Wednesday, Jun. 25, 2008

Competitions vs. scores

By Dan Berger, Wine Press Northwest

Remember those optical illusions that amused us as children, like the drawing of various lines and the question, "Which one is longer?" The reality is that the lines, though they look radically different in length, are the same length.

Then imagine a mature Barolo served in a tiny glass and, side by side with it, the same wine in a large-bowled glass in which it can be swirled to open up its aroma. The same wine, but a different aroma. I've done this many times and it's the same sort of conundrum as the same-length lines.

This is but one of the ways wines can change as we evaluate them, and almost never does a single reviewer tell you what sort of glass he or she used. That isn't a more compelling issue than is the setting (indoors or outdoors; under fluorescent light or incandescent; with food smells in the air or smoke from a nearby table ...), the condition of the taster (cold, hay fever), or an unperceived problem with the wine (faint cork taint).

Also, one can ask, was the evaluator tasting scrupulously double blind? Or while viewing the label? Preconditioning, based on our knowledge of what's in the glass, is one of the worst elements in wine evaluation since it skews the results.

For those reasons, I'm a huge supporter of wine competitions where panels of judges (we would hope they all are skilled at evaluation) make a determination of quality.

So I was a bit miffed when a winery owner challenged the results of a wine competition in which I am involved. He said his wines always get scores in the 90s from the numbers people, and he only got a silver medal for one of his most expensive red wines.

I explained wine evaluation in competitions is radically different from the sort of criticism one finds being done by a solo reviewer who has no oversight from peers.

I wondered what evidence there was that the single reviewer of his wines was "right" in awarding a 90+ score. Simply posing the question brings up another: If the single reviewer always gives this man's wines high scores, and judging panels (which change from judging to judging) always judge them lower, is there not a message here?

One such message could well be that the single reviewer, who knows a lot about the wine before pulling the cork, likes this style of wine, which is big, chewy wines with high alcohols, in the 14.5% range. And that various panels of wine judges (acting without sight of the label but with discussion among them) find that style to be off-putting.

The counter argument is that the single reviewer is consistent in scoring such wines high. Yes, consistency is a good thing, but who's to say that the reviewer didn't simply look back to what he gave the same wines in the past and gave a similar score to the new wine?

Such a tactic would, after all, provide a little insurance policy against looking erratic.

True, some wine competitions award too many medals. And some award a slew of bronzes, cheapening the meaning of a medal.

And single reviewers do have the advantage of knowing what to expect of a certain producer and can evaluate the house style more fairly. But we then fall back on the preconceived notion - and how that affects the final score.

Panels judging wines are not filled with preconceptions. Nor are they made up of people who are tolerant of flabby wines that are made to impress within a few seconds of instant-look "evaluation" and who then move on to the next blockbuster.

Few reviewers for major publications spend as much time with each glass as do wine judges. Most solo judges spend no more than a few seconds with each wine before making a numerical evaluation.

Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyards said it best in an editorial in a recent issue of Wines and Vines: "I am bothered by the rampant, erroneous belief that unnatural concentration of triple-C cup over-ripeness, lashings of new oak, in sum, fruit bombasity, a k a the "International Wine Style," is now considered to be the only viable wine style. Viable because it is commercial. Commercial because it panders to the simplest and least-tutored palates ... ."

Later he stated, "I am saddened that the most influential critics, who truly believe that they are shining the bright light of enlightenment on blighted winemaking ... are bringing out the very worst in winemakers, in perfect synchrony with our self-absorbed culture ... ."

Finally, let's all keep in mind one crucial thing: A score awarded to a wine is not a fact. It's an opinion. But a gold or platinum medal given to a wine is a result of a considered opinion of a number of expert tasters who are evaluating without sight of the label.

Shouldn't that carry a bit more weight than a score of 95 given quickly in a closed-door, preconception-likely environment?

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