What's your top price point?

[baphie]

Baphie - You misunderstood what I said. Robert Parker uses a certain methodology to assess a wine. It's the same methodology that everyone else uses and it is objective in nature. That he might like wine that is aged in new oak casks as opposed to aged in old oak is a palate preference. That part is subjective (to a point). But the way he assesses what type of oak isn't. Understand?

Understand, but not totally in agreement. In lines with what Britcook posted later, I think we have different uses of the word 'objective.' You are using it almost like an agreed-upon language. I.e. tannins means the same thing to each critic, to pick a non-subtle aspect. That is like saying red means the same thing to all art critics and that is true within the limits of language's ability to express an unsharable perception. This is isn't objective, at least in the way the term is used in the greater critical community. Objective means a standard outside the critics. Objective standards in wine would be a mass spec analysis of the tannin component, for example. I agree with you that Parker and other attenuated palates have the skill set that enables them to analyse a wine and rate the these components with probably the same accuracy as a mass spec. That is analysis not criticism.

Criticism is the very subjective part which you acknowledge in the later post, but I don't think you give enough weight to how subjective it is. At best, these is consensus among a large body of people whose have the skill sets mentioned above. One could easily argue that this consenus is a product of culture, not any objective standards.

I think you are correct in your analysis about neophyte drinkers newly able to purchase in the 80s having driven the market to wines that either express young or to an appreciation of young wines. I think this is a good thing in a lot of ways. It has opened wines and wine-drinking to a larger populace and has encouraged many winemakers to take a less traditional and more artistic or personal approach. It has also led others to produce plonk, but highly marketable plonk. Diversity is good for a market. The same thing could be said to be true for cuisine as well- the 80s gave birth to new directions in French cuisine which, on the whole, has been a good thing.

I read your list. When I first started collecting wines I used to enjoy drinking those wines. Now I hate them. Why is hard to explain but it has to do with how my palate developed based on getting the chance to drink  the semenal wines from each region of the world.

I can't say how many more years of wine drinking you have than I, nor can I say if my palate will converge to the same point as yours. I tend to think not. If anything, I am extremely neophilic and I dectect strong elements of neophobia on your part. I approach a restaurant sommelier by asking to try something I have never tried before. I most appreciate a diversity of wines. I am also finding that the sommeliers in some top restaurants are following this path. That is not to say that they don't appreciate the 'great' wines, but are extremely excited by and excited to recommend small production wines from non-traditional locations. These complement, enhance or just follow the same riffs as the cuisine of a Gagnaire or Trotter or Adria or Bras.

Philosophically, I seldom order a French wine in a top American restaurant doing American food like Trotters or Tru. (Except for whites where the American selection usually doesn't meet my desires.) In a French restaurant in the US, I will. In fact, I have already scoped the wine list of Maisonette in preps to going there in a couple of weeks.

I don't say this as an insult, but it sounds like your palate has engaged in a directed narrowing over the years. I tend to approach wine with the attitude of expanding my palate set. I look at is as a 3rd dimension of cuisine and relate it to foods I have had or create a palate of flavors to match that wine in the future.

Out of curiosity, what do you think of artisanal (shudder) producers like Randall Graham, Thackrey or Quintarelli? Do you simply not like their wines? Or do you appreciate their vision, methods and art while acknowledging it is not just for you? Do you like someone like Cuilleron who is a craftsman of wine, if not artistic.

Lastly, how was the 1993 Jayer at Craft? I am jealous of you on that one. We have found the 93 vintage to be some of the best <20 yr old Burgundies.

[marcus]

baphie -- As I mentioned in a prior post, very inexperienced wine drinkers have been shown to be able to order a set of wines as to quality much in line with expert opinion. Of course this doesn't get to many of the nuances addressed on this thread, but does indicate that objectivity exists at least from a high level view. How would you take this into account in your analysis?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Objective standards in wine would be a mass spec analysis of the tannin component, for example. I agree with you that Parker and other attenuated palates have the skill set that enables them to analyse a wine and rate the these components with probably the same accuracy as a mass spec. That is analysis not criticism.

