This is the third and final part of my conversation with Antonio. Here’s the link to part 1 and here’s the link to part 2.

SH:Let me ask this. Do you use regional organizations to assemble large tastings, like Napa Vintners? Or do you prefer to go to the individual wineries, which is more time-consuming but, as you say, you get more of the experience.

AG: So, in pretty much every region that I have, except for Burgundy, which is really domaine by domaine, there is some component of the tastings that are–let’s just take Napa Valley Vintners. The big tasting that I did in October was 12 days. Of those 12 days, Napa Valley Vintners set up 3-1/2. And the rest was estate visits.

SH: And how many wines did Napa Vintners–?

AG: I don’t remember exactly. It was several hundred.

SH: So why not do those blind, since you’re not on the property?

AG: Because I think you’d want to have all the wines tasted the same way. Otherwise, it’s not–I’d want to taste all the wines the same way.

SH: So what do you taste blind? When do you taste blind?

AG: The wines that we buy, later, on release, and other things. There’s wines coming in to my office all the time; I’m sure you know. But a typical tasting for me would be three vintages of each wine, okay?

SH: Like today.

AG: Like today. But I’m tasting wines from the barrel, too, okay? So let’s just say Phelps lines up 2008, 2009, 2010, Insignia, or their Cabernet, and Backus. If I hit a barrel sample blind that was not sulfured, or something is off, I might review that wine negatively. I mean, the review might be accurate of the wine, of what’s in the glass, but not really fair to the wine. Right? And so, when I come here, it’s usually three vintages for each one. And people don’t see. There’s a lot of this work that people don’t see. If I go to Scarecrow, or Harlan, or Colgin, or taste at Napa Valley Vintners, I always ask to taste three vintages, if possible. A lot of times they’re in barrel. And in this case, let’s just say it’s ‘08, ‘09 and ‘10, I don’t re-review the 2008s because Bob’s already reviewed those wines, and we just don’t have the space to re-review wines every year. But I have context. And then I review ‘09 and ‘10. And the questions that people ask of me and our peers are things like, these wines are pretty expensive, right? Couple hundred bucks a bottle, right? So people want to know, How does that vintage compare to other vintages? For example, how does 2009 compare to 2008, 2007, 2006?

SH: How do you know if you really were not familiar with those wines?

AG: Well, because I am familiar with those wines.

SH: 2006s?

AG: Of course.

SH: You weren’t working here then.

AG: That doesn’t mean I wasn’t tasting those wines.

SH: You were tasting California even when Parker wasn’t paying you to taste California?

AG: For myself, absolutely.

SH: How many Gallonis are there? You would need 25 Gallonis to go through all that stuff.

AG: I’ve been tasting California wine for twenty years, when I worked in restaurants. I saw the first vintages of Harlan, Alban. People don’t know that stuff, but it’s okay.

SH: How do  you keep your teeth healthy?

AG: My dentist has a lot of my money! I go often.

SH: It’s important, isn’t it?

AG: Yeah.

SH: You see a lot of older wine people and their teeth are, like–

AG: Every three months for cleaning. And if I get back from a trip and I want a quick polish or whatever, they’ll take care of it.

SH: What’s the one thing in California that’s surprised you the most since you got this job?

AG: The number of top estates where there are really young winemakers making wine. I think it’s fantastic.

SH: Thank you.

AG: So let me just say one last thing, while you have that thing on. You ask, how is this possible, how is this possible? For me, at the level I aspire to be, wine is not a job, it’s a lifestyle, you know? I’m sure it is for you, too. You’re surrounded by it all the time. I brought my wife and my kids out here this week. They travel with me as much as possible. We’re opening and tasting wine all the time. There’s wines that are being shipped to my office all the time. So there’s a chance to be tasting and retasting wines a lot. I mean, sometimes I’ll come here–this just happened to me a couple times–where people came to me. I tasted the 2009 and the producer said, “You know, I didn’t think our wines showed well, and we want to send them to you after they’ve been in bottle–”

SH: What do you say to that producer, when they call you up and they, “You know what? I think you got a bad bottle” or whatever?

AG: This is pre-review.

SH: But what do you do post-review, if somebody complains, and I’m sure they do, because we all get that. Do you have a standard response? Will you retaste?

AG: I don’t have a standard response, just because I try to do the best in each situation.

SH: So will you agree to retaste, if the producer says that doesn’t sound like the wine I sent you?

