Still More Cornas -- Clape Critics Invited
- Thread starter Claude Kolm
- Start date
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Correct.
Ok, for a moment I feared you were limiting wine assessment to Professional Winemakers.
But, while the need to communicate the experience of wine in succinct and evocative terms may lead to some Shelf Talking Abuses, it seems to me that one can still communicate the experience of wine (or cinema, or literature, or eating, etc, etc) to others who have not experienced that particular piece.
Such is the nature of human conversation and communication.
If you limit yourself only to those with the exact same experiences/work as you, then you may quickly need to develop Multiple Personalities in order to have a conversation.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Well, of course. The point of my utterance is not to exclude everyone who hasn't had the exact same wine. The point is to exclude people who don't make an effort to taste, to think, to study, to remember -- to some degree.
[ Note that it cuts both ways: Just as my wine-assessment comments were received utterly wrongly by a non-geek brother-in-law, so my poor words probably sound child-like to an expert on whatever wine it is. ]
Back on it: We have already discarded that most terse of communication formats for wine experience -- the unadorned number -- and Joe is furiously at work to remove simple fruit descriptors as well. I take this not as an effort to prevent communication or claim some kind of vinous solipsism but to channel the reports on wines into a more complex, more evocative, more thorough style. The drawback of using a richer vocabulary is that the reader is obligated to know a bit about it before reading. That is the point.
Eden Mylunsch
Eden Mylunsch
Not necessarily, but I would put forth that all qualitative assessments are unique to the assessor. If others wish to ascribe trust in the seer-like ability to weigh in on whether something is good or not, it's their privilege to do so. This responsibility should put the burden onto the critic to do the best possible job, and be as transparent as possible in their reporting. Me, I trust Claude, I trust Josh, I trust Comiskey, I trust Bonn, and I keep up with most of the others so as to triangulate my way toward rational wine purchasing decisions (even when bottom feeding).
Although they've been known to shift on short notice, most tectonic shifts have been surprisingly not-so-often. I'd been turned onto GDP by a well-intentioned friend with the 94 vintage and it's probably some perverse genetic mutation what brought me to the Church of Chinon early-on.
Present company excluded, as far as California Rhne variety winemakers are concerned. Back to your point, I'm not sure that they couldn't distinguish between the styles, it's just that they prefer the flashier stuff. I'm okay with that, as I find that they usually come around to the other side, but not always. At least they're drinking wine they enjoy.
My apologies. My hyperbole might have led you to believe that I'd read your review as damnation of the wine. My research this afternoon was followed up by a pasta dinner that was an weak attempt at recreating the conditions in which your initial tasting of a different vintage occurred. I had some Bigoli Nobili Radiccio Rosso spagetti with shrimp, shaved broccoli, fresh garlic and Stephen Singer Olio Extra Vergine and as unlikely as this flavor combination might seem, it worked well with the 97 Cornas. It would probably be plenty interesting to someone who hasn't experienced other vintages of Clape, but I could certainly see how it wouldn't make a list of memorable Cornas. It would be easy to recommend if it were a $20 bottle of wine...
Are you referring to the workers at the topless sushi bar in Laughlin, NV?
It works for me.
-Eden (I prefer wine with food much as I prefer a painting with well designed frame - it's not necessary, but the effect of one on the other is beneficial to the enjoyment and appreciation of both)
Steve Edmunds
Steve Edmunds
Those certainly appear to be vulgar little...monkeys?
Wasn't really my point. That's Nathan's point.
I apologize for the potential incoherence of the following...it's late, and I'm sorta thinking as I type:
Wines can be evaluated on their own merits, with or without food. And in fact that is, I'd argue, a traditional way of evaluating them whether the evaluator is your hunkering vigneron or some Disorderly sitting down to dinner and has historical grounding in the (again) traditional role of wine at the table. I'd assume we agree on that much, whether or not we agree on the merits of the practice.
