Hi Good Peoples,

I was reading in the paper where a well know and respected wine journalist said “If Coonawarra cabernet scored a perfect 10 out of 10 in 1998, the 1999 vintage was only a whisker behind with 9 out of 10.”

Here we go again with the insanity of another points system where only a very narrow bandwidth is used. We all know the shortcomings of the 100-point wine system, where in reality, at best we only have a spread of 30 points from 70 to 100.

There is no doubt that 98 was a ripper in Coonawarra but based on the 99 wines I have tried from there, in my opinion it could best be described as an average vintage. Not spectacular, not anything to be very concerned about and nothing to get very exited about either. There will be some very good wines released and some very ordinary wines too.  For the heck of it, I decided to have a look at the “official vintage reports” from the region for 1999 to 2000 respectively and here are some selected excerpts from those reports.

1999 – “This will be an outstanding Coonawarra vintage,' says a report prepared by Wendy Hollick, president of the Coonawarra Vignerons’ Association…… The 1999 reds are above average' the report says 'They had intense colour and flavour on the vine and in the juice due to the small berry size, wonderful pH and acid balance. There is an expectation for slightly higher than average alcohol due to the marvellous ripening conditions experienced.”

2000 – “The 2000 vintage was the earliest on record in Coonawarra, where the lower than average yields have been compensated for by outstanding fruit quality……It is worth noting that an early vintage in Coonawarra has generally resulted in exceptional wines,' said a report prepared by Wendy Hollick, president of the Coonawarra Vignerons' Association. They had intense colour and flavour on the vine and in the juice due to the small berry size and low bunch numbers, wonderful pH and acid balance. There is an expectation for slightly higher than average alcohol due to the marvellous ripening conditions experienced for the third year in a row.”

Notice the similarity in the wording? The most telling part is that the report for 2000 talks about the marvellous ripening conditions experienced for the third year in a row, and by association links the quality of the 2000 vintage to that of 1998.

Now consider a part of the 2000 report that I did not include in the above “Yields were down variously, ranging from 20 to 30% in general and up to 50% in older Cabernet Sauvignon vines.”

When you include this information, the picture doesn’t look so great for 2000 in Coonawarra now does it?  But the reason that I didn’t include it previously was that I wanted you to see the conclusions drawn from the report and the way the report was talked up trying to make the most of what was in reality a pretty poor vintage.

So the big question is, if 1998 was a 10 and 1999 was a 9, what will 200 be worth, 8? Whatever the answer in my mind it will have little credibility if 1999 was a 9 as the band is so narrow as to be meaningless. Once again it show the shortcomings of the narrow band point systems, which are in vogue today where every child wins a prize and people are afraid to say, “that’s crap” or its “below average.”

Full vintage details can be found at http://winetitles.com.au/vintagereports/vintage2001.html

Keep drinking – cheers

Ric