AG: Well, we’ll do everything we possibly can. I mean, we bend over backwards to be accurate. So, of course, if there’s a bottle with a problem, I’ll retaste it. It’s no problem. But it’s a lifestyle. We’re opening and drinking wines at our house all the time, tasting these wines all the time, and buying wines off the shelf.

SH: What time do you start tasting wine?

AG: 8:30, 9 a.m.

SH: What time do you stop?

AG: Sixish, sevenish.

SH: So literally tasting 10, 11 hours a day.

AG: Yeah. Take lots of breaks. And it depends on the style of wine. You know, California wine is one of the harder regions, because the wines have a lot of tannin. But I grew up on Barolo, Barbaresco, and after that things are pretty easy. When I go to Montalcino, which is Sangiovese, that’s like a walk in the park. Tasting 100 Brunellos, relative to Cabernets or Nebbiolos, seems very easy. And it just depends on the vintages. I always tell people this, because it’s true: when the wines are great, I don’t ever feel tired. I’m just so energized. What’s the next great wine I’m going to taste?

SH: Okay.

AG: Is that it? Does it work?

SH: It does! Thank you. You’re a nice person and a gentleman.

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post. Here’s the link, in case you missed it: http://www.steveheimoff.com/index.php/2012/02/27/a-conversation-with-antonio-galloni-part-1

SH: Now, do you taste openly or blind?

AG: Well, it’s usually a combination of both.

SH: What about people who suggest it’s not possible to be objective about a wine if you know what it is, and particularly if you’re at the estate?

AG: Okay. So, as an example, Burgundy, a region that I cover, there’s a very narrow window for any critic to evaluate these wines. They are always tasted from the barrel first, and they are always tasted unblind. And you know you’re at de Vogüe, you’re at DRC, you’re at wherever. You know exactly what you’re tasting. Because part of what people are looking for is a commentary on, to what extent does that wine capture the vintage, the site, the style of the producer? That’s the real value-add of a wine writer, the kind of writing I want to write. And so, as an example, nobody tastes Burgundy blind, except for Michel [name unclear], in France, and what he does, he limits the number of wines that a producer can submit to four.

SH: Well, let’s come back to California. If you’re at Harlan, and you’re tasting all those wines openly.

AG: Yeah.

SH: Then, again, what do you say to somebody who says, “You know you’re at Harlan, and that is necessarily influencing your impression of the wines.”

AG: I would say, When you go to an estate like Harlan, it’s like eating at a three-star restaurant. Your expectation is extremely high. And people have a view that tasting a wine unblind, that there is a bias that is favorable. Nobody ever thinks, Could there be a bias that’s negative? Because your expectation at a top domaine is of outstanding quality, and therefore the margin for error is humungous.

SH: Which California wine have you reviewed so far where you have really veered from Parker’s palate?

AG: Well, I think people could look at–there’s a couple of cases where I think Bob has liked certain wines better than others. I mean, Scarecrow is kind of a topic of discussion on our bulletin board. It’s very hard to know, because I didn’t taste the wine in the barrel with Bob, and he didn’t taste the wine in the bottle with me, so we could both be–you know, nobody’s ever right. This is not about right or wrong. But his barrel rating could have been very representative of that wine on that day, just like my bottle rating could have been very representative on that day.

SH: Do you feel any pressure to maintain a certain consistency in the handover from Robert to you, in the sense that if you suddenly started not liking the wines he really loved, people would be shocked?

AG: I think most of the times we like the same wines. Where I’m very focused on maintaining consistency is making sure that all of the estates that are normally reviewed are reviewed when people expect to see the reviews, and that may sound the most obvious statement in the world, but it is extremely hard to see Bob driving this Ferrari he’s been driving for 32 years in California, where he knows everybody and has forgotten more about California wine than most people know, and then to be able to just take his pace and just to keep up with all the areas of California and making sure that Napa reviews come out in December, Sonoma reviews come out of February, Central Coast reviews come out in August. Just to keep up.

SH: So you do all of California.

AG: Yeah. Just to keep up–to finish this thought. Just to maintain where we are is an extraordinary amount of work. And then to think, that’s not my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is to, and Bob’s, too, when he gave me this job, is to, Okay, take it to the next level. So now we’ve got to put the Ferrari in sixth gear, and we’ll do it. It’s just going to take some time.

SH: What does that mean, taking it into sixth gear?

