Rants & Commentary.

Featured here are assorted writings, links and excerpts from WineFlash (my roughly-monthly, always-free e-newsletter), listed from most recent (top) to early 2004. Much of the ranting has been directed at “the 100-point scale,” which I consider to be pointless and poisonous. The official position at Wine For All is that ALL wines rate 88 points. Done!

Signs of the Times, Wine-Style
The Enthusiast Pumps Up with "Steroids" & Ratings
Wine’s Under-Reported Techno-cracy
Wine Spectator’s myopic view of the Web
“Ten Reasons We All Lose with Wine Ratings” article at wineindustry.com
 2005 Wrap, 2006 Preview
Are you "Wine Experienced"?
“Splendid Blendeds” article at winereviewonline.com
“Drink Wine” (a poem)
Mime Wine
Winespeak du jour
Side-Splitting Spectator
Want some “Laugh-ite” from Wine Express?
Bordeaux: Are 2000s the new ’82s?
My Wine Glass Can Beat Up Your Wine Glass
Introducing DEEP PALATE
Sublime to Ridiculous?
Mr. Parker, Meet Dr. Spock
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Monde
Seminar at Copia: Fun with Numbers!
Berger's Big Wine Boo-Boo
Wine-Writing Ethics: The Big Gray Blob
Snapshots from a Napa Symposium
WWTJD? Or: How to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Golden Age of Wine.
Some Modest Predictions for 2005
Holiday Book Bag
Top 100? Wake Me When They're Over.
The 96-Point Case of Wine Express
Most Unscientific Wine Judging Ever?
Numbers-Bashing #1: The Perfect Storm
Wine Spectator's Teflon Fortress—and Hubris
Napa Gets It! (Sometimes Spec Gets It Too)
The Lamest Notes in the Wine Biz
Spectator Drops a Bomb (or Do They Crack a Joke?)

Signs of the Times

It occurred to me recently that sometimes certain “signs” reveal the extent to which various phenomena have arrived. Spring has arrived, for example when blossoms perfume the air…when the ice cream truck chimes its annoying muzak around town…and when UPS drivers start sporting both carefree smiles and cute brown shorts. Here are some recent signs of the times with respect to wine:

The Signs: Santa Margherita, the boss dog of Italian Pinot Grigio, now makes a Prosecco. Another Veneto leader, Zardetto, has released an ultrapremium bottling of the bubbly, called “Zeta.” And when I served Prosecco at a recent job celebrating a 50th birthday, practically every guest recognized and happily accepted a flute.

What They Mean: The popularity of Prosecco is on the verge of exploding. As it should be—this versatile Veneto-based sparkling wine, so light it’s practically ethereal, is delightfully apple-y and almost impossible not to like. Personal faves, all under $15, include Zardetto, Mionetto, Bisol and Bortolotti. I haven’t tried the Zeta yet, but Mionetto’s “Sergio” is a nice way to kick your simple bubbly up a notch.

The Signs: Napa Valley’s  Whitehall Lane has debuted an elegant new alternative closure; made by Alcoa, the “Vino-Seal” is a glass stopper with rubber O-ring (link). The ever-clever Don Sebastiani & Sons of Sonoma has release its new Plungerhead label with a “Zork” closure (link). Two separate firms run-by under-40 visionaries—Three Thieves in California (link), Boisset in France (link)—have introduced varietal wines in environmentally friendly Tetra Prisma packages.

What They Mean: Non-cork wines are getting hipper every month. Doubters, take note: when Boisset’s French Rabbit line was launched in Canada last summer, in both traditional bottles and the glass- and cork-free “ePods,” the pods outsold the bottles by a ratio of 20 to 1!

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The Signs: Web-surfers can now find wine “blogs” (Web logs) by several editors at winespectator.com (for paid subscribers only); by Eric Asimov at The New York Times (http://thepour.blogs.nytimes.com/); and by Jerry Shriver at USA Today (http://blogs.usatoday.com/cheers/).

What They Mean: Blogs are going mainstream, BUT not all so-called blogs deliver. The raison d’être of blogs, in my humble estimation, is to present independent viewpoints as well as a forum for reaction. Spectator’s blogs fail miserably in this regard; not only are they open only to Web subscribers, but they read like sanitized diary entries aimed at Grape Nuts who regularly sip 95-point Kool-Aid. Jerry Shriver’s blog is really no more than a value-oriented wine-of-the-day. Eric Asimov’s is the best of the three by far, though the its bloginess is clearly muted by Eric’s post-and-run approach. The most vibrant blogs are operating far from the mainstream press, and are characterized by lively comments by readers, whose posts are in turn often commented upon again by the bloggers. Try Tom Wark’s http://www.fermentation.typepad.com/; Alder Yarrow’s www.vinography.com and Beau Jarvis’s http://basicjuice.blogs.com/. All three are full of interesting viewpoints, astute reader responses and refreshing spurts of controversy.

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The Signs: I spied a French wine labeled “Meritage” the other week in my local retail shop (Domaine Coudoulet 2004 Vin de Pays d’Oc). The EU approved the use of oak chips in wine production. A Portuguese producer has gone screw(top)y.

What They Mean: The New World is driving the wine world these days.After decades of serving as the proverbial yardstick for the rest of the world, Europe now is playing catch-up, and increasingly is imitating producers and regions of the New World. This is a positive thing, as it can only accelerate progress everywhere. One interesting example: the brand new “Choose Yours” wine-and-food pairing wheel created by the American office of Sopexa, a marketing agency for French wines and foods, features GRAPES, and puts their Appellation d’Origin Controlée equivalents on the back of the simple device. Sacrilege to purists, perhaps, but when I did a series of tastings on behalf of Sopexa at Giant Eagle supermarkets in the Cleveland area recently, the wheels were a HUGE hit. Understandably so, as people raised on New World wines are simply tuned in to grapes, not regions. That’s not a good or bad thing; it’s just the way it is.

—June 2006
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Wine on Steroids? That’s just wack!

Now mercifully off newsstands, Wine Enthusiast’s May issue trumpeted a cover story entitled “Wine on Steroids,” ostensibly a critical analysis of rising alcohol levels in table wines. [Disclosure: I edited WE from 1988-1998.] The article suffered from numerous shortcomings, the most egregious of which was the failure to name a single example of this alleged threat. Here we have a fearsome trend that threatens the public’s enjoyment of wine, and yet not a solitary wine is identified as an example of “high-octane” imbalance. A marshmallow job from start to finish, the piece was akin to reporting a crime spree without even mentioning the types, frequencies and locations of the alleged crimes. Ironically, dozens of high-alcohol blockbusters lurked in the very same issue of the Enthusiast, mere pages away in the buying guide that droned on from page 61 to 108.

Nobody should be surprised. Naming names would risk offending a hefty number of California wineries, not to mention advertisers. It would also invite scrutiny of WE’s own critics, who routinely wax poetic about intense, full-bodied wines that not coincidentally sport strapping 14+% levels of alcohol. In fact, I would argue that the #1 force pushing average alcohol levels higher, especially in New World wines, is the degree to which critics using the numbingly ubiquitous 100-point scale are rewarding big, extracted wines with big, attention-grabbing scores.

Interestingly, insightful articles on the same topic appeared almost simultaneously in Wine Spectator (May 15, 2006) and Wine & Spirits (June 2006). The Spectator’s piece, by Daniel Sogg, focused on the widespread use of de-alcoholizing techniques used by literally hundreds of California wineries (a development WE was either unaware of or chose to ignore). Tara Q. Thomas in Wine & Spirits presented a nicely balanced essay that captured the multiplicity of issues involved (hang time, global warming, food-unfriendliness, etc.)

This is not a simple topic, and while the general rise in alcohol levels may not reverse quickly, there is something you can do about it. For starters, seek out lower-alcohol wines; the numbers are on the labels for all to see and there are plenty of (primarily Old World) bottlings that deliver pleasure fur under 13% alcohol. If you want to get creative, try splashing a bit of spring water into a monstrous red; you may be pleasantly surprised.

Speaking of “big” numbers, it doesn’t take more than a pencil, a calculator and some No-Doz to extract some positively freaky stats from the June 2006 issue of Wine Enthusiast. Out of 547 reviews in the Buying Guide, 150 received scores of 90 or higher; 266 were rated 87-89. That essentially means a full 76% of the wines they reviewed got high B’s or A’s.

But even odder is what happens below 87. The magazine long ago abandoned the practice of handing out scores lower than 80. But how then does one explain the fact that ZERO wines rated 80-82; and FIVE wines—yes, five out of 547—rated 83. Now I’m no statistician, but the odds of this drop-off happening naturally in a sample of 500-plus wines seem about the same as Halley’s Comet circling Earth monthly. The only explanation I can fathom is that as far as Wine Enthusiast is concerned, 84 is the new 80! And conveniently enough, this new, kinder-gentler baseline certainly makes it easier for the magazine to sell label reproductions—a.k.a. “paid promotions,” a.k.a. ads—in its buying guide.

