Chateau Petrogasm- Tasting Through Images

August 13th, 2007

I came across this interesting site, Chateau Petrogasm, which uses images for wine reviews. “Wine is art, drinking should be too!” they say. They use anything from images in nature to modern art to photos of pop rocks to represent each wine. As I scrolled through the images I found myself getting frustrated. “What do they mean by this?” I thought to myself. “A broken TV? A picture of James Brown for a Tuscan red? What could THAT mean?” But alas, there are no explanations as that would be antithetical to the purpose of the site. Some, like Dr. Debs, say that deciphering the meaning behind the images is the whole fun of it.

Is there possibly a use for a system of this nature? In all seriousness, what could it be? Maybe language translation? Just fun? Any other ideas? In any case, they clearly state on the home page: “Our goal is to relax the standards of reviewing wine and balance pragmatism with fun so that more people can enjoy the pleasures of drinking and sharing the experience.” That’s something I’m all for. As I always say, anything that breaks down the barriers of wine intimidation is a good thing. Cheers!

(thanks for the link, Glenn!)


4 Responses to “Chateau Petrogasm- Tasting Through Images”

  1. Glenn on August 13, 2007 8:41 pm MyAvatars 0.2

    Thanks for the mention. I am strangely addicted to this site for some reason. Who wouldn’t relate to the taste of this: http://tinyurl.com/298cwn. As far as food-and-wine imagery, this site is second only to http://www.tastespotting.com.

  2. Erika Strum on August 13, 2007 8:46 pm MyAvatars 0.2

    mmm I might have to live on TasteSpotting. The other link does not seem to work though :(

  3. Glenn on August 13, 2007 8:57 pm MyAvatars 0.2

    How about this? http://tinyurl.com/298cwn

  4. Benjamin Saltzman on August 14, 2007 10:40 pm MyAvatars 0.2

    Erika,

    Thanks for the great post! We just wanted to let you and all of your readers know that, should you find yourselves puzzled by any of our reviews (they have a tendency to puzzle even other residents of the Chateau), feel free to leave a comment. Guess, toss up your hands, or outright disagree, we are more than happy to share our thought processes with you. Take this review for example:
    http://chateaupetrogasm.com/2007/07/15/1996-domaine-bernard-faurie-hermitage-rouge-rhone-france-65/

    The images are key, but the discussions that ensue are indispensable.

    Cheers,

    Benjamin Saltzman and Andrew Stuart
    Founders of Chateau Petrogasm
    http://www.chateaupetrogasm.com

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