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As the late, great Bordeaux enologist Professor Émile Peynaud noted in his seminal work, “The Taste of Wine,” a wine’s appearance is every bit as important as its taste and smell: “The winetaster’s eye must be able to interpret the slightest visual clue and it should be as carefully critical of appearance as his nose of odors,” he wrote in a chapter devoted to the visual aspect of wine.

He was like a winetaster sampling an old claret.

He was also the classic exemplar of the winetaster theory of literature.

Similarly, Tony Thompson�the passionate editor with a winetaster's nose for genius and a mixed-up love life�recalls bits and pieces of several real-life editors' personal histories.

Through his mouth and into his windpipe he rolled the smoke with all the sober concentration of a winetaster.