Decanter magazine has asked me to write a piece addressing the issue of whether the palates of professional wine buyers, sommeliers and wine critics are ‘too developed’. Example? I don’t like anything much in the Yellowtail range (yes, I know it’s “[yellowtail]” but I refuse to get involved in typographical affectation without good literary cause). I don’t drink much Gallo Colombard, either. Yet these wines bring pleasure to hundreds of thousands of drinkers every day. Should I take this into account before I dismiss them?
We could also raise the bar a bit. I criticised an ambitious Vin de Pays Viognier (the Laurent Miquel Verité Viognier) in my April Decanter column for being ‘too acid’. It is a well-made wine with some depth and substance, though. You could say that I was criticising it simply because it wasn’t Condrieu. But not every Viognier can be Condrieu. Am I not guilty of critical hyper-acuity? Have I not lost the plot? Do I not need to get real?
Other considerations: brett is inceasingly seen as a fault in wines. Yet some brett is a feature of many, many red wines (check out Tom Carson’s comments in the article I have linked to), and is thus a part of what many drinkers actually like in those wines. If we get rid of it altogether, aren’t we impoverishing the greater sensorial spectrum of wine and closing off some of its stranger beauties?
Obviously I will provide answers of my own, and survey other professionals, too, but I’d be very interested to see what anyone passing through this site might think. If you consider wine professionals spend too much time tasting in the lower recesses of their own fundaments, let us have it! Either post your point of view here, or if you don’t want to go public with it, let me have it via the ‘Q&A’ facility on the homepage. (I’ll assume you can be quoted unless you specify otherwise.) Don’t be shy...
We each buy our wine in
We each buy our wine in different ways. Some (not particularly interested) go on price and visibility in the supermarket etc and so plum for Gallo and Yellowtail. I don’t imagine they are likely to have heard of you or are particularly interested in the views of wine critics et al - they know what they like and are happy to leave it at that.
Others (and I suspect this is where all Decanter’s readers and visitors to your website come in) are more interested - they want to try different wines, trade up, grab a bargain, sometimes just follow vintages or read about wines they will never even try. And that’s where you guys come in - we look to you for an indication as to how well made the wine is and, for some of us at least, typicity. From that, we will then add in the price and decide whether or not the wine in question is worth investigating. If so, then we’ll buy and try the wine at which point our own palates take over and we decide if it something we like or not. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a “real palate” - all our tastes are different (my wife is far more sensitive to acid than I am, for example) and, at the end of the day, for each of us it is our own palate which counts.
So, for those interested in wine (who are the only people who will be interested in your views), there’s no question of your tastes being too developed; your detailed views are what we’re after. For all others, maybe but then, for them, it’s a non-point.
And this must be true of every interest or hobby under the sun. I tried buying a new set of golf clubs the other day and was astonished at the variety of clubs on offer. And reading the reviews of some left me helpless and baffled - torque, degree, bounce, spin etc. It meant little to me but to many it won’t. That’s what we all like - to know a subject better and better, to revel in Macniece’s drunkenness of things be various.
So the detail of your knowledge and the worth of your criticism is determined by your audience. Here, and on Decanter, I think you are all doing very well indeed.
[I will see if I can send others to comment here, if you don’t mind!]
[square brackets for comment rather than affectation!]
[:)]
By the way, Henry, you will
By the way, Henry, you will probably have noted that when I quoted you in the August 2008 edition of Decanter, the golf clubs got changed to golf balls. Ah, the mysteries of subbing! They were golf clubs in my copy ...
Interesting point, and one
Interesting point, and one that directly affects wine bloggers in particular, as wine blogs are often put down for not being written by ‘proper’ experts. Bloggers also rarely have access to the best wines or wine experiences, so write about the wines they experience, many of them the run of the mill brands as you mention.
(Some of this was recently covered in an article in The World of Fine Wine Magazine about The Future of Wine Writing)
We need both types of approaches, in fact we need more.
We need those who are experts to define the context for all wines, placing the best Condrieu at the top and VdP Viognier lower down the quality scale. Not everyone can drink DRC, but someone has to (let it be me) so that that experience can be shared. However, not all wine reviews should compare the wines to DRC and instead should speak about wines in the context their target consumers can relate to.
We therefore also need those who can review wines in the way the consumer does, and thus a new type of reviewer, with a different palate but also a different outlook on wine, can add new value. This is the opportunity for wine bloggers.
Maybe your Viognier was too acidic, or the Colombard too bland, but these wines have a context which is entirely different and where these ‘faults’ might have been less important than issues of branding, social relations and uncritical quaffability.
These are some of the issues we wine bloggers feel we need to explore further, and why we are arranging the first ever Wine Bloggers Conference in August this year. Fancy coming along to discuss this? (http://ewbc2008.wineblogger.info)
Your talking about two
Your talking about two things here.
1)Wine criticism, which implies that wine is a objective endevour. Meaning that you can put one wine ahead of another, and you must, to find that perfect wine! I have lot’s of problems with this, since I believe wine is subjective, but I also know that you need to do this when trying to create any kind of scale. I just wish more writers would objectively look at wines style by style, and case by case.
