He was “the father of California wine,” and July 6 is the 140th anniversary of Agoston Haraszthy’s untimely demise.

Born to a noble Hungarian family in 1812, Haraszthy sailed for New York in 1840, in search of his future, and embarked upon a tour of America, which included a visit with President John Tyler “in my full Hungarian Guard dress uniform,” as he reported in his 1844 book, “Travels in North America.”

Hooked on the new country, Haraszthy settled in Wisconsin for a few years, but something lured him westward: the California sun and the future state’s golden allure, already being reported to the outside world. On Christmas Day, 1848, Haraszthy, his wife and their six kids set out for California, traveling along the Santa Fe Trail and reaching their destination nearly a year later. The family struck down its roots in San Diego, where an important event occurred: he was introduced to local grapegrowing and winemaking by the Spanish padres, who acquainted him with the Mission grape. “Haraszthy quickly noted its defects and became convinced that plantings of nobler varieties could be commercially viable,” writes a biographer, Robert Lawrence Balzer, adding, “He sensed that by planting vines brought directly from Europe, he could realize his old dream of producing wine of a quality that could complete with good Hungarian and other European wines.”

Haraszthy made good in San Diego, getting elected Sheriff and, following that, to the State Legislature, which at that time met in the city of Vallejo, just south of Napa Valley. That brought Haraszthy into contact with Northern California, which he realized was the best place to grow winegrapes. He purchased, in 1852, a plot of land in San Francisco’s Mission District and planted several hundred acres, but it wasn’t long before he discovered that San Francisco’s cool, foggy climate could never ripen grapes. One thing led to another, and in 1857, General Mariano Vallejo, the leading vintner in Sonoma County, invited Haraszthy to visit. “With his first glimpse of Sonoma Valley,” Balzer writes, “[Haraszthy] sensed instantly that his long search had ended.” Haraszthy bought 6,000 acres at the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains and planted his estate, which he named Buena Vista.

It was, of course, Haraszthy’s 1862 book, “Grape Culture, Wines and Wine-Making,” which he wrote as a report to the Legislature, that made Haraszthy famous. That, and his importation to Buena Vista of hundreds of thousands of cuttings of 1,400 different varieties he gathered on his tour of the winemaking regions of Europe.

Haraszthy loved California and was the first great believer in its future as a world-class wine-producing region. “The California climate, with the exception of the sea-coast, is eminently adapted for the culture of grape-vines,” he wrote in his book. “…[T]here is no doubt in my mind that before long there will be localities discovered which will furnish as noble wines as Hungary, Spain, France, or Germany ever have produced.” Haraszthy was far ahead of his time; for all the talk about mountain vineyards and volcanic soils we hear today, one is amazed to hear Harasthy recommend that vintners “look for a soil which is made by volcanic eruptions, containing red clay and soft rocks…This kind of soil never cracks, and retains the moisture during the summer admirably.”

Haraszthy died in Nicaragua on July 6, 1869, reportedly eaten by crocodiles. I wish he could be around today to see how his hopes for California wine have been realized many times over. He is one of the giants of California wine, on a par with Robert Mondavi and Andre Tchelistcheff, the kind of person the wine industry produces only a few times a century.

It comes in. I taste it in a flight of similar wines, insofar as possible. Let’s say they’re Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons. Since I have no staff, I know, perforce, what the wines are in advance, because I’m the one opening them and setting them up. But I don’t know what they are at the time I’m tasting. I might know that among them is Caymus Special Selection, but I don’t know which bottle.

(Anticipating the inevitable objections, let me say that no critic I ever heard of knows absolutely nothing about the wines he’s tasting. That would be a double-blind tasting. My tastings are single-blind. I like to have a little context. We can talk more about this later.)

I open the bottles about 1 hour before the session begins, to give them a little air. Let’s say I have 12 wines. I’ll pour the first six into identical glasses, then let them breathe for a few minutes. (I’ll repeat the process for the second six.) Then I sniff each, one after the other, forming my first impressions. No notes yet, just mental quick takes. “This one smells like classic Cabernet,” or “pretty oaky,” or “smells vegetal.” Things like this form the preliminaries to a formal comparative ranking.

By then, I have tentative favorites. Then it’s on to the mouth! I’ll sip each of the six, being careful to spit. Once in the mouth, I can confirm, or not, the initial impressions formed during smelling. That one with classic Cab aromas? Maybe it’s classic in the mouth, but then again, maybe it’s not, and turns overly tannic and astringent. Here’s where the mental calculations get more complex. Let’s say that Cab is classic all the way, from aroma through finish. I can’t find any flaws. I’ll push it to the front of the group — it becomes the pace-setter for the rest. Maybe I’ll give it a tentative “96.”

From here on, it’s a matter of re-smelling, re-tasting, re-calibrating, thinking, comparing and refining. Once I determine I really want to give the classic Cab 96, everything else falls into place. The Cab that’s almost as classic, but not quite, gets 92 or 93. The Cab that’s vegetal gets 84. And so on.