AG: It means, you know, producers that we maybe haven’t traditionally covered, that may have fallen off our radar screen. There’s all sorts of new wineries coming up all the time.

SH: Can you give the state equal representation, from Santa Barbara through the Sierra Foothills and Anderson Valley? I mean, it’s hard for me to do it, and all I do is taste California. So will you be more Napa-centric, or can you really spread the wealth around the whole state?

AG: Well, in 2011, I spent around 5 weeks in California. Spent ten days in the Central Coast. When I went to the Santa Lucia Highlands a couple of growers told me that I was the first person they knew to actually go and look at the vineyards with them. I thought they were probably just being very polite. It’s hard for me to believe that’s true. But the list of people is probably not very long.

Tomorrow: Antonio talks more about his job.

It was a real treat to run into Antonio Galloni at last Friday’s Vintage Retrospective Tasting at the Rudd Center of the Culinary Institute of America, in St. Helena. I asked Antonio if he wouldn’t mind my interviewing him, and he kindly agreed, for which I am grateful.

Antonio became, of course, instantly famous in California last year, when Robert Parker announced he [Parker] no longer would review new releases here for The Wine Advocate, but would instead turn that portfolio over to Antonio. Much of the past year in California wine chat circles has been preoccupied with anticipation of how, or whether, Antonio would, or would not, hew to Parker’s tastes.

I found Antonio to be a gentleman of great charm. Born in Venezuela, reared in Italy, living now just outside New York City, he exudes an urbane cosmopolitanism. He’s also quite good-looking, which never hurts in wine country. In my conversation with him–taped–he was, perhaps, a little guarded, but then, under the circumstances, who wouldn’t be? Yet Antonio also is a voluble man; a single question elicits a mountain of information, which is a treasure trove for a reporter.

Most published Q&As have been heavily edited. This one is not. What you read is pretty much verbatim as it was recorded. I thought it would be more interesting to present this conversation, which was entirely spontaneous, in its fullness. Here’s Part 1.

SH: This is a real treat and a pleasure. So you’re here at Premier Napa Valley.

AG: Well, I’m here at the [Wine Writers] Convention [Symposium]. I think the Premier Napa Valley is a subset of that.

SH: What were you doing at the Symposium?

AG: They asked me to speak at a couple of events. The first one was, the first night we had a 2001 tasting.

SH: How was that?

AG: It was fun, great. It was sort of like this welcome dinner, and then after dinner, there were a bunch of 2001s for people to taste, 30 or so wines, and I picked a bunch of my favorites, and then it was really informal. I talked about 6 or 7 of the wines I really liked, and why. It was very informal, a standing tasting, not unlike this [Rudd Center tasting]. I thought that was interesting, because the wines showed beautifully, you know?

SH: Okay. Well, let’s talk about what people want to understand, which is your role at The Wine Advocate. You had been doing Italy for how long?

AG: Since 2006.

SH: And was it a surprise to you that Mr. Parker asked you to do California?

AG: Well, let’s back up for a second, because there’s one or two intermediate steps. The first one is, I did Italy in 2006, and then, in 2008, I thought we really should upgrade our Champagne coverage, so in 2008, I took on Champagne. And all the while I was doing a fulltime job in the finance world. And Bob had always been sort of pushing me to write fulltime, and we’d talked about what that might look like. And I just think, you know, things just evolved to a state where he really wanted to focus on writing different types of articles, like massive vintage retrospectives that he does, verticals, and more thematic stuff, and at the same time, I think he realized that the number of producers to cover in California was just exploding, was hard to keep up with. And so it just made sense to sort of hand off some of the day to day grind.

SH: So which regions do you cover now?

AG: I do all of California, but [only] new releases. And Italy, Champagne and Burgundy.

SH: Now, how does one mere human being have just the physical stamina and the time? Those are four gigantic regions.

AG: Yeah. The key to success is having a great wife! Or partner. Because she organizes a lot of my–and she works very closely, but she does all of my scheduling and stuff.

SH: How many wines, let’s say a day, on average, do you taste?

AG: Well, it depends, because sometimes I’m not–that’s one of the reasons I’m not going to taste a bunch of wines here, because when I’m not in a big tasting mode, I kind of like to just rest.

SH: So how many wines to you expect to taste this year? Let’s put it that way.