The second as I’ve said is 2) Subjective, what you talk about when people find pleasure in wines such as French Colombard. I did a piece talking about this, http://www.catavino.net/2007/05/23/anatomy-of-a-100-point-wine/
My main point was that wine when judged objectively it often loses the appeal it has when shared with friends. Simple wines, are great wines, in the right circumstance.
So I guess I would say yes and no. Critics do need to judge wines with strictness so that there are standards and benchmarks. But at the same time, sometimes they need to leave the points behind and just enjoy the glass on the table, and it would be great to hear about these experiences more.
Andrew, Good topic! I think
Andrew, Good topic!
I think that personal wine preferences can and should be put aside when objectively judging a wine. Many wine drinkers may not like Catawba (Red Cat, Red Cat!) but there is a flavor profile for well made Catawba. If the wine being evaluated meets that profile and has no faults, it’s a good Catawba wine.
If [yellowtail] falters, let it be because it does not have the flavor profile of other Shiraz’s, not because of personal distaste for the wine.
There should be a 100 point example for every type of wine.
Dear Andrew: an interesting
Dear Andrew: an interesting commission. I think a well exercised palate ought be used to delve deep into wine’s cannon for nuance at all levels. It is important not to bamboozle and appear snobbish when trying to present near celebrity, aspirational bottles. But I think that above all, budding enthusiasts thoroughly appreciate being led towards a fine, sustainably stocked find at a reasonable price, e.g. Fiano di Avellino, Di Barro Petit Rouge, English fizz versus Champagne.
In terms of what wine professionals term commercial swill, it is important to appreciate the paramaters and knuckle down to try these. However if they are simply tasting rudely unflatteringly, their negatives should be coolly broadcast, referenced to the quality independent finds in their price bracket. Hard criticism is a familiar creature with top end wines, and simply passing by the bottom end is perhaps letting these off lightly…
Kind regards.
Hi Andrew, A good question,
Hi Andrew,
A good question, and I don’t think there is a ‘right’ answer. There is a point to be made here I think about the purpose of tasting / drinking. Most people (and in this I include your Gallo /yellowtail type drinker) are drinking to relax, unwind, enjoy themselves with friends. They are not focusing on the drink in itself - indeed it probably only features in their thoughts if it is particularly poor / corked etc. Whereas, those of us with professional interest in the subject combine that basic urge to relax with the sensorial pleasure of the drink itself.
This was brought home to me the other day when we conducted a benchmarking exercise involving several supermarket wines which sell on promotion for less than £5. This was actually an unpleasant experience - and I don’t think it is snobbery on my part, merely that my palate is used to calibrating, reporting back to my brain what kind of experience it is having. Thus, the extra levels of ‘development’in our palates serve the purpose of increasing our enjoyment of our favourite subject, but they shouldn’t stand in the way of anyone who simply wants to drink a non-challenging alcoholic drink.
Andrew A wine writer or
Andrew
A wine writer or critic (or anyone assessing a wine) needs to have a set of criteria. Wine assessment or criticism is (tasting wine critically) NOT an entirely subjective endeavor. It can (and is) taught.
Yes, everyone has their own likes and dislikes but the notion that each palate is like a snowflake is simply ... well ... over simplification.
A good critic should be able to accurately assess (with some objectivity) a wine from Yellowtail to Mouton in a proper and logical context. The problem is that both critics and readers are too often confusing the empirical assessment and a qualitative assessment. Boil it down to a “Yellowtail bad” vs “Mouton good” view.
“High acidity” is not some subjective notion. Acidity is either high, low or medium. It is either typical or atypical for the wine in question. A wine is either well made or it isn’t. Wine evaluation isn’t anarchy. When I read a tasting note, I am first and foremost, interested in what the wine tastes like.–it’s style– its typicity–flaws or lack thereof etc etc etc. Then I am interested in what the reviewer thinks, his or her evaluation–the score, if you will.
Being a small part of the trade, I taste many wines whose style I do not personally like. Yet I do appreciate these wines if they are well made. I do not sell only wines I personally like, but I do sell only wines that are well made!
There is a difference here. Basically, I do not sell wines to customers who only have similar likes and dislikes as me. The confusion many wine lovers become mired in is the belief that one can not properly assess a winer unless that person likes the style of that particular wine. Too many critics and writers these days are falling into the trap of the personality cult,wherein it is all about them and not the wine. But that’s fodder for another thread.
There is art and science, objectivity and subjectivity at play here.
It seems a shame that all
It seems a shame that all the comments this post got seem to have been lost in your redesign. Any chance of getting them back?
I hadn't noticed that your feed address must have changed as well as I have not seen any updates but it appears you have been busy here after all!
Yup -- we're working on all
Yup -- we're working on all of this. I'm sorry it's taking a time; we're both part-timers with wee bairns to feed and read to, but we will get there in the end ...
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