Why 96 and not 97? For one thing, I give almost no 100s, 99s or 98s. I have, and can, but I want to keep such exceptional scores rare, so that when they do occur, they’re taken seriously. Some magazines have “score inflation,” which I don’t like. A score of 96 is really the highest “regular” or everyday score a wine can aspire to, in my system.

Okay, so the classic Cab gets 96. Why does the vegetal Cab get 84? Well, on Wine Enthusiast’s rating guidelines, a score of 84 means a wine that’s “good,” i.e. sound and proper, without notable technical flaws, or at least without large flaws. Vegetal smells in a Cab lower a score, but I don’t consider them flaws. I could have given the wine 83 (the lowest “good” rating), but that seems overly harsh. I could have given it 86, but 86 verges on “very good” (87 points), and a vegetal Cab is certainly not “very good.” An argument can be made for 85 points; I admit, this is a judgment call. My judgment is 84, so 84 it is. Could it have been 85 on another day? Certainly.

At some point, I hand-carry the glass with the wine to my computer, where I fill in the actual score and text into Wine Enthusiast’s database. This is the final act of the tasting process, where everything is confirmed. When I hit the “send” button, the review is transported to the magazine’s server, in New York, and my part in the ratings chain is over.

I hope this gives readers more of an insight into how I determine numbers. Yet I suspect those who don’t like numbers won’t be convinced by anything I write, anyway.

Great opinion piece in yesterday’s Times on counterfeiting expensive wines. Seems there’s a burgeoning market on eBay for empty bottles of luxury wines, like 1982 Lafite. The Times’ writer, Robin Goldstein, cites Günter Schamel, an Italian professor of (I think) economics, who wrote a paper called “Forensic Economics: Some Evidence for New Wine to be sold in Old Bottles.” (The paper was presented to the American Association of Wine Economists.)

Schamel wrote: “Online auctions [such as eBay]…may also facilitate the exchange of goods that subsequently can be used in fraudulent transactions.” He studied wine bottle sales on eBay for 6 months and concluded that “the incidence of sale and the price of an empty bottle” are based mostly on “the price a full and presumably authentic bottle could potentially fetch in the marketplace.” In other words, the more expensive the original, filled wine bottle would sell for, the higher the price, and the faster the empty one will sell on eBay. Which led Schamel to suspect that the reason someone would be willing to pay 100 Euros for an empty bottle of ‘82 Lafite is because “it is worth a lot more once it is filled-up again.” [Schamel’s abstract is available as a PDF link in Goldstein’s article.]

Filled up with what? This is where Goldstein carries the speculation a bit further. He argues, convincingly, that two conditions, both of which are easily fulfilled, could result in a thriving market for counterfeit wines. Having obtained an impressive empty bottle, you would need, first, “a separate black market for counterfeit corks” (which common sense suggests must exist, or be easily developed), and “regions where there’s a lot of demand for prestige bottles but relatively little wine tradition or wine education; China and Russia come to mind.” It might (or might not) be possible for discerning wine collectors in London or New York to determine that an ‘82 “Lafite” is nothing of the kind, but what about that “table full of businessmen in Hong Kong” whom Goldstein saw mixing their 1970 Haut-Brion with Coca Cola? “[C]ustomers in such situations would be easily duped,” and the restaurateur who sold them their wine might be less than scrupulous, if in fact he knew the wine was fake.

Needless to say, the possibility of widespread fraud, especially in this Age of the Internet when crooks around the world are perfecting their scams, has not gone unnoticed by the legitimate wine industry. In fact, just a few days ago a team of scientists, led by a researcher from the University of Burgogne, in Dijon, announced a new system “to help fight trade in fake vintage wines,” according to Decanter, which reported the story. The technique uses a mass spectrometer to analyze the thousands of compounds in wine and determine precisely where it came from.

I don’t think the world of collectible wine will ever be free from counterfeiting. For that to happen, the entire notion of “collectible” would have to go away, and that won’t happen; as we’re seeing, with the rise of wealth in developing nations, just the opposite is occurring. A new class of millionaires is vying to own that special bottle they then can mix with Coca Cola.

I guess you get what you pay for.

Not that I feel it needs defending against the knuckleheads who are always attacking it, but– well, sheesh, I guess I do feel it needs defending!

Here’s one of the best (independent) rationales for the 100-point scoring system — independent, because it comes from someone who has nothing to gain from praising it. His name is  Neil Monnens, he publishes an online wine guide called the Wine Blue Book, and he was quoted in an interview in the blog Good Grape: A Wine Manifesto last week.

Wine Blue Book researches the scores that wines receive “from leading wine critics,” according to its FAQs. (I couldn’t find anything on the site that identifies who the critics are; if I missed it, sorry.) Then they come up with an average price to determine a “quality-price ratio.” In the Good Grape interview, Jeff Lefevere asked Monnens, “Since you and I last talked, have you seen an increase in the use of points as a scoring mechanism,” and here’s what Monnens replied:

Yes. Some folks continue to dismiss the 100 point system but they choose a 10 point system and then score wines 8.9 or 9.6 which just translates to an 89 and 96.  The 20 point system is the same but just 20% of the 100 points. The folks who dismiss the system advocate “trust your retailer” but since a retailer’s income is dependent on the wine the consumer purchases, I would rather trust the scores the critics provide since their income isn’t dependent on the consumers purchase.