—June 2006
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Wine’s Under-Reported Techno-cracy

Is wine’s ongoing technological revolution being ignored? I no longer edit a wine magazine, but as wine is still my profession and passion, I am constantly reading about it—in all sorts of places, from the major magazines to assorted blogs and websites to winery press releases and retailer newsletters. And it hit me the other week that there is an amazing amount of technological innovation happening in the wine world that is not reaching the mainstream media. A few examples:

• Temperature sensors in vineyards. In the baked-potato-hot center of Spain, for instance, Osborne has a vast expanse of young vines wired into a single Macintosh, so that heat surges can be quickly countered with minimal irrigation. At Shafer Vineyards in Napa, sharply dipping temperatures result in automatic cellphone alerts to vineyard managers so they can jump on frost protection.
• Constar International, a plastics company in Philadelphia, recently introduced a line of unbreakable wine bottles all the way up to 1.5-liter size. Now that screwtops have cleared the hurdle of consumer acceptance, are lightweight, bounceable bottles next? Read more about it here.
• A firm called Shelf2Sale has created an cost- and time-efficient means of creating and distributing customized shelf talkers and point-of-sale materials. Sure, this is a trade issue, but the impact down the line could be as revolutionary to point-of-sale marketing as laser printers have proven to wine lists.
• Making wine at home has apparently taken a space-age twist; check out WinePod, the “Web-enabled, state-of-the-art winery for your home or office.”
• Wine Library, a prominent New Jersey retailer, now offers Gary Vaynerchuk’s bloggish videotaped reviews of hot wines (usually at the high end of the price spectrum). I’m no fan of the way Wine Library hypes 90-point-plus wines with Chicken-Little-ish urgency, but I love the home-movie feel and earnestness of the videos. Check it out here.
• And let’s not forget www.localwineevents.com, which has grown into a far-reaching Internet clearinghouse for all sorts of wine events across the U.S. and abroad (including mine).
• Naturally there is an ton of amount of techno-stuff happening in winery and vineyard management equipment. The trade magazine Wines & Vines, for example, reported on the “Alartus Stinger,” a machine that shoots a cloud of super-heated steam that kills vineyard weeds without tillage or chemicals. This is exactly the kind of invention that can spur even more growth in sustainable viticulture. Seeing how effective it is on pesky weeds makes me wonder if it would be equally effective on wine snobs…

Anyway, the point of these examples is that a lot of fun, fascinating and important developments in the wine world are not getting a blink of attention from the mainstream consumer wine media. Why? Because wine magazines today are too busy pumping out ratings and tasting notes that amount to an unconscionable waste of paper.

Who really reads so-called “buying guides” anyway? Even retailers I know and trust merely scan them—at best. Magazine editors’ obsession with blind-tasting has take the form of blinders when it comes to under-the-radar happenings that significantly impact how wine is made, packaged, sold and enjoyed. If the mainstream wine media really cared about consumer advocacy, we’d be seeing regular coverage of wine technology developments as well as special issues devoted to specific trends and inventions. Don’t look for that to change soon, so long as ratings continue to get worshipped in the wine marketing pipeline.

Regular readers of WineFlash know where I stand on ratings: they have outlived their utility and are counterproductive in today’s vibrant wine scene. For a summary of the Top Ten reasons wine ratings are BAD-BAD-BAD, check out this article I wrote a while back for Wine Business Monthly: http://www.winebusiness.com/salesmarketing/webarticle.cfm?dataId=36265

—March 2006
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Wine Spectator’s myopic view of the Web

Anyone who reads Wine Spectator knows this 800-pound media gorilla is chest-thumpingly self-referential. For example, the magazine acknowledges the existence of non-Spectator critics at the rate of, oh, maybe once a decade. And when WS runs a big feature on a region or a grape, mentions of specific wines are invariably accompanied by distracting (SPECTATOR SCORE, PRICE) parentheticals. But even sadder is the way they handle Web links. On any reader-respecting Web site, links typically go OUT of the current site, letting the Web reader “drill deeper” on specific topics. At WS’s site, however, drilling deeper is as much fun as root canal and even less helpful, because the only links they offer go to other parts of their own site.

To wit, take Wine Spectator’s “Unfiltered” department, which can actually be quite amusing and informative. But when they ran a piece about Bennett Lane winery sponsoring a Nascar team, clicking on the underscored, highlighted Bennett Lane only takes you to Wine Spectator’s reviews of Bennett Lane wines (which in this and many other cases are incomplete anyway). And in their recent online obituaries for Willy Frank and Rodney Strong, WS pays tribute to the individuals but provides no link whatsoever to their respective winery Web sites.

Why not? Are the editors afraid Web-savvy enthusiasts will see wine reviews done by (gasp!) other critics? Are they afraid that once these wine-thirsty surfers get a taste of the real Web they may never return to the protective utopian island of www.winespectator.com? That, by the way, is a real link to WS’s site. And so are these: http://bennettlane.com/; http://www.drfrankwines.com/; http://www.rodneystrong.com/home.asp.

This no-outside-links treatment is completely out of touch with what the Web is all about. And it is yet another example of extreme myopia, suggesting that the only spectating they really care about is their own holier-than-everyone-else image.

—March 2006
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2005 Wrap, 2006 Preview

Wine Spectator: the Gaffes Keep Coming. Wine Spectator ’s hubris reached new heights in 2005. The vaunted New York Wine Experience in October (previously lambasted here) was basically a Cabernet Sauvignon coronation. Before the event, looking at the roster of wineries invited to pour only 90-point (or higher-scoring) wines, I put the over/under line on Cabs in this annual elbow festival at 75. The actual number turned out to be 87—or about one third of all the wines poured. Yum? No, yawn. The rainbow of great wines in the world has never been more diverse; but you’d never know it from the Wine Experience.

And how in a sane world can WS publish a sprawling Riesling cover story in December and manage to totally disrespect California? It’s one thing if the writer, Bruce Sanderson, prefers European Rieslings; but stating “With some exceptions, California's climate is too warm for the grape to develop its aromas and flavors in a dry-style wine” and then moving right along (without even acknowledging a few exceptions) is absurd. Does this mean that dozens of wineries that grow Riesling in the Golden State are wasting their time, energy and vineyard land? And does it mean that non-dry U.S. Riesling is dismissable as well?

This fleeting remark suggests that Wine Spectator editors not only suffer for ivory-tower insulation and self-aggrandizement, but worse, they seem to have forgotten that wine writing is inescapably subjective. Just because Bruce Sanderson thinks California can’t make good dry Riesling does not make it true. That is his opinion. Which is fine. The bigger problem comes when WS “opinions” such as this are presented as fact, without equivocation or opposition (Matt Kramer’s column being a rare exception). James Laube covers California for WS; does he concur with Sanderson on Riesling? We’ll never know. Unlike real life, WS has no room for debate. Meanwhile, here are just a few California Riesling makers that deserve better: Claiborne-Churchill, Fetzer, Greenwood Ridge, Smith-Madrone and Stony Hill.

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Wine Enthusiast Hardy-Har-Har Awards. Bacchus knows I’ve ridiculed folks at The Wine Enthusiast enough over their silly wine retail Web site called Wine Express (see previous rants here and here; and yes, full disclosure, I edited WE magazine from 1988-’98). Now the Enthusiastics seem to have created their own recipe for comedy with the latest batch of “Wine Star” Awards. Usually merely forgettable, the 2005 awards have to go down as laughable.

Let’s start with the Retailer of the Year, Sam’s Wine & Spirits of Chicago. I’ve shopped at Sam’s and am familiar with the store’s extremely broad selection of wines at very competitive prices. OK, sounds worthy enough. But what, I wondered, distinguished Sam’s in 2005 as opposed to other years? Was it the fact that Sam’s spent the entire span of 2005 under the cloud of an investigation by the Illinois Liquor Control Commission regarding allegations of wholesaler kickbacks and other violations? I tried to ask the WE editors about their general criteria and specific selections, but they clammed up shortly after I alerted them to Sam’s tenuous legal situation, which apparently was unknown at the magazine. (The investigation is in its final stages, sources tell me, with Sam’s facing both a six-figure fine and a temporary suspension of their license for up to 10 days.)

I sincerely hope Sam’s can resolve their regulatory problem soon and get back to focusing solely on selling lots of good wine at good prices to good people. That award got me thinking: what resources did the WE editors actually use when assessing potential award winners? One might conclude they don’t follow their competition very carefully; Wine Spectator covered the Sam’s story in December of 2004 (link here, subscription required).

In retrospect, the Sam’s award actually makes more sense than some of the Wine Star nominees (five in each of ten categories) which were first published in the WE Nov. 1, 2005 issue. What, for example, was the logic behind the nomination of MezzaCorona as European Winery of the Year? It seemed a bit odd that MezzaCorona—not exactly a household name in wine—would turn up on an elite-award shortlist. Given the WE editors’ lack of responsiveness to my questions, I resorted to old-school research: back issues. Voilá, when I discovered that the merits of this lesser-known Italian producer were presented in glorious detail in the form of a “Special Advertising Section” (a.k.a. advertorial) that ran in Wine Enthusiast’s April 2005 issue, the answer to my question became perfectly clear. So clear you might call it transparent. We may never know what the specific criteria for the Wine Star awards and nominees are, but at least we can safely surmise that the editors read their own magazine.