AG: Well,  let’s do the math. If I’m traveling somewhere, I probably taste 100 to 150 wines a day, and an average trip might be ten days, a little longer, a little shorter. But let’s say, ten days.

SH: How do you avoid getting inebriated, tasting that many wines?

AG: I think that tasting wine is a lot like sports. You build up endurance. I don’t ever feel inebriated.

SH: When you get to number 100, you don’t feel like you’re losing a little objectivity?

G: No. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. I can only speak for myself–it’s different for everybody–but I always chuckle. People think it’s hard to taste at the end of the day. I find it actually harder to taste at the beginning of the day.

SH: You kind of have to get warmed up.

AG: Yeah, you have to get warmed up. And it’s just like sports, have to get warmed up. And I always liked the end–my favorite tastings are the ones at the end of the day, because you’re really focused, you’re really honed in, and everything is very clear. At the end of the day, I always feel like everything is very focused, very clear. It’s not unlike if you run or do some kind of endurance sport. At the end of when you really feel the endorphins kick in, you really feel great, is at the end.

SH: Well, you’re obviously in good shape. Is it important to be physically healthy and in good shape in order to do your job?

AG: Well, I think it’s important for me. But I can’t say for somebody else.

SH: How do you stay in shape?

AG: Well, I go to the gym several times a week, a lot of cardio, spinning, weights. It’s important for me, but, you know, I think there’s plenty of evidence out there that it’s not an important criterion for success!

SH: Now, one of the big things people were really interested in, they were thinking, “Is Galloni going to, in California, continue to kind of like the same wines Parker liked, or is he going to diverge to some extent, will he pull a 180?” What’s your answer to those people who are wondering that?

AG: Well, every time I taste with Bob, if we have ten wines, in 7 or 8 or 9 of those cases we’re going to be very close. And then there’s always going to be some that he likes more, or that I like more, and I think that’s pretty normal. But for the most part, we’re pretty close, and I think that is because great wines are just great wines. What I’ve always tried to do is give a very representative picture of what’s out there, and let people decide what they like. It’s not so much about what I like, it’s just about–I think of wine as being very agnostic to style. I can love Shafer Hillside Select, it was brilliant at that 2001 tasting, but yesterday, here, Denis Malbec [Malbec & Malbec] brought 1991 Dunn Howell Mountain, which was equally beautiful. I can’t tell you that one is more beautiful than the other. I just know, on one day I might be more in the mood for one, and on another day I might be more in the mood for the other. But they’re both, for me, very top representations of what Cabernet Sauvignon can be in Napa Valley.

Tomorrow, Antonio Galloni on tasting open versus tasting blind.

The proof that there will be little or no consensus concerning which of three vintages–2007, 2008 and 2009–was best for Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot is suggested by the fact that three experts interviewed for this video from Napa Valley Vintners all had different takes.

They had been, apparently, part of the team that chose which wines to taste at today’s Multi-Vintage Perspective Tasting, held blind at the Rudd Center as part of Premier Napa Valley 2012. I’ll be there, and will report.

Michael Beaulac, Pine Ridge’s winemaker, said, “I must say the ‘08 is probably my favorite vintage.”

Peter Marks MW, and an old friend of mine, said, “While it’s hard to pick a favorite, my early bet is on the 2009.”

And Bob Bath MW said,  “I was impressed by the 07s, actually, how well they’re holding up.”

So there you have it, three really smart people, each betting on a different horse.

If you–whoever you are, amateur or pro, in the wine industry or outside of it–feel challenged making vintage assessments, or if you drink a lot of Napa Cabernet and find yourself thinking that they’re always pretty good, and you couldn’t really swear on the Bible that any one vintage is better or worse than another, despair not, but take comfort in this: knowledgeable people are allowed to disagree.

Now, somebody out there is going to say, “Wait a minute, Steve. You yourself rate the vintages of Napa [and other regions] every year. You gave 2007 95 points, 2008 92 points and 2009 a lousy 89 points. So how can you say there’s no difference between vintages?”

Good question! Glad you asked. So let me try to explain. When I make these vintage assessments [at Wine Enthusiast’s behest], I’m always a little uncomfortable in my mind. It seems so subjective to slap a number on a whole bunch of wines that have little in common, except that each was produced in that particular year. In 2007, I reviewed 1,045 Cabernet Sauvignons and Bordeaux blends. I didn’t do the precise counting, but an awful lot of those were from Napa Valley. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, 350. Then I gave the Napa vintage 95 points. Obviously, not all of those 350 wines scored 95 points. And I’m sure that the average of all 350 scores was nowhere near 95 points. Probably someplace around 87 points is more like it. So what’s up? As the magazine’s note on our Vintage Chart explains, “Vintage ratings are only loosely related to ratings of individual wines…”. If this is so, then how do I come up with the number?