Now, someone evaluating types of salmon for a review of the merits of each would probably sit down to a tasting comprised of many different kinds of salmon. That's normal. But we'd probably find it extremely unusual to find that behavior replicated at dinner. And yet, the notion of consuming a spread of wines sometimes a staggering number of wines, and sometimes a staggering number of wines of a quality that would really be best in isolation at that very same dinner is considered completely normal behavior. Isnt that a little unusual?
Further, there are different types of evaluation. A salmon tasting may be designed to give me, the consumer, information about which types respond best to grilling, which are more flavorful in their raw state, which are most neutral (and thus most receptive to aggressive flavor additions), which are fattier, which need special attention so as to not dry out during cooking, etc.
But in fact, most wine evaluation is not that. Most of it is hierarchical: this Crozes-Hermitage is better than that one, and so on. And you already know the dangers inherent in that mode of thinking. One is that better is a very subjective term. Another is that the dominance of this mode of evaluation sometimes leads some winemakers to target their craft at the evaluation rather than the consumption, which changes wines in ways you obviously understand.
And a third the one I was referring to in the post you quoted is that wines that are better in the context of hierarchical evaluation are ever-more-frequently reserved for that mode of use. If you doubt this, you can look at certain other fora and see the arguments from people who use wine almost exclusively as 1) a cocktail, or 2) as an entry fee to the sort of mass evaluative tasting of which Im speaking. Wine has no place at their dinner table, unless in the company of dozens of other wines of equal perceived value or merit, at which point they are set against each other like fighters in the ring until a champion emerges.
And look, Im not calling them bad people. If thats how they get their kicks, great for them. But as evaluation becomes an increasingly popular mode of enjoyment, it grows indistinguishable from actual evaluation. For some, its already the only way to conceive of wine enthusiasm. And for some evaluators, the same is true.
Why is this bad? Because wines not made or equipped for slugging it out in the arena become inexplicable (at best) or anathema (at worst). And then, they disappeareither in actual fact or, through lack of demand, in effect. Critics who strain their arms patting themselves on the back for their overwhelmingly catholic tastes may indeed appreciate different styles of wine, but by the very practice of hierarchical evaluation as their lens through which all wine is viewed, they stack the deck. Which might be fine for them, with their skills and their experience, but which is usually lost on the less skilled or experienced taster, and which does often irreparable damage to wines not endowed with the ability to pummel, obliterate, and dominate, in the violent lingo of competitive wine enthusiasm.
Now, obviously critics cant work the way they currently do unless wines are served up in flights numbered by the hundreds, day after day. But I think its worth asking: what is the actual value gained from the way critics currently work? To the enthusiast whose enjoyment is derived primarily from hierarchical evaluation, theres obviously great value. To those who encounter wine in other ways? Say, as a partner to food? Much, much less.
A late and rushed lunch yesterday as I almost missed my flight with close friends. Before the beef came out, I'd nailed the '99 Leflaive "Les Pucelles" easily - the combination of oak and fruit not replicated in any vintage since. But once I'd started eating, it was near-impossible for me to approach the '99 Le Macchiole "Paleo" (a blend of Cab Sauv and Franc) and I ended up placing it in the Northern Rhone before settling on Tuscany.
I think it's tough for critics either way, given the expansion in the world of wine. Large-scale analytical tastings are useful for building taste memories of a certain sort (kind of like repetitive training for weight-lifting), but whether they translate into something useful for the enthusiast is more difficult (kind of like whether one believes extensive rotator cuff workouts will actually make one a better pitcher). I also think it does long-term damage to one's palate, at least from a mental fatigue perspective, to be tasting at such a scale and speed.
Which is why there are so few good wine writers, who are able to translate the distorted experiences of barrel-tastings, horizontals/verticals and trade shows into something useful for the laity. By and large they seem to have preserved their love for wine, and it typically shows in their writing. Funnily enough the first name that comes to mind is Ed Behr (who was just featured in the FT), but that's also a function of his prose style.
