Do wine critics always “critique” the wines they drink?
I suppose the general public, and even professionals in the wine industry, think that critics (or former critics) analyze every wine they drink, whether it’s in a restaurant setting or just something at home, in front of the television.
Well, I don’t…and yet, in another sense, I do. Let me explain.
If I’m at somebody’s house and they’re pouring something that I know is inexpensive, of course I would never complain about it, even if I thought it was dreadful. But usually, it’s not dreadful. There are very, very few dreadful wines anymore in the U.S. distribution system, regardless of what country it’s from. Americans have very discerning taste when it comes to wine; even people who say “I don’t know anything about wine” know more than they think they do. What they want is a decent wine, and for the most part, that’s what they get in supermarkets, big boxes and even in most local wine shops.
I can deal with a decent wine. In fact, I can quite enjoy one. I happily take off my (former) critic’s hat and go with the flow. Now, I might, somewhere in the back of my head, think, “This is a pretty ordinary wine, and if I was scoring it, I’d give it 84 points.” But that’s a fleeting thought, and I wouldn’t hold it against the wine, or my host.
The critical mindset is a very specific one. For me, it’s reserved for the circumstance of formal tasting. When I know I’m tasting for a professional reason, I definitely enter into Critic Mode, which is inherently a negative state. That means that I’m looking for anything and everything wrong with the wine. And believe me, most wines, probably 99.9%, have something wrong with them. Sometimes, this wrongness is glaring: exceptionally high brett, or searing acidity, or massive domination by oak, or something equally awful. But most of the time, the problem with a wine is minor. It’s the sort of thing most wine drinkers wouldn’t even notice—which is as it should be. But, when I’m in Critic Mode, I notice the slightest fault. That’s why I’ve given so few 100 point scores to wines. Most wines have some kind of fault, which automatically makes them less than perfection.
But, like I said, for me to go into Critic Mode is extremely rare. It’s the same with movie critics. I love our local film reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle. People sometimes ask him if he can just “go to the movies” and not be critical, and he says, Sure he can. That doesn’t mean that he won’t perceive some weird plot thing that makes no sense, or bad acting, or something else. His brain is trained to do that, as mine is trained to detect faults in wine. But it doesn’t make him walk out of the theatre. He can enjoy a film even though it has little glitches here and there.
The interesting thing, for me, is that, if I’m at a party at your house and you give me a glass of wine that, under critical circumstances, I might score at 100 points, I’m not sure that I would be overwhelmed by it under non-critical conditions. I’d probably think that it was a very good wine, and I might ask you what it was; but, since I wouldn’t be in Critic Mode, I wouldn’t be going into overdrive praising it. That would be inappropriate for a social setting. If you invite me to your house for dinner or a party, it’s not a winetasting event, it’s a social event at which wine is incidental. What this suggests to me is that finding perfection in a wine is possible only when you’re in Critic Mode, which is a Heisenberginan phenomenon: you tend to find what you’re looking for (physicists found the Higgs boson because they were looking for it). This has a further implication: it means that, if you’re not looking for a 100-point wine, then you probably won’t find one, even if you’re a critic. The 100-point wine, then, exists, not in the real world, but in the critic’s mind.
Steve,
Like a Pavlovian dog, most wine enthusiasts and wine critics reflexively critique a glass of wine when served in a social setting. (The same way they involuntarily swirl the glass.)
When you state:
“[in] Critic Mode, which is inherently a negative state. . . . I’m looking for anything and everything wrong with the wine. And believe me, most wines, probably 99.9%, have something wrong with them. . . . Most wines have some kind of fault, which automatically makes them less than perfection.”
Can a wine that you rate (say) 95 or 96 or 97 or 98 points genuinely have a “fault” — or would the word “shortcoming” more aptly characterize your take on the wine?
I associate the word “faults” with: sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, brett, Maderization, excessive acidulation, bitterness, excessive astringency, and mercaptans,
~~ Bob
My guess is that physicists found the Higgs bosun, not physicians. Unless Mr. Higgs was a sailor and had a bosun, and a group of doctors went looking for him….
This Jekyll and Hyde split personality among wine writers is precisely why consumers who want to know how delicious a wine is should pay little attention to wine reviews from professionals.
Tom,
Okay, I’ll take the bait.
You write:
“. . . consumers who want to know how delicious a wine is should pay little attention to wine reviews from professionals.”
Who then should they pay attention to?
Direct-to-consumer wine clubs such as the ones you have a professional relationship with?
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/tom-merle/30/4a0/61a
Bob
test
Bob,
yes, I like our methodology for revealing the opinion of a cross section of wine drinkers from novices to enthusiasts–real people who buy wines for dinner and other special occasions vs. professionals who drink mostly samples.
Our shoot-outs might be by variatal or region or random. We normally have 15 members rating and ranking BLIND 15 wines, using a 5 stars, half stars system (like Vivino and virtually every site that includes user comments) based on only the degree of sensuous pleasure provided, plus ranking favorites 1st, 2nd, 3rd. The results tend to follow a bell curve median with most clustering in the 3.6 (86) – 3.8 (88). We are looking for those few 4.0 (=90+) wines which we do sell on our buyers cooperative website, http://www.wine.coop.
We have found over the years that a few special wines, like The Prisoner, have a broader appeal. Somms, wine writers, winemakers, etc. look for balance and complexity, which tends to mean Chablis over Cali Chards. Power to the people!
Onwards,
TOM
Tom,
You write:
“Our shoot-outs might be by varietal or region or random. We normally have 15 members rating and ranking BLIND 15 wines, using a 5 stars, half stars system (like Vivino and virtually every site that includes user comments) based on only the degree of sensuous pleasure provided, plus ranking favorites 1st, 2nd, 3rd. The results tend to follow a bell curve median with most clustering in the 3.6 (86) – 3.8 (88). We are looking for those few 4.0 (=90+) wines . . .”
Seems to me you don’t even need to collect 5 star scale ratings; the forced rankings (1st preference, 2nd preference, 3rd preference, 15th preference) tells you more about the “pleasure quotient” of the wines — and the “affinity” palates of your panelists.
How do your “panel” tastings differ from The Vintner’s Club tastings (www.vintnersclub.org/)?
Bob
The ratings do give a snapshot of the degree of appeal of a wine which ranking alone doesn’t do. So a first place could be achieved by a 3.66 wine not a 4.2 wine. It also provides the citizen voter with a record of the wines tasted helping her rank the top three.
Our tasting panel methodoloy isn’t all that different from The Vintners Club, though the VC is composed of professionals geeks and connoiseurs, way over on the right tale of the curve. We have real people in the middle.