Tastes, Tasting Notes, and Inferiority Complexes

A nice piece regarding his approach to tasting notes, including

I really appreciate your notes, in part because of your remarks above. It is very easy to forgot that, in matters of taste, there is no right and wrong but only preferences. It is much nicer to read "...but wasn't really my prefered style" instead of disparaging comments about a style that others my very much enjoy.

Dave

Tasting is a waste of time. Wine is meant to be enjoyed as a complement to a meal. Anything else is an insult to the winemaker. Quit tasting and start drinking--with food!

If the tone were changed from "ostinato ad nauseam categorical imperative" and a bit of modesty were thrown in, maybe an exchange is possible.

I for one am ready to vigorously defend the notion that wine without food is a frustrating empty experience, not particularly interesting. The spectrum of experiences that wine alone provides is IMHO increased by an order of magnitude when food is matched.

Matching food to wine is a fascinating art. In order to do it well, it may be advisable to go through a "training" period oi tasting wine alone, to get one's analysis skills honed.

As for decanting, to each his own. It is possible that some individuals that are particularly concerned with wine-food have tuned their skill to matching on the balance of wine alone, and hence can work with no aeration because aroma plays a minor part. This may be valid for some. I prefer to play on both registers and to that end aeration has been a plus for me with almost every wine, including champagne.

And finally regarding being partisan to the point of wanting to drink the wine from only one country, that also is a personal choice, and arguing for the exclusion of any other kind of wine is very limiting indeed.

Alas Tom, I am not so optimistic as to the chances of conversion, but you never know.

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link

It was I who wrote Dale off group about this subject. Being fairly new to the group, (though I have read & posted intermittently in the past) I wasn't too sure if questioning somebody's objectivity in public would be construed as a flame. Hence the private communique. Having read Dales response I'm happy to put the original post to the whole group.

Hi Dale I've gone off group just to ask a question. I've been reading this group for a long time and there are some regular posters I really enjoy and whose opinions I respect, you fall into this group. I'm an Aussie so a lot of the California, Oregon, French chat passes me by on this news group. Either I can't get it (American wine) or I can't afford it (French Wine). However, I took my kids (12 & 13) to Disneyland last September and I planned my "Disneyland" trip as part of it, I spent the weekend of 25, 26 September

2004 in the Napa Valley with dinner at the French Laundry in Yountville on Saturday 25 September as the highlight. I worked 16 winerys in 2 days, 4 before lunch & 4 after each day and there are many highlights for me. The bubbles at Schramsberg were equisite and Vincent Arroyo was spectacular (a Petit Verdot & a Cab Sav that were absolute killers) I had a pinotage at Stelzner that made me re think an entire variety. Another highlight, I have to say, is when I told the waitress at the French Laundry that I would only drink Napa wines, I mean I'd spent 14 and a 1/2 hours on a plane from Melbourne to LA (then to Vegas then to SF) why would I drink French wines? I'll drink them when I'm in France (though I bet I'll be offered new world wines :) ). Which brings me to my question, I went to the Franciscan Oakville Estate and I was really impressed (I'm not easy to impress) this is world class wine, yet I read your review and you damn it with faint praise. But this is the wine of the night by your own ratings. 16 Napa winerys from halfway around the world and I mention 4. 1 of them the same winery. My question then is this: Do new world wine country geeks have an inferiority complex? Do you? Is this common among your compatriots? (I know this is more than 1 question but hey) I see a lot of this in Australia, even in myself. I recently attended a tasting that had 8 sparkling wines poured blind, 2 French & 6 from the Macedon region in Victoria Australia. I KNEW before the wines were poured that I could pick the 2 French wines, but, of course, I couldn't. Out of 8 wines I picked 1 obviously French & 1 obviously not (correct on both) the other 6 I had no idea (not true I thought they were all French) I had monstrously underestimated the wines I drank all the time, so I ask myself (and now you) is this what is happening here? I'm not trolling or trying to bait you in any way, I am just interested in what you think. Hope to hear from you Cheers Andrew

"Dale Williams" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m17.aol.com...

"Andrew Goldfinch" wrote in news:jJJHd.125709$ snipped-for-privacy@news-server.bigpond.net.au:

Interesting ideas Andrew. A few observations of my own.

1./ If you go to France you will be hard pressed to find new world wines.

1. I am one of those who avoids CA and Australian wines as a rule, not because I am against those wines as a whoole, but because I have been burned by too many of the wrong choices. If I go to a restaurant and have to choose wine at an inflated price I like to keep my chances of satisfaction up (though to be honest I often find what I am doing is preventiung disapoinment) so I choose from what I know "should" be stylistically to my tastes.

3.That said I will go for a CA cab s. or an Oregon Pinot There are patterns that develop. Unfortunately this leads us to sometimes being blind, which is why it is good to have friends whom you trust to pick wines for you. (and find yourself lucky if you do. I am the fussiest of my crowd so when we go out people usually defer to me and our selection is naturally filtered, saves me form some plonk but my horizons stay a littel narrower for it.

1. Which is why I like this group, I can listen to the discussions and occassionally take a leap based upon what I find others liking.

% Whiich leads us to the imperfect world syndrome, to0o often what I want to try is, as you find, not available or, like that damnable Petrus Ian has been hawking, too damn expensive.

