy viscosity that assaulted our taste buds and lingered in our olfactory membranes, as if someone had beguiled us into drinking ethanol. Like a work of analytical cubism, the sake broke up the basic flavors of rice into disorienting mix of its component parts without offering any sort of gustatory cohesion. Despondent—and just a bit nauseous—we spiraled into confusion.

Over the past few months, we had immersed ourselves so fully in the world of wine that we seemed primed to take on any challenge. We knew wine and we knew how to taste. But our conception of wine had become so hermetic and self-referential that even something as minimally divergent as drinking beverages fermented from rice rather than grapes could dispel the illusion of this column being our Künstlerroman.

Had we ever really known what wine was? We, as published connoisseurs, loathed our selection for this week, yet many laypersons had extolled its virtues. Were we hindered by our own expertise, or had our column just been constructed upon a false premise, with only witty aphorisms and sly references to support it? If rice can be made into wine, then what should one call the fermented product of other grains if not wine as well? Had the fiat of precedent falsely circumscribed us to view the world in only red and white? Or, rather, were the amber hues of beer part of our journalistic birthright as well?

For our own physical and metaphysical welfare, we will refrain from Gekkeikan sake for the time being, and would recommend doing the same. However, we’ve heard that Ballast Point makes a damn good IPA.