All reviewers do is guess the spec from tasting the wines. If you read Burghound about Burgundy, you will see the above taken to its personification. A reviewer who is buried in the details of the specs and correlates them to what his palate detected. You don't get into subjectivity until you get into a range of acceptability. For example, Rovani trashed the '93 vintage and recently scored it a '68 because he thinks the wines are astringent and tough. And he likes the '97 vintage because the wines are so huge. I'm not sure of his vintage rating but let's call it 93 for arguments sake. Now if an oenologist were to plot out the vintages side by side according to spec, you would find different characteristics to the vintages. None of that is subjective. It only gets subjective when someone says, I prefer this level of sugar and another says I prefer a different level. But where it appears to be totally subjective is when someone says that the difference in residual sugar is worth a 25 point difference on the rating scale! If wine consumers were predominantly scientists, selling wine via an analytical approach through mass specing, that would have become the standard way of communicating greatness. But wine is a consumable with an aesthetic component so it is written of like it's a quasi commodity-quasi work of art.

I find that the issue of drinking old world versus new world wines revoles around getting the opportunity to taste the seminal wines from various regions of the world. For me, I was fortunate to attend mass tastings where on difference occassions they served 1961 Latour, 1983 Cheval Blanc and 1990 Chave. Those wines were lynchpins in my palate development and they allowed me to search for wines that were derivitive of the characteristics they had shown. And this transformation is a never ending process as a bottle of 1978 Conterno Barolo Monfortino a year ago allowed me to gain an appreciation for Barolos that I never had before.

I agree with you that diversity is good for a market. Unforttunately, quite often diversity ends up with a market that is even more limited then one that isn't diverse. See the California wine industry. Because while it is great that there are Ca. cult wines, they have obliterated the old school style of winemaking which turned out some very good wines over the years. I have some magnums of 1978 Mondavi cab reserve which are terrific to drink. But you can't get wine like that anymore because diversioty resulted in an efficient market and efficiency means redundancy.

The Jayer at Craft was astounding but not particularly what wets my personal whistle. But it was one of the purest and most intense wines I have had in quite some time. I'm just not the biggest Echezeaux fan. I'd take a Bonnes Mares over an Echezeaux any day.

Edited December 6, 2002 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[britcook]

Ummm. You know I said that misspelling doesn't matter, well that wasn't quite the whole truth. I'm having trouble with semenal, because I figure semenal has the same relationship to semen as artisanal does to artisan. Now if I'm going to find seeds in my wine they'd better be from grapes not humans . I have to say "semenal wines" conjures up all sorts of unbidden images, most of which I could do without . Just for the record the word is normally spelt seminal

[hollywood]

I don't see the meaningfulness of the objective/subjective distinction. All the objective stuff is just science. It's the subjective assessments that relate to taste.

Meanwhile, as I inquired some time ago.....

Maybe I missed out along the way. Which writers or publications do you, Steve, respect at this point in your journey through the vineyards?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Marcus has said this all in a nice and simple manner (I wish I could do that.) How can there be better quality and wine be subjective at the same time? Those two concepts are in conflict. Once you accept the notion of quality, how does one insist that it is subjective?

I don't see the meaningfulness of the objective/subjective distinction. All the objective stuff is just science. It's the subjective assessments that relate to taste.

Edited December 6, 2002 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[hollywood]

People can plot out a wine on a chart and know how it is going to taste. In fact that is how winemakers do it.

[g.johnson]

How can there be better quality and wine be subjective at the same time? Those two concepts are in conflict. Once you accept the notion of quality, how does one insist that it is subjective?

I think you put it very well yourself.

Now if an oenologist were to plot out the vintages side by side according to spec, you would find different characteristics to the vintages. None of that is subjective. It only gets subjective when someone says, I prefer this level of sugar and another says I prefer a different level.

[Dave the Cook]

Ummm. You know I said that misspelling doesn't matter, well that wasn't quite the whole truth. I'm having trouble with semenal, because I figure semenal has the same relationship to semen as artisanal does to artisan. Now if I'm going to find seeds in my wine they'd better be from grapes not humans  . I have to say "semenal wines" conjures up all sorts of unbidden images, most of which I could do without . Just for the record the word is normally spelt seminal 

Correct spelling, Britcook. Nevertheless, "seminal" is derived from "semen." You're just going to have to get over it.