I think it's tough for critics either way, given the expansion in the world of wine. Large-scale analytical tastings are useful for building taste memories of a certain sort (kind of like repetitive training for weight-lifting), but whether they translate into something useful for the enthusiast is more difficult (kind of like whether one believes extensive rotator cuff workouts will actually make one a better pitcher). I also think it does long-term damage to one's palate, at least from a mental fatigue perspective, to be tasting at such a scale and speed.
Which is why there are so few good wine writers, who are able to translate the distorted experiences of barrel-tastings, horizontals/verticals and trade shows into something useful for the laity. By and large they seem to have preserved their love for wine, and it typically shows in their writing. Funnily enough the first name that comes to mind is Ed Behr (who was just featured in the FT), but that's also a function of his prose style.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Rahsaan, you've been hanging out with pedants too long.
You've lost the thread: Of course there's nothing wrong with talking to people with less knowledge. [ Lord knows, I have benefitted from this exact largesse on others' behalfs! ]
But it is, as I said many posts above, I believe, "the root of most modern evaluative badness."
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
You left a little out.
If the tasting is wine against wine (no food) I think the result is skewed by the comparative nature of the format and the fact that you are simply tasting wine with wine (which is usually not the way I drink wine - hence, such comparisons lose relevance).
If the tasting is one with food, the focus of the experience shifts and its the enjoyment of the pairing that matters most; not is one wine better than another.
Hence, some ranking or quality assessment of a wine in either context suffers by the very nature of the context.
And then, of course, there's the matter of communicating one's assessment.
IE., all qualitative assessments of wine are somewhat hollow (or at minimum, suspect).
Best, Jim
I understand the idea that tasting wines alongside each other is not the perfect way to form an opinion and that enjoying a wine with dinner is not the perfect way to form comparative judgments either.
I don't think there is a perfect way to experience wine or form judgments. I think quality assessments are something you sort of sneak up on after years of tasting. You drink wines with dinner and while drinking them you occasionally pause to step out of the experience of dining to reflect on the wine you are drinking and then you plunge back in to enjoying the experience. Sometimes you drink a couple wines alongside each other. Sometimes you drink a glass of wine after dinner or before. Sometimes you go to a winery and try to make sense of what it is you are tasting. And sometimes you may even go to small or large tastings and try to make some sense out of the mess of that kind of experience. So, over time you taste wine in many different contexts. But If comparative quality assessment was just a fool's game or really that difficult or that impossible, then you and I wouldn't have reached the same independent conclusion about the best value red wine in Burgundy (one that Claude may well share), and the wines we've bought would be almost random instead of having considerable overlap.
At the same time, I also read and pay attention to what some other people have to say because there may be something I don't "get" yet. I paid very close attention to Zul's opinions about Barolo and Barbaresco and other Italian wines several years ago and bought wines that weren't on my radar screen or that weren't really my favorites at the time. And already I am glad I did -- there was definitely something I wasn't "getting" at the time.
Just for the record, 'qualitative' assessments and comparisons do not necessarily involve rankings or hierarchies. They involve the 'qualities' of the wine (i.e. seductiveness, suppleness, whatever you want) as opposed to the quantity-based (quantitative) aspects of the wine (alcohol percentages, pH numbers, etc).
When comparing two wines I don't see why 'ranking' or 'better' has to get involved. Rather, it is a way to highlight the similarities and differences between wines and perhaps arrive at a deeper understanding.
When comparing two wines I don't see why 'ranking' or 'better' has to get involved. Rather, it is a way to highlight the similarities and differences between wines and perhaps arrive at a deeper understanding.
All of you folks railing against hierarchies are being intellectually dishonest.
We all have them. It is more difficult to argue for them than to take the post-modern bullshit way out towards relativism. I find relativism to be the worst kind of intellectual laziness.