—December 2005/January 2006
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Are you "Wine Experienced"?

Maybe I shouldn’t even be talking about the Wine Spectator New York Wine Experience (WSNYWE). After all, I’ve never been. Not going this year (Oct. 20-22) either. And it is, of course, their event. Wine Spectator is entitled to stage whatever sort of tasting they want, and what true wine enthusiast would frown upon back-to-back evenings of “Grand Tastings” that promise 2,000-plus people each night the chance to taste a couple hundred 90-point wines for just $250?

Also, the WSNYWE is a major philanthropic event. Since 1983 proceeds topping $5 million have been disbursed in the form of scholarships for individuals for pursuing careers in the wine and hospitality industries. That’s a very good thing.

But as readers of the Flash know, I have a real problem with wine ratings on the so-called 100-point scale, and that’s where my problems with the WSNYWE start. Ads and brochures for the Grand Tastings proclaim: “More than 250 of the world’s best wineries/chateaus” have been “carefully selected” and asked to pour “one great vintage…a wine rated 90 points or higher by Wine Spectator.” The ads also assert that wineries selected have earned the magazine’s “Critics’ Choice Award,” an honor ostensibly on par with the editors’ high-profile Restaurant Awards program and annual Top 100.

Given such public flagging of the Critics’ Choice designation, I think the Grand Tastings are an appropriate topic for comment. Here is my take…

FAUX PRETENSE. The advertised 90-point minimum is about as solid as a line in the sand drawn at low tide. At least three of the participating wineries (Yarden, Alain Brumont, Wolffer Estate) have never cleared the magical 90-point bar. Others are pouring despite having barely sniffed 90-point territory in recent memory (BV, Gallo of Sonoma). And quite a few wineries that have hit the 90+ jackpot are nonetheless pouring vintages that have never been rated at all (e.g., Chateau St. Jean 2002 Cinq Cépages, Perrier-Jouët 1998 Fleur de Champagne, Vietti 2001 Barolo Lazzarito) or—gulp!—scored in the dreaded 80s (Opus One ’02, 86 points; Robert Mondavi ’02 Reserve Cabernet, 87). I do not mean to cast aspersions over any of the wineries coming to the Grand Tastings. Indeed, who doesn’t want to be tasting Opus and Mondavi? The NY Wine Experience is jammed with incredible, important and attention-deserving wines.

The issue here is Wine Spectator’s apparent need to base the notion of wine worthiness on ratings—and then not even stick to their own benchmark. I would understand publicizing the 90-point baseline if in fact the criteria for selection and approval were based strictly on ratings, but clearly they are not. As Executive Editor Tom Matthews explained via email: “In general, the editors recommend wineries from their various regions, and we try to assemble a group that gives a thorough representation of the whole world of wine. (There are many wineries that deserve to be invited but can’t be, simply because we lack the space.) Then we ask wineries to pour wines that have scored 90 points or better in our reviews, but sometimes we make exceptions, for various reasons.”

I have no doubt that Tom Matthews and crew are perfectly capable of tapping excellent wineries, but why construct and advertise the faux pretense of a minimum score? And if these wineries are bastions of excellence, can’t they be trusted to pour whatever they want?

Here’s my theory: for Wine Spectator, ratings are power. The Spectator bestows a 90; the wine sells out, pure and simple. Everybody between Margaux and Mars understands this. And the Spectator does a masterful job of reinforcing the power they wield with ratings. Sometimes it’s unseen—as when they release scores to retailers before subscribers. Sometimes it’s subtle, as when editors consistently use the phrase “highly rated” in place of fuzzier, subjective terms like “outstanding,” “superb” or even “delicious.” Here, I think the ratings are being used like a hoop that the magazine asks the dutiful wineries to jump through (cue cracking whip sound now!). By basing the ground rules for Grand Tasting participation on ratings, the Spectator ensures that credit for the wine being poured can go as much to their number-crunching editors as to the wineries.

STRENGTH & SCOPE? According to Tom Matthews: “Our goal is to present to our guests the best and most exciting line-up of wineries and wines that we can. I think if you look at the wineries that will be represented at the Grand Tastings, you’ll agree that few — if any — other events can match it for the scope and strength of the line-up.”

As for “strength,” no argument there. Just start ticking off names like Gaja, Lafite, Harlan, Sassicaia, Williams-Selyem and you can practically hear grown men start to drool. “Scope” is where I scratch my head. If I were an oddsmaker in Vegas I’d put the over/under line on Cabernets, Bordeaux and Bordeaux-style blends at 75 out of the 250 or so wines being poured. (Take the “over.”) No real surprise; Spectator fondness of pricey reds is no secret. And again, it’s hard to quibble with the quality, scores or no scores.

But let’s look at what’s NOT going to be at this year’s WSNYWE… Is there any chameleon-like Chenin Blanc in the house? Maybe one; there is but a solitary Loire Valley producer (Domaine des Baumard). South Africa? Two ( Fairview and Englebrecht Els). Champagne lovers will be happy, having 10 to choose from, plus four ditto-ish sparklers from California as well. Are there no other bubblies deserving palate time…Prosecco perhaps? And where, pray tell is Paso Robles? Yes, I know it’s in California. In fact, it’s now California’s third largest wine region, but only one is “Experienced” (L’Aventure). Is there any Petite Sirah on tap? Voluptuous Viognier or Semillon? Eye-opening Greek or Hungarian table wine? Long overlooked Languedoc-Roussillon? Chic wood-free Chardonnay? Kick-ass Carmenere? I’m holding my breath…not.

Apparently Wine Spectator’s idea of diversity leans toward variations on classical themes, not an eclectic range of grapes, regions and styles. Too bad. What a shame to think that St. Francis (a winery masterful in Zin and Merlot) is going to be there pouring their 2001 Nun’s Canyon Reserve Cabernet (WS 88 points, by the way). Wouldn’t it be nice if they were able to pour their nifty RED blend (Zin-Merlot-Grenache-Sangiovese; one of my recent Qool Wines)? Bedell Cellars is pouring their 1995 “Cupola,” a Bordeaux-style blend that garnered a 90 back in 2000…along with the suggestion “Drink now through 2004.” Wouldn’t Bedell’s brand new, white-hot “Taste” (see Qool Wines below) be more exciting?

Yes, there will be a Grand Tasting wine from Japan (Mercian Katsunuma) and one from Lebanon (Chateau Musar). Not to knock them (there’s 1987 and ’89 Musar in my cellar), but I ask: Is that Wine Spectator’s idea of scope? I’m sorry, but after some careful consideration, the Grand Tasting lineup stills looks to me to be about as varied as a Hooters staff meeting.

THE WHAT-IFS… Of course, lack of diversity is not the wineries’ fault. It comes back again to the Spectator’s insistence both on picking the wineries and approving exactly one wine apiece. Think about that for a second—250 great wineries…and just 250 wines. That’s like inviting 250 great equestrians to a steeplechase and having them jump a single hedge.

Imagine if Wine Spectator had asked wineries to bring two wines. Or three. And imagine if Wine Spectator encouraged producers to bring not merely a 90-pointer, but rather something…different… something special.

Producers and winery reps would jump at the chance. They would bring old vintages, experimental cuvées, the stuff they usually tuck under the table at trade tastings. The added effort would be negligible, and the upside incalculable. For the same effort it takes to come pour a single vino, they could actually show multiple dimensions of their portfolios. What a concept! And how much more exciting would it be for guests to be able to come to a table and see a small sampling of what a producer considers his/her best. The Grand Tasting might live up to its name and beyond… But I sincerely doubt that would happen. Letting in too many wines would mean abandoning that 90-point bottom line. Much easier to maintain a fortress built on numbers when Big Brother is watching over the pouring of the sacred juice.

ALTERNATIVE SIPS. If not the Wine Experience, what?

• In Manhattan, PJ’s Wine puts on a sensational annual tasting every Fall; 500 wines, remarkable diversity and quality, high-end food stations, and proceeds benefit City Harvest. It happens November 16. Tickets are $150 VIP, $99 regular. More info at www.pjwine.com.
  
  
• In New Jersey, Gary’s Wine & Marketplace Grand Annual Tasting takes place October 24 at the Madison Hotel in Convent Staion, NJ. It features 800 wines, covering the globe as well as a wide price spectrum, plus food buffets. Proceeds go to Katrina relief and a local hospital. Info at www.garyswine.com.
  
  
• Too late now, but earlier this month Wine & Spirits magazine staged a tasting based on their annual Top 100 Wineries of 2005 in San Francisco. I don’t know precisely what was actually poured, but the lineup of wineries (presented in a special issue now on newsstands) is loaded with quality and variety. And I give them credit as well for basing their Top 100 roster on the straightforward criteria of performance in the magazine’s blind tastings. It’s almost enough to make me forgive them for doing the 100-point-scale thing.

