WTN: J. Cattin 2002 Pinot Noir d'Alsace

[albiston]

2002 Alsace Pinot Noir, Joseph Cattin

I ran across this wine by mere chance. I was looking for something new to try, and to go with the rather warm weather of last week, and the owner of my local wine store tipped this one as a pleasant light red.

Vivid light cherry colour. Very clean aroma of cherry followed by lighter raspberry and a subtle floral note to finish. Light bodied but very well balanced showing, considering the wine type, a rather long finish.

The tip was a definitely a good one. This is a wine I’d like to have more of when summer comes. Fresh and light without any rough edges, a wine I'd offer to someone to convince them that there's more to wine than over-extracted Cabernets and co. Nothing against full bodied wines, but I like wine in its whole range of "looks".

And this brings me to the points question. If I had to grade this on a 100 point scale, using any one of the two methods I use, this wine would land between 75 and 80 points. I don’t really think this reflects the value of this wine and in a case like this the limitations of wine scoring cards very much show up, at least the ones I use. In my experience, only wines with a “big” structure land into the over 85 points range. I find this quite restrictive. There are quite a few “light” wines that are perfectly made and that would deserve a better treatment when it comes to scores. I sometimes think that wines should be judged inside their own category with a properly designed scoring system (maybe such a system already exists but I‘m not aware if there is one). Sure for those who know how wines are judged a light wine scoring at 80 points is a good quality one, but for the wine curious public who just looks at WS or WA scores, without really understanding what’s behind them, such a score might not sound too impressive. This, I feel, also pushes a part of the wine market toward big muscular wines, leaving the pleasant but subtler lightweights behind, which I find a real pity (or maybe not, more for me to drink ). Does anyone else feel the same way? Or maybe you think this is a stupid point? I'd really appreciate your opinions.