Several ways. First, as I taste through the vintage as the wines gradually come out over multiple years, I begin to form and refine conclusions in my mind. I may notice that I’m scoring individual wines that year higher than in previous years from the same wineries. I follow the weather reports extremely closely all year long (you’ve often heard me refer to my Vintage Diaries), and that helps me form a more complete picture of conditions. Almost every time I talk with a winemaker about anything, I make sure to include questions about the vintage: how’s it going? What do you think? I’ll also ask about past vintages. How’re those ‘06s coming along? So when I have to actually assign the vintage rating, I’m armed with quite a bit of information, some of it subjective, and some of it absolutely objective.

Then, too, I change my vintage ratings annually. It’s entirely conceivable I might raise my rating for 2009; in fact, I’m almost sure I will, as more and more Cabernets from that vintage come in. For instance, I’ve tasted close to 200 2009 Cabernets just since last Sept. 1, and I expect I’ll be tasting literally hundreds, perhaps as many as 700, more over the next year or two. So obviously, the vintage rating will change, as my experience is enriched and my conclusions are necessarily sharpened.

Peter Marks, despite his predilection for the 2009s, said it best when he remarked of the trio that they are “three great vintages.” So did Elizabeth Vianna, Chimney Rock’s winemaker, who said “2007, ‘08 and ‘09 are just beautiful.” These have been three glorious years, even through the vagaries of weather. Viticulture, in particular, has learned to cope with droughts, rainfall, excessive heat, frost and disease pressure–not yet as well as growers would like , but more perfectly than ever before in human history. Vintage differences are being ironed out. Vintage assessments are all right, as far as they go, and they do provide a snapshot of the year–in my case, as I have explained, one based on a lot more study than might at first be apparent. But they are, ultimately, generalizations.

I don’t make this stuff up, kids, I just report the facts. I asked on Facebook, “What’s the dumbest thing you’ve heard lately about wine?” Dozens of comments. Here are a few. Enjoy!

“That shiraz and syrah are not the same grape.”

“that white wine has more carbs than red wine”

“Red wine is less fattening because it doesn’t have sugar.”

“You have to swirl your glass to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere.”

“I’m allergic to sulfides.”

“If there’s a punt in the bottom of the wine bottle…it’s a better wine.”

“That the vintage on the bottle has nothing to do with when the fruit was picked-and that I was an idiot for believing that!”

“That wine is actually made from the stuff mentioned in the reviews: raspberries, cherries, chocolate, cedar, road tar…” [This is one of my faves!]

“That if you lay down Sauvignon Blanc for 10 or more years, it will be worth a fortune.” [I wish...]

[Someone said] “Interesting, you’re copying the South Americans by putting Malbec in your Blend. You must not be a traditional California winery.”

“Consumer question: When it says the name of a river (i.e.Russian River) does that mean that was the water used to make that wine?”

“I’m allergic to the tannins in Merlot. Can I get a Syrah?”

“I was at a wine bar recently where the bartender told me that Piedmont does not have a classification system like the rest of Italy.”

“it was with a fellow tasting room person years ago, when a consumer asked, ‘What makes this wine sweet?’ The answer – from a supposed wine specialist – was, ‘It’s the kind of grape that it is.’”

“I found a mouse in my bottle, and, like, my cousin is a cop and he says I should get a free case.”

“(in discussing Champagne): Just like you can’t call a Pinot Noir a Bordeaux.”

“Oh look! Kendall Jackson is in California.” “What’s Kendall Jackson?” “It’s a white wine.”

“The cork is what removes the tannins.”

“Since you guys are a small winery, are your cases 6 bottles instead of 12?”

[from a winemaker] “pointing to my tasting menu [customer says]: ‘I’ll have a bottle of the number two.’ YUCK!”

“Do you still stomp the grapes like Lucy?” [Let’s not forget Ethel.]

“Wines over 14% alcohol absolutely do not age.”

[And the #1 Dumbest Thing Ever]: “Swirl Left for oak flavors and Swirl right for fruit flavors.”