—October 2005
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Mime Wine

Quelle dommage? Or quelle damage! John Cleese has a DVD out called “Wine for the Confused.” But I’m confused after reading about it in Entertainment Weekly. When EW asked the Monty Python alum what he’d choose if he could have only one more drink, he replied, “A great white burgundy—probably a Marceau.” Whoa! Did France’s legendary street mime vault silently into the wine business? Alors, non. What we have here is a simple case of fact-checking gone awry. Lord knows how many wordsmiths had a hand in transforming Meursault into Marceau, but the fact that this blooper slipped through the editorial mitts of one of Time Warner’s biggest magazines suggests that winespeak, especially the French sort, is still alarmingly foreign to mainstream America. All the more reason, I suppose, we need a fun and educational documentary by John Cleese. Link here to the DVD at Amazon.

—Summer 2005
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Winespeak du jour

Check out this description: “A skyscraper that builds in the mouth with multiple dimensions, amazing layers of flavor, great delicacy, and tremendous purity… This prodigious Cabernet Sauvignon is about as good as Cabernet can be.” Which Cab is it? Answer below…. But for the moment, consider this: Does anyone need a rating here to grasp that the writer loves this wine?

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OK, here's the answer: The description quoted above wass penned by Robert M. Parker Jr., writing in The Wine Advocate about the 2001 Shafer VineyardsHillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon. What did Parker rate the wine? I don’t really know, because the fact sheet where I first read it left it off. Bravo, Shafer, for the wine and the sanity!

Meanwhile, for those who want to know more about the man behind the ratings, pick up Elin McCoy’s biography, The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Regin of American Taste.” Quite a mouthful. I haven’t read it yet, but look forward to it after polishing off another beach book. The Amazon page alone is fascinating.

—Summer 2005
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Side-Splitting Spectator

I knew there was a reason I subscribe to Wine Spectator: it’s the irony! My “Encyclopedia of Food” issue came polybagged with a handsome mini-catalog from wine.com that promised an “Exclusive Offer” for subscribers. Wow, thought I, this is my lucky day! Sure enough, on page 17, “Wine.com and Wine Spectator are proud to bring you…the perfect pairing of wine selections and wine knowledge.” The deal is suh-weet: I can save $10 off the $99.99 Wine Spectator’s ABC’s of Wine Tasting package that includes the official Wine Spectator School course AND six varietal wines. Here’s the kicker: five of the wines happen to be in the E. & J. Gallo portfolio…including the Gallo of Sonoma Chardonnay that WS gave a 55-point rating last year! Yes, 55 whole points for the 2002 vintage (original story). And now (thanks to corporate synergy?) they are endorsing the wine as an exemplar of its type… perhaps because the 2003 vintage got an 80-point score? Many thanks to Wine Spectator and wine.com for the hilarious reminder that wine ratings obviously don’t mean a thing! As for Gallo wines, and I have bought and poured them at corporate and private tastings for years—including the infamous 55—and will continue to do so with gusto…but without numbers.

—Summer 2005
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Want some “Laugh-ite” from Wine Express?

At least the Spectator brass isn’t afraid to put their name on co-op ventures. By contrast, The Wine Enthusiast still seems awfully shy about its ownership connection to Wine Express (www.wineexpress.com), which WineFlash exposed last year (original story). I can’t fathom why the Enthusiastics continue to downplay their retail wine operation, considering they now actually sell First Growth Bordeaux alongside the core inventory of little-known imports, back-vintage close-outs and private-label Californians. Yes indeed, Wine Express offers magnums of 1989 Lafite-Rothschild—rated 99 points—for $749! But wait a sec… why buy the ’89 Lafite when at the same website I can have a “98+” Le Charme Labory 2000 for just $29.95? Something does not compute…. Ohhhh, yes, now I see: the Lafite rating is designated “WS”—that must mean Wine Spectator—whereas the 98+ rating for Le Charme Labory (the second label of St. Estèphe property Cos Labory) is a “WEX” rating, as in Wine Express. Hmmm, must be a real hometown favorite. Then again, most everything at Wine Express is, since not a single WEX rating is below 90 points, no matter how obscure or modest the wine. And I’m sure the folks over at Lafite are about as thrilled to be part of the Wine Express line-up as Babe Ruth would be to bat clean-up for a Little League squad.

—Summer 2005
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Bordeaux: Are 2000s the new ’82s?

With more than two decades under their belts, why aren’t 1982 Bordeauxs commanding more attention in the wine press and in high-profile tastings? My hunch is that a big chunk of them are collecting dust in cellars of people who don’t really like mature Bordeaux. I happen to love that funky/earthy flava, but it’s not exactly delish-o-matic for people whose palates have been raised in Fruity City. And if people aren’t drinking the vaunted 1982s, then what will become of the similarly ballyhooed (and even more tannic) 2000s?

Today, you can go to www.wine-searcher.com and find fresh Lafite 2000 in the $500 range, and crusty ol’ Lafite 1982 in the $750 range. I’m no accountant, but that’s not a whole lot of separation in price, given the time lapse, the comparative scarcity of ’82s, and the accepted notion that both vintages were stellar. In essence, the closeness in price tells me that the market value of well-aged, complex claret has not nearly kept pace with the allure of pure speculation. Bottom line: Be careful what you buy…you just may wind up drinking it!

—Summer 2005
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My wine glass can beat up your wine glass

While I appreciate the fact that specialized stemware can elevate one’s experience with a given wine, the endless variations, tailored to distinct wine types, can get ridiculous. If you want to go the highbrow route without turning your house into a crystal palace, try the Bottega del Vino line, developed by the well-known restaurant of the same name in Verona. The Chardonnay glass, shaped a lot like Riedel’s egg-like Bordeaux stems, works like a big ol’ all-purpose glass, and the Rosso Amarone glass will handle any way-serious red you care to fill it with. Best of all, these elegant glasses—made from crystal that is both handblown and lead-free—are $40, about half the price of Riedel’s top line. Which also means you cry half as much when they break. Check them out at www.bottegadelvinocrystal.com.

—Summer 2005
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Introducing DEEP PALATE.

Well, Deep Throat was been revealed earlier this summer to be former FBI muckety-muck Mark Felt, living in Sonoma County no less!. Now, let’s hear from Deep Palate… For all you conspiracty theorists out there, rest assured that Deep Palate does not really exist. DP is a composite figure based on fans of WineFlash who pass along tasty tidbits. Here’s a sampling of what Deep Palate hears and tells this month…

…that the new Codorniu Pinot Noir Rosé Cava is so good that some Manhattan restaurants are passing it off as rosé Champagne, and charging as much for a glass as it costs for a bottle retail. (And yes, it is a tasty steal at $12-$15.)

…that a panelat this year’s International Pinot Noir Celebration spiraled into ugliness. It was billed as “Everyone’s a Critic. A guided tasting with five of the world’s top wine writers: Michael Bettane, Mochael Broadbent, Bob Campbell, Elin McCoy and Pierre Rovani.” But tasting the wines took a backseat to bickering, and Parker protogé Rovani found himself in a defensive minority with respect to the influence critics and the 100-point scale have, not only on consumer purchases but also on winemaking decisions.

…that come Fall, the wine world will be treated to not one but several re-stagings of the famed Paris Tasting of 1976. This time, however, expectations naturally will be flopped, which does not bode well for the Californians. Let’s hope it makes for good theater at least. Maybe someone will broaden the scope, which might allow a Hungarian or South African wine to shock the world just as Montelena Chard and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet did three decades ago. Can’t help it: I like surprises.

—Summer 2005
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Sublime to Ridiculous?

Two curiously alluring websites: First, from the endearingly quirky magazine Wine X, we have the Jelly Belly Wine Bar, which encourages adventurous palates to re-create specific wine tastes by foisting a literal handful of jelly beans at your unknowing palate. For your basic unfettered Merlot, for example, toss back a combo of cherry + plum + raspberry + strawberry + Dr. Pepper. And for “over-manipulated, over-manipulated” Merlot, just add chocolate pudding + buttered toast + French vanilla to your jelly-bean mix. I haven’t tried it yet, but something tells me I will have had to have had a few glasses of real wine first….

Then, for those whose ears feel left out in the wine-tasting experience, there is “Wine Music” by Australian composer Tony King, who has put together an Album of music made entirely from sounds of wine glasses, bottles, barrels, corks and more. The maestro tells WineFlash “It was the most requested Album on Australia’s largest classical radio station.” Go listen to samples at www.winemusic.biz. And if that fails to move you, there’s always UB40’s “Red, Red Wine.”

—Summer 2005
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Mr. Parker, meet Dr. Spock.

I think I’ve finally found a way to compartmentalize Robert M. Parker Jr. He is to wine what Dr. Benjamin Spock was to baby care: an iconoclastic, pied-piper-ish guru. Just as advice-hungry parents of the mid-20 th century followed Spock’s prescriptions for raising infants, wine drinkers of the 1980s and '90s latched on to Robert Parker and his ratings. Eventually, parents learned that not everything Spock said was right for their own specific child-rearing situations, and eventually his infallible guru status gave way to multiple voices of reason, and ultimately to the realization that every parent has to find his/her own way.... I trust that, someday, the same evolution will come to wine. Standing in the way, however, are retailers that continue to treat ratings as gospel, and magazines that feel compelled to ape Parker, making the tasting and scoring of as many wines as humanly possible the foundation of their editorial mission.

Meanwhile, I’m working on a new hypothesis to make sense of California’s North Coast: Napa has charisma. Sonoma has karma.

