JamieGoode: Wine Critics

Interesting blog post by JamieGoode:
Goode/WineCritics

on a wine panel of VirginaBoone/RayIsle/EricAsimov on wine critics.

I like Eric's comment:

But [blind tasting] ignores the background, the intent, the history of how wines behave, and myriad other information. It is a bit infantilizing to suggest that critics are better off paying no attention to this because they might be influenced.’

Anyway...interesting read.

Tom

The latest iteration (or round) of the great never-ending dichotomous debate: blind or context in wine.

I agree firmly with both sides.

To justify that, I break wine down into two broad categories: harsh critical analytical evalutaion (blind tasting) versus appreciating wine.

If you are sitting in a blind tasting, eliminating all external considerations except what happens to be in the glass in front of you, and focused on not only evaluating the attributes (not the wine; the attributes of the wine---big difference there), and then comparing that wine with all the others (or at least all the others that you are also tasting in that session at the very least), then ordinating those wines into a strict hierarchy (We're Number One! We'r Number One!!), that is the critical blind tasting approach.

If your intent, as per Asimov's way of approaching wine, is to learn all you can about a wine, investigate, learn about the land, the variety(s), the people, the process, the philosophy, and then view the wine as a culmination of all those things, not just an end result to be evaluated in isolation then compared to others for the purposes of ordinating/ranking...that is to say, appreciating rather than ranking...blind tasting is useless.

I vastly prefer Asimov's approach, for I honestly believe wine is best when it is considered and appreciated (with analysis being separate and distinct), but I am equally capable of the harshest white-light criticism and evaluation of the specific elements of a wine as well. So I walk on both sides.

But here's the kicker: when doing the critical/blind thing, I can't wait to find out afterwards what the highest-ranked wines are, or even some of the lower-ranked wines that particularly appealed to me. Then I investigate all the things I wasn't considering when I analyzed: the background, the history, the terroir, the philosophy. Because wine, when it comes down to it, is a hedonistic pleasure enhance by all the things that came together in its creation---it's place, and people, and culture, and history, and terroir, and season. And usually, for me, a meal enhancer as well. And how can you truly....truly....evaluate a wine in the sanitary laboratory conditions of a blind tasting?

[David M. Bueker]

Blind tasting ignores how wine is normally used. Unless of course one's aim is to become blind drunk.

Hoke wrote:

“I vastly prefer Asimov's approach, for I honestly believe wine is best when it is considered and appreciated (with analysis being separate and distinct)…”

Could the two be truly separate?

I totally agree, that when judging a wine analytically all you’re really looking at is the wine itself- does it have a fault, is it “sound”, is it well-made, “balanced”, “complex” or “simple”, etc.? Judging a wine for appreciation for the most part you do the “analytic judging” (either consciously or unconsciously- those analytic components of the wine send signals to your brain for interpretation no matter if you are judging analytically or for appreciation) and then focus on “content”. Knowing “content” (wine content), things like –what, when, where, and how? Might give you a better understanding of why the wine taste and looks like it does. For appreciation as suggested by David there is “outside content” to think about- with whom are you sharing the wine with, etc.?

“Blind tasting” and trying to guess “wine content” could be a lot of fun.

Salute

Pretty much agree w/ Hoke's take on blind vs. non-blind tasting. For example, when you taste BobLindquist's or SteveEdmund's Syrahs upon release, they are not very impressive (and, obviously, not extracted/black/tannic/gobs of hedonistic fruit/etc). But, as many of us know, their balance takes them into amazing territory w/ btl age. A lesson never learned by Monktown attourneys...which is why both Bob & Steve are now living in the Monktown Woodshed.
Tom

Victor, of course you are correct. When you're "appreciating" wine, you are of necessity noticing the components of the wine. But let's take brettanomyces as an example. When analyzing/judging, you notice the brett and you usually ask for another bottle...because the incidence of brett indicates a bacteriological flaw. But when you're "appreciating" a wine, while you also notice the brett, you receive it as one of the components of the total wine...and it may be pleasing or objectionable depending upon your taste preferences. Once did a dinner in New Orleans where we had about 18 people and two guest winemakers. Passed around a bottle and every single person smelled it and loved it...until we got to the two winemakers (one Davis trained; one Montpellier trained), who both immediately rejected it. Because it had brett. So 18 people loved it; two immediately rejected it as "flawed". (It was an ESJ Syrah, btw. And it was lovely.)

Tom: You're right as well---and the flaw of thinking you can always predict what a wine will be by how it is tasting right now is one the biggest problems that Monkton guy made in his career. Try a hardcore Cornas when it is just bottled. Then try it several years later. There's some transubstantiation going on there! From impenetrable to expansive. Sure, you can make generalized assumptions, usually about vintages, but crystal balling each and every wine accurately? Bullshit.

“Once did a dinner in New Orleans where we had about 18 people and two guest winemakers. Passed around a bottle and every single person smelled it and loved it...until we got to the two winemakers (one Davis trained; one Montpellier trained), who both immediately rejected it. Because it had Brett. So 18 people loved it; two immediately rejected it as "flawed". (It was an ESJ Syrah, btw. And it was lovely.)”

That’s just one reason why it could be fun! Don’t you just love this beverage we call wine??????

Wine is way to complicated to try to predict how it would taste as it ages. The best one can do is just maybe predicting longevity of the wine.

Salute

Tom: You're right as well---and the flaw of thinking you can always predict what a wine will be by how it is tasting right now is one the biggest problems that Monkton guy made in his career. Try a hardcore Cornas when it is just bottled. Then try it several years later. There's some transubstantiation going on there! From impenetrable to expansive. Sure, you can make generalized assumptions, usually about vintages, but crystal balling each and every wine accurately? Bullshit.

Gasp....such language, Hoke. Shocked I am.

The Monktown guy...he's had plenty of old ones to cut them some slack. Not so w/ EdStJ
or Qupe I think.
Tom