Name (Greek: joy, pleasure, lust, enjoyment, sensual desire) for the doctrine founded in antiquity by the philosopher Aristippus (435-355 BC), according to which the highest ethical principle is the pursuit of sensual pleasure and enjoyment. The philosopher Epicurus (341-271 BC), on the other hand, describes pleasure as the principle of a successful life. According to him, ataraxia (state of complete freedom from pain/distress) is also to be regarded as the highest pleasure. In common parlance, hedonism is understood to be a selfish attitude to life oriented (only) towards material pleasures. In this sense, the term is often used pejoratively and interpreted as a sign of decadence. Epicureanism, however, is usually understood as more positive (altruistic = selfless, unselfish, self-sacrificing). The Greek lyric poet Anacreon (~580-495 BC) in his songs about love, wine and cheerful conviviality, as well as the Roman lyric poet Horace (65-8 BC) with the motto "Carpe diem" (enjoy/use the day, literally "pick the day") also represent hedonistic directions.
When judging a wine, hedonistic is understood to be the consciously subjective description with ambiguous adjectives that are also not comprehensible due to a lack of criteria, such as beautiful, pleasant, unpleasant, extraordinary, convincing, bad, inspiring, impressive, unique, stunning, dreamlike, ravishing, animating, unforgettable, gripping and similar, or strongly abbreviated with "tastes" or "does not taste". The "normal" untrained wine connoisseur judges a wine mainly hedonistically - not infrequently in the short form. The phenomenon of the so-called holiday wine is also hedonistic. However, when evaluating the best wines in the Swiss canton of Vaud with the Terravin seal "Lauriers de Platine Terravin", a hedonistic assessment is explicitly desired. As a rule, however, there are standardised, largely equally understood expressions among experts that describe a wine objectively according to defined sensory criteria (see under Wine Approach). This is also the usual form for official wine tests and wine competitions (see under wine evaluation). However, hedonistic terms are not completely absent.
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Thorsten Rahn
Restaurantleiter, Sommelier, Weindozent und Autor; Dresden