I’m glad somebody’s finally talking some sense, besides me ; > The 100-point system isn’t any different from a 10-point system (as Monnens explained), or a 20-point system (which is actually what Wine Enthusiast’s is, since we don’t publish scores below 80 points), or a 5-star system (which is really the equivalent of 80, 85, 90, 95 and 100 points), or any other icon-based system you can think of. I think it’s also important to understand, as Monnens pointed out, that a critic’s income — mine, anyhow — doesn’t ride on the scores he gives. Believe me, I’ve given lousy scores to Wine Enthusiast’s advertisers and high scores to wineries that never advertise anywhere. So he’s right when he implies that a critic like me has far less incentive to inflate scores than does a wine merchant.

Not that the public shouldn’t trust their local wine merchant. If you can get a relationship going with a trusted one, it’s as valuable as having an outstanding physician, analyst or personal trainer: someone you entrust yourself to, and who you know won’t screw you. That’s a good person to have in your life. But so is, ahem, a good wine critic.

By the way, that dream job at Murphy-Goode is getting ready to announce their Top 10 applicants, on July 7. They’re already narrowed it down to the Top 50. If you haven’t watched the videos, which are posted on the website, you’re missing out on some really great entertainment. Some of these people are so clever and talented, it just takes your breath away.

Dept. of Oops!

“An Italian priest caught driving over the alcohol limit pleaded to police that it was only because of the Holy Wine he had drunk as part of the mass, Ansa news agency reported…the 41-year-old priest is set to appeal against the ruling, saying his alcohol consumption was not “voluntary” since it was part of the Catholic ritual…”

Officer, I swear it’s not my fault! I involuntarily had to drink 106 wines because it’s part of the ritual of being a wine critic! If you don’t let me go, you’re a, uhh, criticphobe!

Doing gigantic tastings isn’t my favorite thing. I know how to, and have done so many times. But as I’ve written, it’s not the ideal way to taste.

However, as with everything else, there are pluses and minuses.

The minus side, of course, is the wham, bam, thank you ma’am syndrome. You have, what? A minute or two with each wine, and have to come to a quick and dirty decision before the clock inevitably ticks and you move on to the next wine. There’s little or no opportunity to return to a past wine, which at any rate won’t be the same wine you originally tasted, because it’s been exposed to the air and has had a chance to chemically change, for better or for worse.

I don’t totally condemn this method of tasting. It has the advantage of quantity. Among those who taste like this are my good friend, Wildred Wong, at Beverages & More, and, purportedly, Robert Parker. Under the forced circumstances of a gigantic tasting, you enter the “zone,” a mental and physical arena in which your total senses are concentrated on the wines before you, and the most subtle differences are highlighted. That is a distinct advantage, presuming you are able to hit this zone of peak performance and stay there for more than 100 wines. I can. But it is tiresome, and you pay for it afterward. Following my blind tasting of 106 wines, at 4 in the afternoon, I fell into a deep sleep. My body seemed intent on clearing and cleansing itself. But despite that penance, I would never reneg on any of my findings during the tasting.

106 wines in their bags

My preferred method of tasting is 12-15 per flight, with one flight a day. This gives you a lot more time with each wine, and also lets you go back and forth between the contestants in the “beauty pageant.” You can second-guess yourself, alter your impressions, decide that a wine that had seemed shy and austere is actually more interesting than you thought, or, alternately, that a big, powerful wine that originally impressed actually is overbearing. The more time you have, the more opportunity to trip yourself out, negotiate with yourself, change your mind. Is that good or bad? I prefer it, but philosophically speaking, I can see that it has a weakness. First impressions, as we know, are usually the most trustworthy. The more you think something over, the greater the risk of stumbling, of tripping yourself up the way the centipede did when it was asked, “How do you know where your 47th leg is when your 94th is going forward?” In the fable, the centipede became paralyzed with indecision.

There’s really no answer, beyond personal preference. I could not physically do this type of tasting every day. It would harm me. If I were a robot, maybe I could.

I did come away with the impression that Paso Robles’ best red wines are its Bordeaux blends. I’ll have much more on this in my upcoming article in Wine Enthusiast, slated for this Fall. Paso Robles is a young winemaking region with some ambitious and aggressive people at the helm, and it is making enormous strides. It’s best days clearly lie ahead.

Here’s a tip to bloggers and other up-and-coming tasters. If called upon to do super-tastings, get plenty of rest beforehand. Eat well, but not to the point of gluttony. Be in good physical shape. If you find yourself losing perpective during the tasting, get up and take a walk. Have some coffee. Smoke, if that helps. (I detest and condemn tobacco, but recognize it helps some people center themselves.) Make sure that the people who set up the tasting are aware of your needs (water, spit cups and buckets, crackers, napkins, comfortable physical conditions). You’re playing at the Olympic level of tasting, and you’ve got to be in Olympic condition.

The elements of tasting: paper and pens for notes, spit cup and bucket, napkins, crackers. Not shown: water.

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You thrilled us, Michael. RIP.