Is there really not a qualitative difference between Mugnier and Magnien that can be quantified? It doesn't have to be interval in scale, but it can certainly be ordinal.
My guess is also that if we to compile these ordinal level data across Disorderlies then we would have something with actual meaning. And it would be hierarchical. Perhaps this should cross list in the Kant post.
We all have them. It is more difficult to argue for them than to take the post-modern bullshit way out towards relativism. I find relativism to be the worst kind of intellectual laziness.
Is there really not a qualitative difference between Mugnier and Magnien that can be quantified? It doesn't have to be interval in scale, but it can certainly be ordinal.
My guess is also that if we to compile these ordinal level data across Disorderlies then we would have something with actual meaning. And it would be hierarchical. Perhaps this should cross list in the Kant post.
Jay Miller
Jay Miller
And just for the record I've only ever had Clape with food though it was always in a jeebusy context. Still boring.
You may be able to quantify differences in their vineyard practices (e.g. hours spent pruning per vine) or in their cellar practices (e.g. percentage new oak), I don't know.
I think you could definitely quantify differences in the tasters' perception of their wines. That's just a public opinion survey. Then it all becomes a question of interpreting those quantitative data. Get enough tasters and those opinions should tell you how evaluations of those wines are spread across a given universe (humans, Americans, Disorderlies).
But I'm post-modern enough to insist that these differences are in opinions and not inherent to the wines.
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
I believe we have had this discussion before; I do not feel that relativism, in the context of wine evaluation, is lazy or bull-shit. Rather, I find it a comprehensive way to view a very subjective subject.
"When comparing two wines I don't see why 'ranking' or 'better' has to get involved. Rather, it is a way to highlight the similarities and differences between wines and perhaps arrive at a deeper understanding."
Certainly, I understand where you could take issue with this statement but I, for one, see it as expressing the logical progression of wine enjoyment and experience.
You may believe that hierarchies are intellectually a natural part of wine tasting. I would argue that you are intellectualizing something that may not lend itself to such discipline and that, when that process is carried to its logical extreme, results in things like a point system of rating wine.
And please don't argue from averages; this is an individual endeavor and ordinal level data has no place here.
However, John's point about his and my (and your!?) preferences being similar is well taken but I think its because we have fallen in with bad companions and have learned to enjoy our wines in many similar ways. We have similar sources of information and similar thoughts on what we enjoy about wine.
In the end, you like it or you don't.
And while I would like very much to entertain "a deeper understanding" of the wines I drink, it is all about preferences.
Relative preferences.
Best, Jim
Jay Miller
Jay Miller
I'd say there are some elements of wine that are susceptible to qualitative analysis but they are fewer than most people think. I'd say the difference in perception of the wide variety of flavor compounds in wine coupled with how individual brains interpret levels of sensory stimulus added to learned experience and memory means that people can have widely varying experiences tasting the same wine.
Taking my points one at a time
1) My oft cited reference is a Pape Clement vertical I was at some years ago. I loved the '55, many other people said it was dead and tasteless. Later we got to the '75 which I thought was dead and tasteless while some of the same people who pronounced the '55 dead loved it. BTW I've had that same experience with the '75 on other occasions. There was something(s) in the '55 that I could taste and others couldn't and vice versa for the '75.
2) Read an interesting study some years ago investigating how people react to levels of sensory stimulus with different people requiring different levels of intensity for a pleasurable experience. This was shown to be true even in newborn infants with different levels of sound or taste (different dilutions of lemon juice were used) being required for a reaction of pleasure. I do not find it surprising that given my aversion to really loud music that I should also have an aversion to loud wines and I wouldn't be surprised if that was a function of brain chemistry rather than any innate quality of the wine.