Mike, I was going to ignore the subthread, in the "do not feed" mode. But I'll offer these thoughts in response to you:

1) I actually do occasionally enjoy a light white as an apertif sans food, and often have a dessert wine by itself. But I agree that in general wine and food together are what really pleases me (which is one reason -other than sheer loquaciousness- that I list what I had for dinner in each tasting note). 2) When I referred to "blind tastings", they are indeed with food (as the TNs indicate). If my informal group choses to go blind, it's within a defined theme (2001 village Chambolles, 2nd wines of Bordeaux, etc) where we can can choose our dinner meals based on general expectations. I'm in charge of a tasting of Gruaud in March (we have every respected vintage - and some minor -since '66, except for the '85, and one of our members who is with the wine department at Christies is confident he can locate that) and you can be damn sure we're not going to a seafood restaurant! :) 3) the only time I generally "taste" wine without food are commercial events- store tastings, or trade tastings (I'm not in trade, but know enough folks that I can usually get in if I wish). I don't regard these as fun (and pretty much consistently spit), rather than as informational. They allow me to choose where to allocate my hard-earned money.

Matching food and wine is indeed an art, and just like people's tastes in wines their opinions of matches can differ (a search on Epoisses and Burgundy, Pinot Noir and Salmon, or Gewurztraminer and curry would reveal big differences of opinion). Viva la difference.

I'll leave the question of decanting alone here, my opinions should be obvious from my frequent postings. I will say that while conventional wisdom can be wrong, Occam's razor generally would require compelling evidence to overturn the CW (CW says that lemon sole and 1999 Marcarini Brunate would be a bad match, I'd need more than a lone dissenting voice for me to risk either my fish or my Barolo).

---snipped remainder of good commentary---

Well, here's my two cents: while food without wine is a mistake that should only be tolerated at breakfast (and there are some breakfasts that do quite well with a bit of bubbly or a nice Spatlese), the converse of wine without food isn't all that tragic.

Sipping a glass or two of wine after dinner on the patio in summer or before the fireplace in winter while enjoying a bit of conversation is a pleasant experience indeed.

But, to return to the original outrageousness that sparked this, let me make three points:

1.) Tasting is required to know what is more attuned to your personal preferences and where you should invest your hard-earned money. If you don't taste what you're buying you're going to experience a lot of disappointments.

2.) While Italian wines are sublime, there are great wine experiences from Australia, Germany, France, Spain, NZ, Austria and even the politically incorrect USA. Eliminating any region from your experience drastically reduces your potential.

3.) Decanting is not required for all wines, but a young wine can benefit from aeration which simply accelerates the ageing and gives a hint of what might be if you had the patience to wait a decade before pulling that cork. It also gets all that mud and twigs out of a wine which has thrown some sediment. Nothing at all wrong with it.

As with all of these things they are my opinions and if someone chooses to act in an alternative manner, that is their option. UC can continue to act has he, she or it chooses.

Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled"

Salut/Hi Andrew Goldfinch,

Thanks for your comments. I'll not add much to what Dale or J(dammit I've forgotten again)oseph? said, but just a question, and a couple of comments.

le/on Thu, 20 Jan 2005 08:11:59 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Laundry that I would only

How did you rate your meal? Did you have the €150 chef's tasting or the shorter menu? I have to say that we (5 of us) decided the same thing about what kind of wines to have, although the wine waiter did in fact produce a couple of non American wines. What we did, was to say "You know your wines and the food here. Here's your budget, choose wines - preferably from the region - that will match and compliment the food."

Can I just say that I find a high percentage of French sparklers overpriced and suffering from a severe and unjustified superiority complex. Not all, as Occasional contributor Francis Boulard's Champagnes are gorgeous, and well worth the money, but many low price sparkling wines are pretty dire IMO! I'd expect Oz sparklers to beat them easily.

Well, with luck you might find one or two poor quality new world wines in a few supermarkets, but rarely in decent wine shops. I've never seen anything like a Cline Zin, or a St Hallett or Ch Tahbilk Shiraz on sale anywhere in France, though it is hypothetically possible, I suppose, in Paris.

">>Another highlight, I have to say, is when I told the waitress at the French Laundry that I would only

Hi Ian Yes we had the had the tasting menu but as there were only the two of us drinking (We were with the kids at 13 & 12 a little too young) we only got to try 4 wines. The only one not from the US was a liquer Mourvedre from Spain. It was a magnificent night with 15 courses being served to us in all (10 on the list & 5 little bonus courses that just got delivered) I was able to go down into the kitchen afterwards and had my photo taken in front of the pass.

Yes you can say that :) You would even be right :-))) We were however fishing in the deep end of the fizz lake this particular night and the two Champagnes were Perrier Jouet & Jacquesson. The Jacquesson was the one I picked.

I had my tongue firmly in my cheek with that comment.

[] ] I for one am ready to vigorously defend the notion that wine without ] food is a frustrating empty experience, not particularly interesting. ] The spectrum of experiences that wine alone provides is IMHO increased ] by an order of magnitude when food is matched. ]

Indeed, like many (I guess) here I very rarely drink wine without food. Food and wine are, for me, a shared pleasure.

But fools like UC do nothing to either elevate the conversation, nor support their own views. They are best ignored, something we (as a group) have not been as good at this time around.

-E

Not only don't they support their own views, through their personal foolishness they make their views look foolish.

He's long been killfiled here. The only reason I know who you're talking about is because others quote his messages from time to time.

Yep, guilty as charged - but he's kind of a compelling troll. Much more interesting than Vincent Vega, e.g.

It's obvious that he knows Italian wines pretty well, but he disses all else. That tends to make the "missionary" in some of us kick into gear, in a futile attempt to show him the error of his ways and persuade him to stop being such a narrow minded a**hole!

He was obviously poorly trained or perhaps neglected entirely in his early youth, since he seems to have a paucity of social skills. :^/

Tom S