Dave the Writer

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yes but if we were to analyze the difference when the two vintages were plotted, we would find the differences to be microscopic (a small pun.) It's the practice of reviewers awarding points to this difference that distorts how much is one and how much is the other and seems to place much more weight on the subjective component then is really the case. I guess I am saying that if wine was sold with a bunch of scientific data on the label, the types of arguments that often break out among wine collectors would be tempered to a certain extent. But when a reviewer like Robert Parker puts a 5 point difference to a .001 difference in residual sugar, it's a distortion of the data. It's as if he said, it's worth paying $50 more a bottle for .001 more sugar. In my experience, that is where the difference of opinion that Baphie raised occurs. And that is where wine appreciation switches from a science to an art.

[baphie]

(Steve Plotnicki @ Dec 6 2002, 11:34 AM)

How can there be better quality and wine be subjective at the same time? Those two concepts are in conflict. Once you accept the notion of quality, how does one insist that it is subjective?

Lots of things are like that. Music, for example. In a performance it is readily apparent is a note is hit or not. Whether it was the appropriate note or not (to critique the composer) or whether the tempo around the note was enticing (to critique the performer), is all a matter of subjective opinion. I think the same is true about wine. Subjective and objective are not diametrically opposed. I think you made a good example of it in your account of the Jayer- perfect, but not necessarily pleasing to me.

Quality is a large set, arguably determined by objective means. What members of that set that we prefer is a subjective choice.

Your tasting experiences are interesting and I understand your perspective. The way you present is though is almost like it is a pre-determined progression. Ie encoutering these archetypal wines will force you to eschew all others. I can point to similar moments- the 90 Chave you mentioned (and older), a '90 Vosnee-Romanee from DRC that was opened for 8 hrs before it bloomed into an amazing experience, my first D'Yquem, my first Conterno (Aldo) Barolo, Ch Grillet. What I am not finding is that appreciating these is causing me to reject other expression of the same grape, even when done in a New World style. It is the opposite- Chave makes me appreciate Thackrey more. I love to see what different visions have created from similar starting points, but very disparate 'terroir,' background, philosophy and temperment.

(Steve Plotnicki @ Dec 6 2002, 11:34 AM) But you can't get wine like that anymore because diversioty resulted in an efficient market and efficiency means redundancy.

Umm, my market theory may be weak, but efficiency in a market usually means the opposite- elimination of redundancy. Right?

I am not so sure the market has become less diverse. There are more varietals and more unique expression of varietals available. And while certainly many winemakers have moved avay from the old style (eg the 78 Mondavi Cab you mentioned), there are still ones who operate on those same principles. For example, Melke Metisse, which Parker calls very Bourdeaux in style, tricked my wife into thinking it was a Bourdeaux when I gave it to her blind. The restraint in the wine was remarkable for CA.

At any rate, I think we agree more than the discourse has portrayed. Where we disagree, I doubt we will resolve. Some points appear to me to be a matter of temperment and age (or neophiliac vs neophobe and neophyte vs paleophyte, if you will.) What strikes me as particularly amusing is the best conclusion I can get out of this, and I think you will agree, is that the 90 or 99 Burgundies will be ready to drink when I am ready to drink them.

A.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well market efficiency is an economic measure. But quite often market efficiency obliterates cultural diversity. That is the conversation we always have about artisanal and what it means isn't it? Economic efficiency breeds sameness in products which is exactly what happened to Ca. wines. And they based their efficiency on Parker scores so the extent of the sameness is broad. The wine industry would be much more diverse if there was serious competition to Parker. But until that happens the market for high end wines will calibrate around his ratings.

As for pre-determined progressions, I have found that it is the same for music, art, and film. One gains expertise as to what is really good with more experience. But as to finding wines from people like Thackery interesting, it isn't that the role Thackery plays isn't interesting, it's that the terroir he works with is inferior. So as a result his wines feature ripeness (that sunny California thing again) over other attributes which when balanced correctly are more complex.

[mikec]

Well market efficiency is an economic measure. But quite often market efficiency obliterates cultural diversity. That is the conversation we always have about artisanal and what it means isn't it? Economic efficiency breeds sameness in products which is exactly what happened to Ca. wines.

To look at a real life example, take the loss of mom and pop stores around the country as mass marketers proliferate. This is market efficiency at work.

[hollywood]

So as a result his wines feature ripeness (that sunny California thing again) over other attributes....

That's our (California's) terroir!