Monthly Report - June 2013

Blue Poles wines ready to go at the Burbury Terrace (top) and Mark and Gail winding down after a great dinner at Burbury Hotel (bottom)

Off to Wollongong with a rental car full of bags and wine.  We had hoped to head across to Batesman Bay on the coast and then “cruise” up the New South Wales southern shoreline spotting whales and dropping in on cafés.  Alas as we approached the last 50km to Batesman Bay, we were advised there was a detour, a detour of 200km to get to there, my goodness me that must be a record of some kind.  The detour took us in the direction of Wollongong so off we went through the bush and wilds to find the ‘Gong.  Arriving in town you roll past all the major industrial areas to the south in Port Kembla and as you hit town proper you find a massive football stadium adjacent to the golf course, and on the radio was Bruce Springsteen which set the scene perfectly.

The dinner and tasting was a great night.  The crowd was the professional fraternity of town and they have a great wine guide in Simon Hurford who runs these events for them.  It was a crowd that knew their likes and dislikes and this meant the opinions on the wines varied as they expressed opinions more on the wines they “like” rather than they “admire”.  Good on them.  It is much harder to tack against the wind than follow the prevailing breeze and I appreciated their candor.  Our Teroldego was very well received and may find a new home in Wollongong.

The two dinners also gave me an opportunity to meet many of our Blue Poles “family” who have bought our wines over the years, and it was great to put names to faces after posting off their wines.  Quite a few have the whole “set” of Blue Poles wines and the dinners were an opportunity to see how they were going.  We had a great time travelling about and it was enlightening to hear the responses to the wines and heartening to hear the supportive comments.  And even though I could not sell an ice block in the Sahara, I am quite looking forward to doing this again at some point in the future.

The “science” of wine tasting…

Just a short topic this month as I do not want to go down this rabbit hole too far.  There has been over the past few years a series of “exposés” from a Californian winery, where wines have been sent to numerous wine shows and their scores monitored over all of these events.  The exposé revolves around the range of scores that have been given to the wines and how inconsistent the scores were from show to show.

Tim Atkin did not as much as take umbrage from the story which was “sensationalized” in a British paper, but argued as we do not know who the tasters were and where they were from it was a bit fanciful to bag the system (of which he is heavily involved in with the International Wine Challenge in London, as well as one of the guys managing the Masters of Wine course).  He is right of course, but he is also wrong to a degree as it is assumed by the public that any group of wine “experts” should be able to replicate results, regardless of who they are, but they do not.

I guess this is where I am quite interested as everyone sees and tastes wine differently and from the humble drinker to the most eloquent wine critic we are affected by our own taste.  The experience of drinking 100’s of wines does not guarantee you the skill in having good taste – it provides you with a memory placement of a very fickle duo to remember – smell and taste.  Some have great memory skills which can place a wine against many others, and others can look at a wine with clear thoughts and not overprint what they taste by what they are “meant” to taste.  It is easy to lead anyone in a tasting, by discussing specific flavors which may or may not be there brings a degree of acceptance by the taster and as such he’s led.  For example, if I was showing our Merlot blind, and I kept on repeating how “I can smell blackcurrant, can you smell blackcurrant?” Followed by asking what the taster thought the wine variety was, 90% would say Cabernet Sauvignon as their overpowering memory is Blackcurrant=Cab Sauv, and this clouds what they are tasting in front of them.

You can therefore argue that wines that are more of “type”, i.e. those that smell and taste of the typical descriptors are going to do well and be more highly regarded.  I have a feeling this is why Bordeaux wines are regarded as the world’s better wines because they are so distinctive and a lot of hoopla is made about the subtleties of the wine regions.  It could also be argued that the distinctive Barossa and McLaren Vale red wines also fit the bill as so distinctive the region overprints the varieties in many occasions and the “style” guarantees the following and the giddiness in the virtual memory.

Of all of our senses, the sense of smell and taste are the most inconsistent.  Your mood, your health, your age, your experience, your desire; every one of these factors play a role on any given day at any given time in regards to your appreciation of wine.  Some wine tasters are extremely “skilled” and through training (sorry, copious drinking), they have become quite consistent with their appreciation of wine – spotting varieties and regions, sometimes even vintages.  But they are educated guesses, and for the best wine critics these educated guesses of wine quality are what the public wants to know – with their definitive score providing the connection between the two.

Thus the crux of the issue.  By the use of definitive scores, has the critical component of the wine industry painted themselves into a corner?  As our Californian winemaker at the top indicates, there is no consistency with scores “statistically” thus what is there value?  There is no science that can support the score – it is basically a feeling or a perception, nothing more.  I am not a fan of the show system – I may have mentioned this in the past – but I do think there is a role for good wine critics providing unbiased opinions and scores for wines.  They are valuable and they provide any reader with a starting point upon which a purchasing decision can be made if unable to taste the wine before buying.

BUT.  All wine critics should be able to discuss the method they went through in which they obtained the wine’s score and description, such that the public have the opportunity to decide if that methodology was appropriate.  Currently we have no standards in Australia in this area, and there should be.  It would appropriate that free dinners and flights etc be mentioned if a wine score is printed by any wine critic, as this, in a portion of the public’s mind, may have affected the score.  Also conversely, if a wine is tasted amongst 100’s of others in a tasting room, with the scores being presented and notes defined from this “sniff and spit” affair, that too should be mentioned. Simple really.

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