One Moment In Time

How relevant is one moment in time versus the grand scheme of things? Is it fair to judge all of history from one fleeting moment and would you gain an accurate impression of the universe from that one impression? Possibly, but possibly not and that leads me to this months topic of wine reviews and medals.

Imagine a wine show, frequently the judges each have to judge hundreds of bottle of wine in a single day. Now I know these guys are pretty good but there they are human and have limitations. You also have to take into account the fact that they all have their own likes and dislikes, and although this shouldn’t impact their scoring, it frequently does.

As you will be aware, frequently young wine tastes better when they have been decanted and have had a few hours to get some air to help open them up. In a show situation, in some cases that may happen, but in many it will not be the case.

If you take TN made by the likes of respected Journalists like Halliday, Oliver and Mattinson (hi Campbell) its worthwhile considering how these professionals judge these wines. Now lets face it, these guys do have outstanding ability and are very speedy and proficient at tasting and judging wines, so this is not designed in any way as a shot at them. They look at the wine, sniff it a few times, taste, swirl and spit. Then they write the tasting note. In many cases this whole process of “judging” the wine may only take a few minutes.

In that few minutes they have recorded what they have found for prosperity, be it a tasting note or the awarding (or not) of a medal.

Now let me ask you a question, which would you prefer. A tasting note made in the space of a few minutes or a tasting note made by someone who has drunk the wine over the space of (extended) time? The major limitation of a brief tasting note is that it just shows the wine during one brief moment of time. When actually drinking a glass of wine over a protracted period of time, you have the opportunity to watch the wine open up and develop. Frequently you can gain a different impression when the wine has had a chance to show its best.

This then leads into the futility of appointing a score, especially if its out of 100. Recently in Winestate Magazine they had a taste off between two wine regions that were judged by ten professional winemakers. The points spread between the judges when converted to the 100 point scale was rather large on a number of wines. So was wine “X” really worth 77 as one judge thought or was it really worth 95 as another scored it?

The point is (bad pun intended) that a score, be it out of 100 (especially) or even out of 20 is a “definitive value” and wine isn’t a definitive object. It’s a living product that is subject to change and variation, even between bottles of the same wine. What is more of a concern is that we are human and are also subject to change, mood swings, good days and bad. It would be interesting to give a line up of fifty wines to a judge and get a score out of 100 for each wine and then repeat the exercise a few days later (whilst changing the order) and then compare the scores. Finally you then have to consider, is a 90 point wine that costs $20 better (and better value) than a 92 point wine that costs $25.00. Its all too much!

Best not to get too hung up on ratings and medals, just work out whose palate is closest to yours and taste as much as you can for yourself, so you can make up your own mind. Only you know what you like and what you don’t like.

Keep drinking