Tuesday, Mar. 02, 2010

One-word wine reviews

By Andy Perdue, Wine Press Northwest

Wine writer Dan Berger had an intriguing article in his weekly Vintage Experiences newsletter last week. It was about one-word wine reviews, citing a recent Kermit Lynch flyer that described a wine with a single word: "crisp."

It got me to thinking over the weekend about wine writers and our various styles of reviews (all of this while writing up reviews for about 100 Merlots). While it certainly would be easier to come up with one word than 50 or 100 words, how helpful to the wine lover is that?

I have studied how our wine reviews have evolved in Wine Press Northwest's 13-year history. In the early years, we were very much in the "how does it smell, how does it taste?" style. But in the past six or seven years, we have taken the approach that every wine has a story to tell. That story might be about the vineyards, the winemaker, the winery, the vintage or even the variety. What makes wine interesting (for me) is context. What struggles occurred during a certain vintage? What stars and planets aligned? Why should I care about Carmenere?

Surely, providing (multiple) words about how a wine smells and tastes, as well as what kind of food it will pair with, are important, but so is the background.

Still, it might be a fun exercise to come up with one-word reviews to see how much of a wine's character I can capture.