—Summer 2005
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It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Monde
I chuckled out loud when I saw a window display at Astor Wines in NYC last week. Two posters for the documentary Mondovino, and between them dangled a plastic bunch of grapes and pair of boxing gloves. Let’s get ready to rrrrrrumble! I think the controversy that has arisen over this film is more wonderful than the film itself. And more important. I urge everyone who likes to think about wine—its role in civilization, its evolution through history, its precarious balance of nature and technology and money—to see it. It will make you think even more.

Directed by Jonathan Nossiter, a former sommelier as well as a noted filmmaker, Mondovino presents snippets of interviews with a variety of wine growers, scions, executives, critics, consultants and other characters, primarily in France (Bordeaux, Languedoc, Burgundy), Tuscany, Napa Valley and South America. The final product is 135 minutes of jiggly shoulder-cam cinema vérité, trimmed from interviews conducted in five languages over the course of three years.

Mondovino aims high. It is about no less than the soul of wine. It's the clash of tradition vs. modernization; handcrafting vs. commerce; terroir vs. vanilla-like globalization. As the film unfolds, the director aims to establish a sense of his own detachment, but it's not long before viewers can see that filmmaker's lens is exactly as rosé-tinted as he wants. This is passive-aggressive film-making at its best. With Bacchus-only-knows how many hours of raw footage to work with, Nossiter doesn't have to say a thing; he lets everyone else say it. And his editing subtly remolds people as villains, heroes and fools.

Like what is up with Michael Mondavi talking about growing grapevines on Mars? That sounds like a guy hyperconscious about being interviewed and trying like the devil to come up with something new to say hours after his usual material is spent. And how fair is it to keep a clip of Shari Staglin talking about giving out winery apparel each year to migrant workers, and yet include hardly a frame about the Staglins' ongoing charitable efforts? Judging from watching Michel Rolland in Mondovino, you might conclude that all it takes to be a famous consultant is to be driven around Bordeaux while saying "Micro-oxygenate" into a cell phone, occasionally chortling about money and calling people in Languedoc "hicks." We also get a creepy dose of politics, as when Piero Antinori's daughters noddingly agree that life in Italy wasn't all bad under fascism, since the trains ran on time. While Nossiter lets some people hang themselves with their own words, keepers of the old guard, such as Aimé Guibert, the winemaker of Mas de Daumas-Gassac, get to make pithy philosophical statements about farming and grapes and tradition—almost as if no one in the modern world of wine could say the same things.

I found the characterizations revealed in Mondovino to be fascinating. In particular, Jean-Charles Boisset, a second-generation Burgundian mogul, projects a blend of sharp-penciled entrepreneurial spirit, respect for Burgundy and joie de vivre (he strips down and jumps into a vat of grapes). Robert M. Parker Jr. appears every bit the earnest, hardworking, nose-to-the-wineglass critic. By contrast, Wine Spectator's James Suckling—grinning like he's auditioning for 15 minutes of screen fame—just sounds foolish when he opines that today everybody is traveling to Italy instead of France. And he has the nerve to joke about giving a good score to the wine made by his landlord (the Tuscan estate Il Borro, which is owned by the Ferragamo family of Milan fashion fame). Some of the most resonant scenes were of Neal Rosenthal, filmed in his warehouse, in a diner and just driving around New York. The New York-based importer specializes in preserving and promoting exactly the Old World wines Nossiter seems to fear are in danger of extinction, and his passion is infectious.

If you'd like to see some more extensive reviews of Mondovino, I suggest following links already assembled by Jon Bonné on his blog (Click here: amuse-bouche). I'll close with my three cents worth…

1. I can't muster much sympathy for old-time Old World good-ol' vintners bemoaning modernization or globalization. It’s called change; get used to it. The fact remains that nobody is stopping anyone from making whatever kind of wine they want to make. Selling it, mais oui, is a different thing. But before pointing fingers at outside forces, I hope all the nostalgists remember that a century or two ago there was no global market to THINK about, let alone worry about, and yet the grapes and wine survived. Personally, I have no concern whatsoever that artisanal winegrowing will survive and prosper. If you make good, interesting wine, it will sell, no matter how much consultant-fueled or critic-anointed wine is out there.
   
   
2. As of this WineFlash (May, 2005), Wine Spectator has reported on Mondovino (posted December 29, 2004), but has not reviewed it. Are Marvin Shanken, Tom Matthews & Co. ignoring it because James Suckling comes across as foolish? Love Mondovino or hate it, a wine-focused film of this stature and scope demands comment from the self-professed most important wine magazine in America. Perhaps Wine Spectator is too busy framing the truly important debates of the wine world today, such as corks vs. screwtops and what makes a 100-point wine? Mondovino has generated pointed public debate, surprisingly broad attention in the mainstream press, plus an exchange of barbed Internet essays by Pierre Rovani (Robert Parker's fellow Advocate critic) and Jonathan Nossiter (which I have not read, but you can also link there from amuse-bouche). If Wine Spectator continues to ignore this film, it will be a purple eye for the magazine.
   
   
3. I'm not sure what prompted it, but about halfway through the film, I had a flash of self-realization: I'm tired of the industry bandwagon lamenting the state of wine consumption in the U.S. It's just so much negative energy. Let's face it, there is more excellent wine being made and enjoyed now than ever before (For more on this topic, see my WWTJDrant.) As a writer, I vow never to dumb-down what I say in order to "broaden the tent" or "make wine more user-friendly" or any similar nonsense. Nor will I denigrate anyone who prefers a simple quaff to "serious" juice. People who get wine get it! People who don't don't. No use worrying or whining about the gap between.

—May 2005
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Seminar at Copia: Fun with Numbers!
It was an honor to lead a tasting seminar last month at Copia, the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, in the heart of Napa (www.copia.org). My topic was 100-point-scale wine ratings, and our event featured nine wines served blind to illustrate various sensible reasons that wine ratings make absolutely no sense. I started off by making three basic points:

• In my view, Robert M. Parker Jr. gets a pass. He invented the 100-point scale and has never veered from his approach of assigning numbers in conjunction with extensive notes. The problems with ratings extend mainly from A) copycat critics, who are too lazy or unimaginative or chicken to develop their own critiquing style and B) members of the wine trade—maketers, distributors and retailers alike—who selectively regurgitate numbers without notes strictly to sell more wine.
  
  
• No matter how you slice, dice or interpret numbers, wine ratings are inevitably about preference, not quality. A 94 is not "better" than a 91 or even a 79; it means that the 94-point wine was preferred by the critic who did the rating.
  
  
• Ratings are, with rare exceptions, bestowed by individual critics tasting wines in multiple flights, not knowing the labels and without food. In the real world, people normally enjoy one or two wines at a sitting, knowing the labels (indeed perhaps even because of those labels) and with food. Given these diametrically opposed circumstances, how can ratings ever be counted on for practical use by real people?

And here are some capsules of the specific wines and points:

Dry Creek Vineyard 2004 Dry Chenin Blanc, Clarksburg. Based on a show of hands before revealing this wine, about half the tasters thought the wine was sweet, about half thought it was dry. Point one, therefore: if a group of 40-plus people can't agree on that simple characteristic, how in the world can a single critic be counted on to judge the wine for the General Public palate? Point two: this 2004 has not yet been rated, but I can safely bet it will not get 90 points or higher, despite being as delicious as in the past. Why? Because it never has and probably never will. Chenin Blanc (much like Gamay on the red side) is a victim of prejudice, or as I like to call it: varietal profiling. (Note: one critic whose rating system does not discriminate by grape/wine type is Jancis Robinson, MW. She uses the 20-point scale, with a 20 representing superiority with respect to its peers, not all wines in general. See more at www.jancisrobinson.com.)

Stoneleigh 2004 Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand. We tried this wine by itself, and then with goat cheese. Voilà: it's almost like tasting a different wine after sampling the cheese. Point here is simple: food changes our impressions of wines, period. Ratings can't account for this, nor can they account for other contextual variables like setting, company, mood, season, etc. Furthermore, while this wine earned 90 points from Wine Spectator, I'd argue that an 80-point NZ SB from another producer might be equally as enjoyable to someone who likes that bold, zingy citrusy Marlborough style—especially when paired with simpatico food.

Gallo of Sonoma 2002 Reserve Chardonnay. This wine got saddled with a 55-point score from Wine Spectator's James Laube last year. What a crock. For my extended take on this travesty of critic's power, click here. And, for the record, not a single person out of the 48 tasting it at Copia thought it was musty or corky, as Laube insisted multiple samples he tried were. Moreover, only one person (a professed non-Chard lover) said she would rate the wine less than 80. In other words, it’s good. And for the $10 tag, I'd call it a bargain.

Cline 2003 Red Truck, Domaine Balaquère 2001 Cotes du Ventoux and Osborne 2001 Solaz. This trio of inexpensive blends, tasted with cheese and herbs-de-provence salami, was an eye-opener and laugh-generator. The $10 Red Truck was the group favorite, followed by the $7 Solaz. One person (out of 48) chose the $10.95 Cotes du Ventoux as his favorite. And yet, guess which of these wines had received a rating over 90 points? Yep, the Domaine Balaquère, which earned its 91-point badge of honor from none other than the people who sell the wine, namely www.wineexpress.com, the "exclusive wine shop partner" of The Wine Enthusiast, which I have skewered in the past ( click here). Points here included: A) knowing where/how a wine earned its score can be illuminating, to say the least; and B) the vast majority of wines available today are "good." (Lest we forget, an 80-84 score from Wine Spectator denotes "Good: a solid, well-made wine.") In the big picture, numbers alone will never get you where you want to go; style of wine and personal preference are the real keys.

