Adelaide Hills 9.5% Screwcap $23 Source: Sample
I am currently fed up with “criteria” based reviews of wine…but I still cannot remove criteria from the equation when it comes to writing a tasting note. I think what is really frustrating me are the critics who have complete belief in their ability to capture a wine & its worth. Also unfulfilling is the idea that the whole endeavor is subjective. It’s a dualistic trap, where each side fails to do justice to the wine in front of them. So let’s see what I can do with this one here.
Firstly, it seems to be a bit of an unplanned experiment – a result of an agreement to purchase Chardonnay grapes that did not come to fruition. Some of those grapes had begun to experience Botrytis, so a decision was made to make a dessert wine.
The result carries a lot of enjoyment, matches well with fruit and mild (only mild) washed rind cheese, and can be enjoyed as a post-dinner drink that’s not too cloying. Ripe peach, candied pineapple, melon, brown pear and lemon with a little marmalade balancing the other flavours well. It’s a restrained dessert wine that doesn’t quite seem to fit the ‘sticky’ label on account of the abundant fresh fruits, citrus and nicely judged cleansing acidity.
I think the price is a little steep as it lacks the depth or complexity of an excellent Botrytised wine. Then again, unless a Botrytised wine is excellent, I’d personally prefer to drink a more late harvest style; like this. A blatant subject meets object review then. Perhaps one stupid dualism can destroy another…
Winery Website- http://www.goldingwines.com.au/
What do you mean by a criteria based wine review JP? Are we talking about wine reviews by the numbers – acid, fruit, alcohol etc?
On the topic, have a squizz at this (you might have already read it) http://wine-life.co.uk/news-review/time-for-a-tasting-note-revolution . Of particular interest (to me at least) was how obtuse and uninformative the 'new', deliberately non-esoteric tasting notes were, as if to confirm that said terminology (that we all use) is essential to actually understand a wine.
Interesting post Jeremy, and a good link Andrew too. The new style of tasting notes throw up another conundrum of wine and that is pretension and elitism. To the average consumer the idea of a wine being like eating chantilly cream in a pine shop will be hard to distinguish.
Having said that, the writer in me enjoys such images. Tasting notes by numbers are easy to do, I accept that. But it's almost the way many of us were trained to break down the components of fruit, acid, tannin.
Many writers in traditional press have done this because of space constraints and because it's the easiest way for people to get a snapshot of the wines distinctive characters. The most Halliday writes for a wine in his annual wine guide is three lines, so I guess it's about choosing the right words too.
Twitter is the same, it has trained some of us to give a vivid description in 140 characters and people gain an insight or a snapshot.
I guess the internet or wine blogging/writing has moved the goal posts somewhat. Self- publishing means you can write as much or as little as you like. I suppose in the end there's room for all styles, and we can be the judge of the type of wine reviews that ultimately do it for us.
All I say is keep doing what you believe in because I'm amazed at just how prolific you and Andrew are, and what a canny ability you both have to capture a wine.
Wining Pom
I think there's value in putting forward an absolute view of wine; so long as its audience receives it as a kind of rhetorical conceit rather than something real. And perhaps that's the problem; in most cases, I think people read tasting notes so literally, without attributing any sense of nuance based on the subjectivity of the taster (which is real, but not everything).
Having said that, I don't like the idea of a dishonest tasting note – personally, I try to write about a wine as it exists for me in that moment, and try to capture it as truthfully as I can, even though I acknowledge it's inherently problematic, and likely to be received with a different idea of underlying intent.
AG- Yeah. Reviews that constrain wine to evaluation by acid, fruit, alcohol, length etc was what I was getting at. But as I said, I do it too. The only writer I know who really manages to escape it successfully is Philip White…and even with his idiosyncratic brilliance it is debatable whether he "communicates" a wine well all the time. Great link BTW. Maybe I am toying with exploring a middle ground…& thinking/writing out loud as I do it.
PH- First of all, thanks for the kind words. I think ultimately I want diversity in wine writing – and a dialogue. It is the writers/critics who(sometimes)shut down that dialogue through elitist pronouncements from either position of the subjective/objective dualism that can bother me. I hope there is room for all of us. A lot of this stuff is tied up in intent as well. Why are we writing about wine?
JC – you know I hate absolutism in any form
I think writers/critics need to be very aware of how their words can (and often will) be interpreted. Whilst we write in very different ways, I suspect I'm trying to take a similar approach to the one you mention. I question how successful I am at it…