Good Grape Wine Company

August 15 2007

Laws, Sausage and Wine Reviews

A local wine merchant (and one of the best, if not the best) in the Indianapolis area, Grapevine Cottage, sends out a weekly email with an article (a blog post if it were set-up as such a thing) written by owner Doug Pendleton.  In June I posted one of these articles on an Oregon winery, The Pines 1852.  Doug always writes good, insightful, transparent articles on the wine business and the below is another fine example of that.  Here, he takes us inside an Australian trade tasting attended by Jay Miller from The Wine Advocate and Josh Raynolds from Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar.  For additional reading on tasting and Jay Miller, check out Dr. Vino’s recent post here.  Thanks to Doug for letting me share his article:

Last week, I took advantage of one of those offers that you just can’t bring yourself to refuse.  The Australia wine importer, Southern Starz, invited me to a “new release and reviewer tasting” they were holding in Washington DC at the Australian Embassy.  They were bringing the winemakers and/or winery owners from all of their properties for the reviewers from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar.  So, never having been in an Embassy before, and further tempted by dinner at the embassy after the tasting, I bought a plane ticket.

The tasting was set up in an art gallery adjacent to the embassy lobby with two small conference rooms on either side reserved for Jay Miller from Wine Advocate and Josh Raynolds from Steven Tanzer.  22 wineries were represented with almost 100 wines available for tasting.  The professional reviewers worked for 2 days and began tasting at 10 am and worked until 4 pm, while the invited retailers and distributors tasted through the wines in the gallery on the first day.

This was a great opportunity for me to put faces and stories together with the wines we sell.  It’s always amazing to me to discover how many of them are really very small businesses.  For example, Oliverhill owner/winemaker Stewart Miller, who produced the outstanding Jimmy’s Shiraz we just sold out of, only produces 3,000 cases a year.  From a dollar volume stand point, he’s smaller than we are!

It was also a chance for new finds….and a great find was the Casabel Winery in the McLaren Vale.  Spanish winemaker Susana Fernanez devotes herself to Australian expressions of Spanish varietals, producing small amounts of Tempranillo, Grenacha, Monastral and Syrah.  Her version of a GMS blend (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre in Aussie) may be one of the best I have ever tasted…. 12 of the 90 cases she produced of it are coming soon!

The real story here, however, was how the professional tastings (and the subsequent reviews that were assigned) happened.  With Josh and Jay in small conference rooms behind frosted glass, you could only catch a glimpse of what was going on thru the side lights or when the guard changed.  One of the Southern Starz owners would appear in our midst every 30 to 40 minutes and tap a winemaker on the shoulder.  The winemaker would gather his bottles and be ushered into the little conference room with a reviewer.

There, I was told, he would describe his wines and the production techniques, and then answer questions while the reviewer tasted and took notes.  He would then be ushered out, and I am sure that scores were assigned before the next supplicant arrived.  Returning to his table, other winemakers from nearby tables would question him on the reviewer’s reaction.  In Jay Miller’s case, none of these winemakers will know the scores that will drive their sales until the October issue of the Wine Advocate arrives.  I wonder how much sleep must be lost over noticing a random facial expression or an eye movement, here or there, when Jay tasted a wine.
 
On my part, palate fatigue began to set in!  By 1:00 pm, when I couldn’t tell the difference between three Shiraz tasted in a row, I opted to retire to the hotel for lunch.  Taste spit, taste spit… it all starts to blur together.  After lunch, I returned and finally worked my way through the assemblage.  Yet, in retrospect, I still don’t think that I could effectively describe most of what I tasted during the last hour, even with notes.

As a contrast, when Linda and I review a wine, we taste it when we first open it, then decant if necessary, take notes and leave it while we finish preparing dinner.  After dinner we may adjust our notes based on how well it paired with food. Overall, it’s a pleasant, reasonably leisurely process.  How Jay and Josh taste 100 wines, even over two days, while taking voluminous notes and assigning scores, is almost impossible for me to comprehend.  I have to think that to be judged on a swish and spit has to be excruciating for these winemakers.

And here is where the “making sausage” comes in to play…because many times it is still all about personal taste.  We use Wine Advocateto choose wines because their tastes tend to reflect mine and most of our customers.  Steven Tanzer’s publication tends to lean toward old world styles, in contrast to the Parker taster’s new world palates. And here is a great example of what can happen…the Marquis Philips 2005 S2 Cabernet has been our best selling over $20 Cabernet this year.  Earlier this year both Robert Parker’s and Stephen Tanzer’s publications reviewed, it and here is what they thought.

Marquis Philips S2 Cabernet Blend 2005 McLaren Vale, Australia $34

Jay Miller, Wine Advocate 94 Points
Marquis Philips’ luxury cuvées includes the 2005 S2, boasting an inky/blue/purple color in addition to a sumptuous, toasty bouquet of grilled meats, blackberries, crème de cassis, licorice, and subtle herbs. With superb purity, richness, body, intensity, and length, it should drink well through 2016.

Josh Raynolds, Steven Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar 87 Points
Ruby-red. Oak-dominated dark berry and kirsch aromas accented by dark chocolate and vanilla. Sweet blueberry and blackcurrant flavors show a liqueur-like aspect, with a strong vanillin oak quality gaining the upper hand on the back. Finishes slightly sticky and sweet, with toasty oak spice and roasted coffee lingering. I’d have guessed this to be a Shiraz, or maybe a dessert wine such as Banyuls.

Wine is the most reviewed product on earth.  Perhaps only the Broadway stage and fine restaurants are more dependent on reviews.  And there is a reason… there’s an ocean of wine out there and a finite amount of shelf space.  You have to have something to help you choose what to put on those shelves and I still believe the ratings provide that qualification.  Often I am forced to select direct import wines untasted and unseen, often hundreds of cases at a time.  I have used Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator reviews for making my selections over the last 7 years, and I’ve never yet bet on a clunker based on those standards.

My bottom line is still buying by the numbers ... yes, it’s messy, it applies the objective to the subjective, it quantifies art ... but it still works.  I really feel that it helps guarantee that my customers don’t get many bottles of mediocre wine. But you just may not want to think too hard about the process.

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