Gary Farrell 2002 Pinot Noir, Rochioli/Allen Vineyards, Russian River Valley. This Pinot got 91s from several critics (California Grapevine, Stephen Tanzer, Wine Enthusiast) and an 88 from Wine & Spirits. So do you trust the 88 or the 91? I say neither. Trust your own palate and experience and common sense: Russian River vineyards yield a complex and intense style of Pinot Noir that I find reliable and consistent. If you like that style, you'll like this and many other RR Pinots. If you like a lighter red, you will probably prefer a California-appellation Pinot that is milder and less expensive.

Ceretto 1997 Barolo "Zonchera."I bought this wine back in 2001, on the advice of a retailer. Sure it got a 91 from the Spectator and made the Top 100 that year, but my retailer recommended it because he knows what I like and he thought it was a great value at $40. Point here: a knowledgeable merchant will always be a better resource for finding wines than a magazine ever will. It never ceases to amaze me how wine magazines waste enormous amounts of time, effort and paper in their valiant effort to taste and rate as many wines as possible. The fact remains that the universe of wines these critics try to cover is ridiculously broad. The smart wine drinker focuses on the more manageable and realistic universe of what is available at his/her favorite shops. And it doesn't have to be a big shop to be good; a small, well-edited selection can be rich and diverse enough to make you not care about what else is out there somewhere.

St. Nicholas Commandaria. It's always nice to end a tasting on a sweet note. This Cyprus dessert wine got 88 points from Wine Spectator. It's another retailer-recommended steal ($15) that I first got turned on to when looking for something to accompany Bananas Foster. But I picked it to conclude our tasting mainly because of the score... As I've said before, if forced to use numbers, I'd give all wines an 88. Done.

—May 2005
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Berger's Big Wine Boo-Boo
I respect Dan Berger a lot, but I have to take exception his recent article in Wines & Vines decrying the rising alcohol levels in California. In short, Dan rejected the offer of a sample of Quintessa 2001 Napa Valley Meritage because the a press mailing indicated that the wine had pH of 3.82, total acid of .59 grams per liter, alcohol of 14.7%, and aging in 60% new French oak. Dan basically damned the wine without even tasting it. His reasoning? "I have already tasted this kind of wine," he wrote. "Not this exact wine, but many like it… I am unalterably opposed to wine that is soft, juicy, fat, oaky, and oafish with food, which is exactly what these numbers indicate. This wine was made to be impressive to those who have forgotten (or never knew) what it was like to taste a wine that had balance and the acidity needed for aging...These over-ripe, unbalanced brutes have all the delicacy of a Hummer."

Well, methinks Dan was trying to drive home a point, and as deserving as this notion is, why turn an untasted wine into a scapegoat for an entire genre? I, too, have been troubled by the steroid-like heft of California Cabernets of late, particularly from Napa Valley. But bashing Quintessa on the basis of a lab analysis is akin to saying all blondes are dumb. Or all _____s are _____ (insert your favorite stereotype here). The assumption that this wine was not even worth tasting strikes me as unfair, both to the winery and to readers.

If a wine is harmonious, the alcohol is hardly noticed. I tried the Landmark Vineyard 2002 "Kastania" Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir the other week. Scrumptious, serious, palate-ringing Pinot. And I would have never guessed that the alcohol was 14-point-something. It's all about the balance, and there are enough "big" wines out there with ample fruit concentration and structure (tannin, wood and acidity) to make them perfectly worth drinking. Landmark wines are poster kids for California wines that can be big and beautiful. As for ageability, I'd bet Quintessa is among the better Napa agers. Just a hunch, but how can we judge now, especially if the rising-alcohol trend is less than a decade old?

I wonder if Dan simply wasn't trying to make his argument more dramatic by including the Quintessa anecdote en route to the Hummer metaphor. Generally speaking, he is one of America's best independent wine commentators, and has plenty of important things to say. Visit www.vintageexperiences.com for more on his weekly newsletter.

—May 2005
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Ethics on My Mind (and Palate).
I have six-bottle wine bag from Cambria Vineyards and a leather backpack from Piper-Sonoma. My post-it notes say "Think Red. Think Cotes-du-Rhone." My kids have gone to school with pens from Rioja, notepads from Sterling Vineyards and flashing pins from Georges Duboeuf. The cherry tree struggling to survive in my front yard came courtesy of Sebastiani Vineyards. And if you really want to know, I have silk boxers from Clos du Val.            

Should I feel uneasy about any of this? I think not. It's just the usual schwag (as they call it in media circles)—publicity-driven tchotchkes. Then again, in wine the schwag extends to, well, sample bottles...and tastings and dinners and wine-country accommodations and even all-expenses-paid trips.            

Naturally, as the value of the perks rise, so do the ethical stakes. Perhaps even more critical, over years of being a wine scribbler, I count dozens of winemakers, winery principals, marketing executives and PR people as friends. It is part of the terroir—er, the territory. The real question is: Is it possible to remain objective when one is on the greasy end of wine freebies large and small?           

My simple answer is: No. But the situation demands more than a simple answer, because I would argue that objectivity really has no place in wine writing. I meet people, go places, try new things, learn...and in the process, I can't help but make connections to the people and circumstances related to specific wines. But it is often precisely through these connections that I gain the insight I find invaluable to my craft. And when you stop and think about it, unless someone lives in a vacuum (or an impenetrable Ivory Tower), how is it possible to remain perfectly objective? On top of that why would anyone care to hear the opinion (and let's face it, wine writing always boils down to opinion) of someone who claims to have no personal connections to his/her subject?           

To me, wine should be personal, and wine writing demands not objectivity, but rather purposeful subjectivity. I am constantly aware of my responsibility to report only what I believe to be honest, true and worth telling. And the vast majority of wine writers I know approach the task with the same mindset.            

In my particular case, because I devote more of my time (and gain most of my income) from wine events, as opposed to wine writing, I have the benefit of operating more as a consultant than a journalist. And in that role, I buy a heap of wine. Do I buy friends' wines? Sure, sometimes. Do I buy wines from producers or importers who have wined and dined me? Sometimes. Wines I discovered via free samples? Sometimes. Do I talk about these connections? When it's relevant, absolutely. But usually the connection that originally turned me on to a wine is not nearly as important as the reason I have chosen it for a specific tasting or dinner. As with wines I write about, I only buy wines I believe are worth sharing. And the bottom line is that I am ultimately accountable for those choices. If the wines don't work, neither do I. 

—March 2005
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Whither Wine Journalism?
The topic of wine writing is especially fresh in my mind since attending the first Symposium for Professional Wine Writers in Napa Valley a few weeks back. Fifty-one scribes from all over the country (and Panama!) converged on Meadowood resort, representing a broad range of outlets and backgrounds—and hardly any of us knew more than a handful of the others before the conference began. I left with one overarching sentiment: that wine writing is evolving faster than we realize. Some more reflections on the event...:

• The Napa Valley Vintners, who co-sponsored the event in part, did their best to stay behind an invisible curtain, but then they overcompensated by practically burying us in wine. The ridiculous, even wasteful quantities (many at ridiculous prices), highlighted two phenomena. One, that the vintners association is caught in a tricky situation of trying to promote the "we" of Napa while at the same time countless individual wineries are out to promote "me." Two, the effect of the wine onslaught, on my palate at least, was to isolate a style of big but hardly memorable Cabernets. Let's call them Napernets. Wines so brawny you wonder whether steroids were applied in the vineyard or in the winery. Trophies, maybe, but food wines, I think not. Notable exceptions: Shafer Hillside Select 1994 (so smooth and balanced I'm ready to say it had to be at its peak); Frog's Leap Rutherford (I've had this bottling in several vintages now and it always impresses, again with balance of fruit and tannins the key); and Viader (healthy proportion of Cab Franc alongside Cab Sauv really distinguishes the blend).
  
  
• USA Today columnist Jerry Shriver, a symposium panelist, made a compelling case for the uncertainty lurking ahead for the wine scene. Just as nobody anticipated the enormous impact of Sideways, no one can say what we will be thinking and drinking in five or ten years. What if China develops a taste for wine? What effect might global warming have on traditional cool-climate wine regions? What impact will the impending Supreme Court decision on direct shipping have? (Even a ruling that frees wineries to ship direct will not necessarily eliminate the morass of state-by-state tax-collecting issues.) Will Red Bull drinkers eventually switch to wine? What if an aging U.S. population decides wine is a luxury item? (Will they switch to Red Bull?)
  
