Influencing Factors

There are many factors that can influence how we perceive a wine before we even pull the cork from the bottle. For internet wine-junkies, the information gained on the net can and is a great benefit but it can and frequently does colour our thinking, sometimes in a negative way.

When the 1998’s started to come out it was quickly heralded as the vintage of the century. There was a mad scramble to buy as much 98 wine as people could afford. This vintage of the century fever drove prices up and even today, the effect is still felt on the auction market where anything with a 98 label will invariably fetch more than a bottle of the same with a 99 sticker on the label even though in some cases the 99 is actually a better wine.

In the same vein, some time ago rumbles started to emerge, once again on the internet, which stated that some people thought that many of the 98’s were falling apart. As a result, in some people’s minds, 98 was the vintage of the century and in others, every time they open a bottle of 98 they look to see if the wine is falling apart. I guess that if you look for something often enough you are likely to find it and even a single one-off fault in a bottle may result in a diagnosis that the wine is falling apart.

Was 98 the vintage of the decade or century as many pundits stated? Not in my opinion. Are all the 98’s falling apart? No, some of them may not be doing as well as expected and may even be in decline but it as ridiculous to state that all 98’s are falling apart as to say that all Australian wine will not age. There is some truth in the statement, but there are a huge number of exceptions.

The 1996 Bowen Estate Shiraz won the Penguin “Shiraz of the Year” some time ago. Many people went out and purchased the wine specifically because it won the gong and thought it must have been a very special wine. Therefore, they had very high expectations of the wine based on other people’s opinions. I purchased a couple of cases of the wine prior to it winning the award because I really liked it. The first case was consumed young for its primary fruit. The second case was allowed to age for a few years.

Sometime ago, reports on the internet kept popping up slating the wine and saying it was falling apart and what a terrible wine it had become. This thought seemed to gain momentum and almost every time a tasting note was posted it followed a similar pattern. A number of the tasting notes mentioned the Penguin award and how disappointed the drinker was because the wine was not as great as expected and it had failed to last.

Every time I read one of these tasting notes, based on my experience I had to mentally disagree with the conclusions reached. To my way of thinking, the wine was fine, it was not showing all that well because it was in a hole, fast asleep, but it was not as bad as the posters were making out. The poster’s expectations may have been influenced by a number of factors that were outside the contents of the bottle. Firstly, the award and resulting high expectation of the wine which was not met which created further disappointment and negative reaction to the wine. The second factor was the self-fulfilling prophecy where some posters had expressed disappointment so other tasters almost expected the same result.    Yes, the wine may not be great but that finding was exacerbated by the two mentioned outside influences as well as the fact the wine was asleep around that time.

Very recently, I had my last bottle of this wine and was thoroughly disappointed. Not with the wine, it was terrific, my disappointment was that it was my last bottle. It has woken up from its deep sleep and was just starting to gain some real aged complexity. Falling apart? No way, it was glorious.  

As wine lovers, it always pays to judge what is in the glass and try and avoid an expectation that is based what is on the label or on what you have heard about the wine.

I have seen Grange and Hill of Grace served to experienced tasters at dinners in a blind situation where there is a high expectation of great wine being served and the wines have been slated as not being OK but particularly great. By the same token, I have seen corked Grange receiving rapturous accolades because the drinkers knew they were drinking “The Drink.”

Some years ago, a trick was played on me when someone presented a bottle labeled 1997 Roennfeldt Road Shiraz which had already been opened. Whilst I had not tried the wine previously, everything seemed wrong and warning bells started to ring. Initially the label had a definite influence on my thinking but the more I drank it, the more convinced that it was a fraud. It was far too young to be a 97, it was a nice drop but didn’t have the complexity that was expected etc. Turned out it was a barrel sample of a wine that was less than a year old and intended to be a prank.

To some extent, unless we drink wine blind, we are all subject to outside influences, the best way of trying to overcome them is to try to ignore them and just assess what is in the glass. It can be a very sobering process.