By Matthew Citriglia, MS on January 8, 2006
Once people find out I am in the wine industry I always get asked the same question, “What is a good wine to drink?” Or worse yet, they are wine aficionados and find out that I am a Master Sommelier, then the question changes to “What is a great wine to drink?” This is like asking a librarian to pick a good book to read or asking a literary scholar to pick a great novel.
I tend to have more patience with the novice wine drinker as they are more receptive to learning and having a dialog about wine identity and personal taste. The so-called “connoisseur” grows impatient with the dialog and is looking for a specific wine so they can turn around and try and one up me.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think it is great to see an explosion of interest in wine. What bothers me is that it seems like the more people think they know about the subject, the grander the pedestal the beverage is placed upon. They believe that there is a right and wrong way to enjoy wine, a right and wrong wine to drink, a right and wrong wine for the food you are serving. In fact, the more people get excited about wine, the less it seems they understand about what makes a wine great. I have had numerous conversations with well educated wine drinkers whose remarks could be boiled down to Neanderthal language: “unghh... Sweet wine bad, dry wine good,” or “unghh... white wine bad, red wine good.”
It bothers me that so many wine savvy people seem to be clueless about what truly makes a wine great. And then one day while having another agonizing conversation with a so-called connoisseur it dawned on me what the problem was. Here was this gentleman who had tremendous depth of knowledge of producers and ratings, yet was only familiar with a handful of grapes and had some very basic knowledge on growing regions. Wine has become so overly simplified that people with very little fundamental wine knowledge act like experts.
The Oversimplification of Wine
Although the purpose of rating systems was a very noble idea the results have been disastrous! Intended to simplify the complexity of wine and help the novice consumer make better decisions, the law of unintended consequences has had four distinct impacts:
Wine Homogenization
Most of today’s rating systems hold all wine regardless of grape type or region to the same generic standard. What if an apple lover decided that in order to get people to try more apples they needed to simplify the selection process because there were too many apple choices? What if this apple lover decided that the Gala apple was the perfect apple and he created an apple rating system around this perfect apple?
What if that apple lover and his Gala Rating Scale became a powerful and influential critic and people stopped buying other apples that didn’t taste like Gala apples or would only eat apples that scored 92 points or higher on the Gala Rating Scale. Does this mean that a Granny Smith apple is a less perfect apple, or Golden Delicious shouldn’t be taken seriously because it is the wrong color?
What would happen then if a grower of Macintosh apples discovered a way to alter the composition of his apple to taste more like a gala? Now Macintosh is all the rage because they are more Gala-like than Gala apples. Then Golden Delicious growers saw how popular Macintosh became after they altered their apple composition and the Golden Delicious growers followed suit. How long would it be before all the apples, even though they were of different varieties, tasted the same? All in order to score some points with a well-intentioned but very misguided critic trying to over simplify the apple selection process!
Exasperated Pretentiousness
The second thing that has risen out of the oversimplification of wine is more pretentiousness! People think they are connoisseurs because they have money to fill their cellars with high scoring wines yet they know little about the grape or growing region. The height of pretentiousness can be summed in the following phrase: “I only drink wines that score 92 points or above.”
Artificially High Prices
Most wine of character is produced in limited supply. High ratings cause a mass of mindless robots to create an artificially high demand for wines they know nothing about. With limited supply, this forces wine prices to rise when there are usually many comparable wines available with no ratings.
Loss of Personal Taste
This is probably the most egregious of all the unintended consequences. Do you know how many people I meet that drink wine they don’t like simply because of a score?! I can not count the number of times I have a consumer state, “I thought that was what great wine was supposed to taste like.” Would you hang art on your wall that you didn’t like, would you eat food you didn’t like, would you listen to music you don’t like? Then why do so many people drink wine they don’t like simply because of a score?
What Defines a Great Wine?
Defining a great wine requires understanding the difference between a “wine of quality” versus a “wine of character,” as well as your own personal taste. Most wines produced today are “wines of quality.” These wines are enjoyable to drink, whether cheap or expensive, simple or complex. This basically refers to any well made wine without fault. But just because a wine meets the definition for a “wine of quality” does not mean you have to like it. Personal taste will dictate that.
Personal taste is dictated by your senses and wine is a very sensuous and intimate beverage. It is five dimensional art. Its enjoyment involves all the senses of the body: sight, smell, taste, feel, and sound. SOUND? How? Think about it. Who is going to enjoy their wine more, a person abandoned on New Years Eve with a bottle of le Montrachet, or someone out with friends on a Tuesday night drinking Zin with pizza? Do not discount the importance of social interaction with your enjoyment of a specific wine.
This brings us to defining greatness in wine. A great wine is one which displays intense varietal character and has a distinct sense of place. This is a “wine of character” as the wine tastes like it was made from specific grapes grown in a specific region. It is a wine whose label does not need to be shown for a consumer to know what it is. Wines of character not only drive regional diversity, but they help consumers pick wines they will personally enjoy.
For instance, over the years I have discovered that I prefer wines that have higher levels of acid, more moderate levels of alcohol, lower levels of tannin and wines that are more fragrant than fruity. Now, say I was presented with two wines, a Russian River Pinot Noir and a Volnay from Burgundy. If both wines were “wines of character,” Because of my personal biases, I will enjoy the Volnay over the Russian River Pinot. NOT because the Volnay is better, but because it fits my taste profile. If the Volnay tasted like Russian River Pinot, it would not be a “wine of character” and I would be disappointed with the selection.
By defining wine in these terms a “great wine” is a “wine of character.” All “great wines” are “wines of quality”, but not all “wines of quality” are “great wines.” As well, it would be safe to say that many high scoring wines are “wines of quality” but probably are not “wines of character.” For a wine to be truly “great” it must taste of the region and the grape varietal that it hails from. Likewise, many “great wines” may only achieve a score of 84 points on today’s very biased rating system.
When it comes right down to it, everyone who enjoys wine should learn to appreciate “great wine” by doing a little homework on grape varieties and growing regions. Not only will it help you understand why grapes grown in a specific place taste as they do, but it will also help you define your personal tastes. After all, your personal taste should ultimately determine which great wine to drink!