  
• One development that seems certain to accelerate: the splintering and specialization of wine writing, fueled in large part by the Internet. The Web has altered the way people get information about everything, wine included. Several of the symposium attendees have wine blogs (essentially online diaries, often presented anonymously), and it seems obvious that online outlets such as these, as well as non-mainstream wine Web sites, are bound to multiply and gain traction, especially among techno-savvy Americans. I've started following several blogs, including those by symposium-mates Derrick Schneider (An Obsession with Food) and Carolyn Tillie (Carolyn Tillie's Ultimate California Wine Blog). Also recommended: FERMENTATIONS: The Daily Wine Blog; LENNDEVOURS; amuse-bouche; Click here: Huge Johnson's World of Wine; basicJuice; Professor Bainbridge on Wine; Vinography: a wine blog; and in a more standard (non-blog) format, www.koeppelonwine.com and www.whitleyonwine.com. Check out a taste of the future...today!
  
  
• In a humbling moment, Louisa Thomas Hargrave (a Long Island pioneer vintner and author of the memoir The Vineyard) reminded us that the language we so often associate with wine can be found in surprising places. She proceeded to read a list of words and phrases found on the package of an Earl Grey teabag: silky, rich, aromatic, sumptuous delight, tradition, regal blend, etc.
  
  
• Another humbling moment: I brought along two sample bottles of Silk Road wine from China. Somehow I managed to get the wines opened and put out among the Napa elite. Verdict? While noticeably light in body, the wines—a simple red and white blend, grapes unspecified—were perfectly drinkable. And for $4.99, who could complain?
  
  
• I have to give credit to panelist Karen MacNeil for being able to carve a formidable niche for herself both in print (The Wine Bible) and on TV ("Wine, Food & Friends" on PBS). Great voice, great content, great presence. What fascinated me was how she explained her deliberate decision NOT to devote a section of her book to wine and food pairing (she wanted to avoid pushing people to adopt to a whole new set of "rules"); and yet, in the clip we saw from her PBS series, it seemed everyone was eating! The 180-degree difference struck me not as a contradiction at all, but rather as a reminder of how difficult it can be to translate the joy of wine with food into print. The visual image of one pairing along with a throaty "Mmmmm!" can do the work of 1,000 words.
  
  
• There was a telling moment during the final day's "hot potato" session of open discussion on various topics. As WineFlash readers know, the 100-point-scale is a pet peeve of mine. When subject of rating systems came up, I offered my opinion that wine ratings are having a much deeper and deleterious effect on the consumer mindset than most wine writers realize. (For the record, a show of hands revealed that of the 51 writers there, only two use a 100-point scale: Wine Enthusiast publisher Adam Strum and his editor, Tim Moriarty.) To illustrate my point, I started to pass around a printout from wineexpress.com, the wine retail Web site owned by Wine Enthusiast Companies (where I worked from 1988-'98). The printout for Daisy Ridge Reserve Merlot exemplified Wine Express's approach to marketing their wines, which involves augmenting a label image, price and description with an in-house "WEX Rating" (which is always above 90 points) as well as a"vintage rating" from Robert Parker or Wine Spectator (if that rating also happens to be 90 or above). [Note: for my full rant, please check out the archived 96-point Case of Wine Express.] I was hoping that Mr. Strum, who has long professed to be a master marketer, would explain the logic behind the Wine Express method. Instead, he chose to ignore that aspect of his business entirely, declaring that anyone opposed to the 100-point scale is "beating a dead horse." Meanwhile, the Wine Express printout mysteriously stopped circulating when it reached the seat of Wine Enthusiast editor Tim Moriarty. I haven't seen such a brazen "hide-a-roonie" attempt since middle school. I did manage to request back the printout and send it along its way around the room (and I even spared Mr. Moriarty detention). In closing, rather than viewing the 100-point-scale as a clicheed "dead horse," I'd say that a Trojan horse is a more apt metaphor. If we as wine writers don't rein in the pervasive (and lazy) reliance on ratings in the marketplace, we are going to retard genuine progress toward America becoming a nation at ease with wine.

—March 2005
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WWTJD? Or: How to stop worrying and embrace the Golden Age of Wine.
Apparently scientists at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology have traced the dawn of fermented beverages back 9,000 years—to China. (Previous studies have focused on the Middle East, circa 5,000 B.C.) Residues found in pottery from China's Henan province matched up chemically with rice wine, grape wine, grape tannins and herbs. What in the world could that crude brew have tasted like... Sweet? potent? bitter? Did it leave a nasty hangover, preferably after delivering a pretty good buzz? But could we even compare such primitive liquid to anything we savor today?

Now, fast-forward 8,800 years or so, to the era of Thomas Jefferson...Founding Father, President, Renaissance man, wine fanatic. Jefferson—who, I am convinced, would prefer to go by his street name, T-Jeff, if he were around today—was an avid wine collector (he had separate cellars at Monticello for casks and bottles), a frustrated vintner (his plantings failed famously) and savvy entertainer. No doubt T-Jeff used to sneak the proverbial good stuff (Bordeaux and Champagne, particularly) through customs on his way back from Europe. And his wine collection had to be light years better in quality than whatever the ancient Chinese were putting into ceramic jugs. Ditto for whatever the Mesopotamians were fermenting a couple millenia later.

But here is the real point, as we jump ahead to the 21st century: How do you think our modern wines would compare with the vintages that Thomas Jefferson coveted and collected? I'd bet that the wine on our shelves today is again light years better in quality—cleaner, fresher, fruitier, and all-around more palatable—than the wines T-Jeff was drinking. In fact, if T-Jeff were to walk into a wine store today, he would probably drool uncontrollably.

Bottom line: we are living in the Golden Age of wine. Thanks to modern technology, market-tested techniques and the widespread sharing of information, wines grown everywhere have never been better. And, frankly, I'm not sure they can get much better. Sure, we may see more labels, and novel blends and special vineyard bottlings, and new grapes in old places and vice versa. But in the big picture of grape-stomping history, I believe we are riding a plateau-like peak. Stop for a minute and ask yourself: When was the last time you had a wine that truly deserved to be called plonk, or swill, or rotgut? (Mine was a Romanian Cabernet in 1988; but let's not go there.)

In the same spirit, I ask, semi-rhetorically, What Would T-Jeff Drink? My hunch is he would stay true to his oft-quoted: "No nation is drunken where wine is cheap and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage." Sure, he would gladly nose a glass of Lafite, Margaux or the like. But he would be way more impressed by Mouton Cadet—boatloads of tasty, affordable Bordeaux! And he would marvel at the mild yet inviting bubbly of Freixenet. T-Jeff would toast the extraordinary consistency of Kendall-Jackson, the pluck of Two-Buck Chuck, and the rainbow of Gallo brands. But in the end, once he stopped drooling, he'd probably walk out of a modern wine store carrying not a bottle at all, but rather an Aussie Shiraz in a box, for the sheer wonder of it all.

I share this WWTJD? moment as a gentle reminder to appreciate how good we really have it, being able to drink well-priced, well-made wines from all over the planet. Indeed, it's a lot harder to make a million cases of good $10-or-under wine than it is to make 100 cases of $100 wine. With all due respect, I think T-Jeff would be mighty impressed with what man has done with the Grape. At the same time, however, he would be thoroughly depressed to learn that Americans are more caught up than ever in the shackles of 100-point-scale ratings. Thomas Jefferson was above all a free thinker; and I can only imagine that he would happily go home, crack open his "cask" Shiraz, grab a quill pen and promptly start scribbling the Declaration of Independence From Wine Ratings.

—January 2005
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Some modest predictions for 2005:

• Screwcaps will continue to proliferate; plastic corks will start to vanish.
  
  
• Demand for Pinot Grigio, which rose to become America's #1 varietal import in 2004, will flatten out as people trade over to more flavorful alternatives such as Sauvignon Blanc, dry Riesling, Chardonnay (which will continue to shine in less oaky guises) and even light reds.
  
  
• French wines will start coming back into vogue, led by superior values in less-heralded appellations, especially food-friendly reds from the southern Rhône Valley.
  
  
• Spurred by momentum from Sideways and the highly anticipated Supreme Court decision on interstate shipping, 2005 will be the year of "indie" wine.
  
  
• People will began to embrace the concept of wine by style, as opposed to thinking more rigidly in terms of grape and place.
  
  
• We will continue to see more "fun" brands enter the market, particularly from California as vintners try to stand out from the varietal pack. Expect more vivid packaging, kitschy names and offbeat blends. Examples from 2004 that come to mind: Cline Red Truck, Elvis wines, Jake's Fault Shiraz, Buchli Station (with evocative fruit crate labels) and the "Three Loose Screws" brands—Screw Kappa Napa, Mia's Playground and Fusée.
  
  
• And on the heels of the last two points, wine ratings will start losing ground as consumers focus more on fun, style, price and simplicity. To revise the old 1990s assessment—that people are drinking less but drinking better—I think people really want to drink more but think less. Australia, with its fruit-driven, "no worries, mate" wines, will continue to gain, thanks to this mindset. It's a big world of wine out there; ratings only serve to narrow it and make it less fun.