3) How often have we tasted a wine and said something like "ah, now this is what Burgundy is supposed to taste like". Our previous experiences and expectations can play a big role in our enjoyment which won't be a factor for a newcomer. I still remember when Keith Levenberg slipped a '98 Bosconia (a wine I love) blind into a Burgundy tasting. I said it was terrible Burgundy and didn't enjoy it at all.
Of course there are actual flaws though even here individual perceptions will differ. I like a little VA in my wine (Musar) while other people can't tolerate it. I'm relatively insensitive to the green note in '04 Burgundy so it's a lesser flaw for me than others. At what point does oakiness become a flaw? Higher level for me that for Brad Kane but much lower for me than for Robert Parker. Is even TCA really a flaw for someone who is totally insensitive to it (I've seen Arvind Rao enjoy wines that were DNPIM for me, but I've enjoyed wines that others have pronounced corked)?
One of the reasons we hang out here is that there is a certain similarity of perception of wine attributes and therefore recommendations and related experiences are more likely to resonate and be useful. And of course simply by virtue of all of us being human there are certain perceptions we all share. I actually found Joe Perry's Rioja hierarchy useful since I agree with his Rioja palate much more often than not and I don't drink widely enough to know all the producers he mentioned.
So I guess I'm saying that hierarchies (like vintage genearlizations) can be useful in a limited way but should not be mistaken for absolute truth. After all, despite Claude knowing a minimum of 10x as much as I do about Cornas I'm still not going to buy Clape just because he likes them. Or because Parker likes them. Or even because Thierry Allemand likes them. Because at the end of the day I'll be the one drinking the wine.
Taking my points one at a time
1) My oft cited reference is a Pape Clement vertical I was at some years ago. I loved the '55, many other people said it was dead and tasteless. Later we got to the '75 which I thought was dead and tasteless while some of the same people who pronounced the '55 dead loved it. BTW I've had that same experience with the '75 on other occasions. There was something(s) in the '55 that I could taste and others couldn't and vice versa for the '75.
2) Read an interesting study some years ago investigating how people react to levels of sensory stimulus with different people requiring different levels of intensity for a pleasurable experience. This was shown to be true even in newborn infants with different levels of sound or taste (different dilutions of lemon juice were used) being required for a reaction of pleasure. I do not find it surprising that given my aversion to really loud music that I should also have an aversion to loud wines and I wouldn't be surprised if that was a function of brain chemistry rather than any innate quality of the wine.
3) How often have we tasted a wine and said something like "ah, now this is what Burgundy is supposed to taste like". Our previous experiences and expectations can play a big role in our enjoyment which won't be a factor for a newcomer. I still remember when Keith Levenberg slipped a '98 Bosconia (a wine I love) blind into a Burgundy tasting. I said it was terrible Burgundy and didn't enjoy it at all.
Of course there are actual flaws though even here individual perceptions will differ. I like a little VA in my wine (Musar) while other people can't tolerate it. I'm relatively insensitive to the green note in '04 Burgundy so it's a lesser flaw for me than others. At what point does oakiness become a flaw? Higher level for me that for Brad Kane but much lower for me than for Robert Parker. Is even TCA really a flaw for someone who is totally insensitive to it (I've seen Arvind Rao enjoy wines that were DNPIM for me, but I've enjoyed wines that others have pronounced corked)?
One of the reasons we hang out here is that there is a certain similarity of perception of wine attributes and therefore recommendations and related experiences are more likely to resonate and be useful. And of course simply by virtue of all of us being human there are certain perceptions we all share. I actually found Joe Perry's Rioja hierarchy useful since I agree with his Rioja palate much more often than not and I don't drink widely enough to know all the producers he mentioned.
So I guess I'm saying that hierarchies (like vintage genearlizations) can be useful in a limited way but should not be mistaken for absolute truth. After all, despite Claude knowing a minimum of 10x as much as I do about Cornas I'm still not going to buy Clape just because he likes them. Or because Parker likes them. Or even because Thierry Allemand likes them. Because at the end of the day I'll be the one drinking the wine.