Adrienne Lehrer, a linguist and the author of Wine and Conversation, told me about a wine critic who approached her after a book signing. The man confessed that in his reviews, he often extolled bottles’ subtle aroma of quince—not because he’d smelled that fruit’s apple-and-pear perfume, but because the word sounded fancy. “I figured no one could challenge me because no one knows what quince is,” he admitted. “But I’ve never smelled a quince either.”