—January 2005
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Holiday Book Bag
I believe a wine glass should always be half-filled, and a nightstand should always be half-full of good books. Here are my favorite wine books of late, to get and give:

• In his dual roles as both importer and retailer, Kermit Lynch is a rare bird in the wine biz. But let's not take for granted his role as a raconteur. His Wine Brochure is consistently as eloquent as wine writing gets, with a passion for wine, food and travel that is smartly presented and infectious. The monthly missives are now collected in the book Inspiring Thirst, published by Ten Speed Press (420 pages, with photos by his wife, Gail Skoff). It's $40 in bookstores, but you can get a signed copy for $34 by calling Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant in Berkeley, 510/524-1524. (I've always found it deliciously ironic that such a deeply Francophilic merchant hung his shingle in Northern California.)
  
  
• For Grape Nuts with a taste for esoterica, Shafer Vineyards' Line on Wine is a treasure chest of vino nuggets. To wit: In the 1850s, Los Angeles grew ten times more grapes than Napa Valley. A Champagne cork shoots out at 40 mph. Half of American households don't own a corkscrew. And so on. Over the years, I've gotten the "Line" as a series of postcards, and can't count the times I've stuffed them away thinking that was neat..... And of course I can't find them anymore. But now, with the collected Line on Wine in the bathroom, no worries! The skinny book is $12.95 at www.shafervineyards.com or Amazon.
  
  
• With the title Waiter, There's a Horse in my Wine, comic intent is clear. But Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen's essays are chock full of info as well. And I love her penchant for bluntness. In "How Grün was my Veltliner," she writes "Perfectionism is one reason Austrian wines are so good. Another is antifreeze." and then proceeds to explain how the Austrian wine industry rebounded from the diethylene glycol scandal of 1985. She approaches the issue of underage drinking from a totally wacked angle, positing hand-dipped chocolates that contain wine extract as "gateway candy" appealing to "bonbon-vivants." Chotzi tackles lots of topics wine lovers care about, and she does so with real zing. Order direct for $14.99 at www.vinchotzi.com or via Amazon or Barnes & Noble online.
  
  
• Saving the best for last, Oldman's Guide to Outsmarting Wine is phenomenal. Maybe the best new wine book I've seen since Wine For Dummies. Organized into 108 "shortcuts," it's easy to see that much of the book sprang from Mark Oldman's bicoastal wine classes. He dispenses background, anecdotes, advice and commentary in equal measures, giving readers everything they need to feel not just comfortable but confident. Sidebars beckon with "cheat sheets," food-pairing suggestions, label-reading tips and Mark's own picks. Other sidebars detail favorite wines of 83 big-names ranging from Mario Batali to well-known vintners to rapper Ludacris. The book may sound basic, but really it's not. Consider these shortcut titles: "Syrah: The Inky Abyss," "Super Tuscans: Big, Rich Rule Breakers," "Wine and Cheese: Bedfellows and Power Struggles." Mark drills right to the essence of each topic, and encourages us to appreciate wine in a truly evolved sense, without a whiff of snobbery and nary a wine rating in sight. Accessible and in-depth at the same time, Outsmarting Wine works as a handy reference, a plain good read or a starter guide. Just named winner of the Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year, Oldman's Guide to Outsmarting Wine (364 pages, $18) is published by Penguin and available nationally or at www.markoldman.com. I hope it gets heavy play from the mainstream press; and every tasting room and fine-wine store should stock it.

—December 2004
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Top 100? Wake me when they're over.
A while back in the Flash, I praised on Wine Spectator's Top 100 issue because "it shows the editors care about the wines they review, and are able to make a case for their favorites without sticking like superglue to the ratings." Well, I still like the Top 100 for that reason, but when this year's annual cherry-picker's treasure hunt hit mailboxes last week, I was struck by the sheer contradiction the glorified list embodies. Namely, if these are really about the most "exciting" wines of 2004, as editors claim, then where is the adrenaline? Seriously, the quality represented is yeehaw-worthy, but the 100 individual write-ups hurdle from dull to dull to duller...as evident in the fact that they are practically interchangeable, give or take a few details. Don't believe it? Try the Mad Lib test: "This estate has nearly __ acres of vines in ___ (with additional acreage in ___). Old vines, no destemming and maturation for __ months in ___ casks is the typical protocol; the result is a ___ yet ___ wine. The '01 is a blend of 80 percent ___ and 10 percent ___, with some ___ and ___. ___ cases made." See what I mean? Where is the style? Where's the context? Where's the food? Where, oh where, is the joie du vin?!

—December 2004
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The 96-Point Case of Wine Express
Out there in Cyberland is a website called www.wineexpress.com. Not a very large or slick site, it offers about 75 table wines for sale. The wines being sold, as best I can tell, are primarily direct imports, private-label bottlings and boutique California wines—basically wines most people have never heard of, let alone seen. There are also, curiously, wines from such well-known labels as Robert Mondavi, Beringer, Kendall-Jackson, Louis Latour and Penfolds.

On the "About Us" page, a letter from WineExpress.com executive director
Arthur Taylor refers to the "extreme anxiety" that can be provoked by the "overwhelming variety" of wines in today's market. He adds: "We've done all the sorting out and sifting down for you. Our buyers have scoured the wine world and made careful selections based on taste and value." OK, fine. The wines may indeed be delicious. What caught my eye, however, is how the non-mainstream wines are presented. Upon clicking on a specific wine, Web surfers find a brief stylistic description, plus a "WEX rating" which has been bestowed by an "independent panel of experts."

It's hard not to be impressed by the fact that there appear to be no WEX ratings under 90 points on the site. But wait, there's more to be reckoned with in the way of ratings: beneath many individual wine descriptions, shoppers are also provided with a vintage rating (never below 90 points again) from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate or Wine Spectator magazine. In the case of the $9.95 2002 Hillsview Sem/Chard from Western Australia, the WEX rating is 90; the Wine Advocate vintage rating is 95. Is it just me, or is that a little confusing? Someone reading quickly, or perhaps not realizing the distinction between a vintage rating and a wine rating, might read the 95 as relating specifically to that wine.

Another observation: WEX ratings are applied almost exclusively to the wines culled from outside the market mainstream. Some of the widely distributed wines are presented with no scores at all; others feature WS ratings (presumably Wine Spectator). Does Wine Express's independent panel of experts see no need to rate brands that are available in retail shops and supermarkets nationwide?

This was just one of the questions I had in mind when I contacted Wine Express earlier this month by phone. Unfortunately, I could not get a straight answer as to the composition or standards of the website's panel. And when I couldn't get answers by calling Wine Express, I contacted the owners and operators of Wine Express, namely Wine Enthusiast Companies.

Full disclosure here: I knew that Wine Enthusiast Companies owns Wine Express for the simple reason that Wine Express's first incarnation took place in the late 1990s, during the time I worked for Wine Enthusiast magazine (1988-1998). This information is also readily available to anyone with Internet access. A quick search at the New York State Liquor Authority website reveals that Adam and Sybil Strum, the husband-wife team who own Wine Enthusiast Companies, are listed as principals of Wine Express (NY liquor license #1139659). Wine Enthusiast, Inc. is also listed as the owner of the trademarks for WINE EXPRESS and WINEEXPRESS.COM at the U.S Patent and Trademark Office website. And Wine Enthusiast Cos. is identified as the registrant for the domain name wineexpress.com at networksolutions.com.

Unfortunately my emailed questions resulted in a reply that was vitriolic and litigious. Considering that The Wine Enthusiast publishes a magazine, and considering that I left the company on very good terms more than six years ago, I had hoped for a more reasonable response to a journalistic inquiry.

And I’m left shaking my head. Even a sixth grader can surmise that a magazine publisher also owning a business that sells wine represents a potential conflict of interest. Indeed, by selling wine via Wine Express, The Wine Enthusiast is competing both with wine producers/marketers who advertise in Wine Enthusiast magazine as well as with retailers, whom The Wine Enthusiast encourages to sell its magazine, to sell its corkscrews, etc., and to use Wine Enthusiast ratings in promoting wines in their stores. Of course, the people at The Wine Enthusiast are entitled to sell whatever they choose to sell. And I honestly believe that there is no connection between Wine Enthusiast editorial staff and Wine Express.

My concern, as a writer on record as adamantly opposing the promiscuous use of ratings in today's wine marketplace, is strictly with how wines are marketed at Wine Express. It's bad enough that retailers from coast to coast have fallen into the lazy habit of using Spectator and Advocate scores to sell wine (there is plenty more of my thinking on this topic in the Rants & Commentary section of my website, www.wineforall.com). When a website creates its own 100-point-scale in order to market wines, I consider that disingenuous, period, no matter who owns or runs the site, and no matter what the wines cost or how they taste.

Selling wines with "WEX" ratings that are never defined or explained speaks to the marketing strategy at work here; it says to me that the strategists behind Wine Express consider wine consumers to be gullible, ignorant or both. As a professional writer and speaker who has devoted a career to expanding wine awareness and appreciation, I find that marketing approach flat-out offensive.

I invite Arthur Taylor, the Executive Director of WineExpress.com, to respond to any of the issues I raise here. Unfortunately, when I first phoned Wine Express I was told that Arthur Taylor was "traveling on business." Oddly, he has no voicemail at the office, I was informed. I left my name and number; still no call back. Maybe this will help: I will gladly give a bottle of Château d'Yquem to Arthur Taylor, should he agree to me