Judging Wine Quality

Wine quality is a somewhat tenuous topic. In many cases it comes off as just being subjective. "I like this wine ... therefore it is a good/excellent/great wine".

Some people think that aged wines mean quality. A 40 year old zinfandel MUST be better than a 10 year old one ... right ? Some go by price, figuring that the more expensive wines must be better. Market forces can be an indicator, but sometimes fads or perceived scarcity or speculation can turn an average wine into a very expensive one. Napa Valley "Cult" wines and often first growth Bordeaux rely on high prices to help turn good wines into "great" wines.

Point systems also have their place in judging quality if they have an objective basis ( more about this in a minute) and are not just based on ... "well I gave that wine 88 points and I like this one better so it must be a 92". Point systems that were based on specific attributes such as the UC Davis system, both (vaguely) described a wine AND gave an idea of its quality. You got an idea of how close the wine matched its standard in terms of Color, Aromas, Tastes, Sweetness, Body, Acidity, Length and overall "Quality". You could also get an idea, if you saw the point breakdown, where the wine excelled or was deficient in relation to the judge's internal standard.

The ideas around quality presented below are based from my experiences of being in the WSET ( Wine and Spirits Educational Trust ) system, but I think are applicable to any formal or informal wine evaluation.

Often, but not always, on a WSET tasting exam, Quality is one of the topics by which we are to evaluate a wine. A coherent evaluation of the quality of a wine can be worth as much as 10% on our tasting exams. Newer candidates often go by their opinion of how much they like a wine as being a measure of its quality. Sometimes this is because they don't understand that there is a more objective and documented way to judge this wine.

As part of the WSET "Systematic Approach to Tasting" we are expected to first describe a wine in terms of its Intensity of Colors, Aromas and Flavors. We list all of the aromas and flavors that we perceive. We describe the Sweetness, Acidity, Tannin and Alcohol levels to give an overall idea of a wines Balance. We evaluate the length of the finish of the wine. We may guess the grape and the region based on specific aroma/flavor markers or the lack of them. Then what happens is that a student is asked to evaluate the quality of the wine and they don't realize that they have already done all the work necessary to describe quality, and they mistakenly fall back on "It tasted good/really good, it was fruit-forward and I liked it, so quality was ...."

Quality can be more objective, should be more objective and is expected to be more objective, integrated and coherent on a WSET tasting sheet. Here is one way, and I think the best way, to do this. I use the Acronym "CIBLIT". The letters stand for Complexity, Intensity, Balance, Length, Integration, Typicity.

Complexity: We have already made a judgement on this. We perceived and described aromas and flavors. Were they simple (fruit and oak) or were there layers and interesting notes that surprised us. How many descriptors did we use ? Were they all similar (red berry) or was there more going on.

Intensity: We have already evaluated the intensity of Aromas and Flavors as part of our description. Bring these opinions over into the Quality evaluation

Balance: Again, this has already been spoken to. We described the Acidity, Sweetness, Tannin, and Alcohol. Did any one of them stand out so much as to hinder the enjoyment of this wine? If not, it was in balance.

Length: We indicated whether the finish was short, medium or long.

Integration: Similar to Balance but on a larger scale. Whereas balance is specific to the taste components of Sweetness, Acidity, Tannin (dryness, bitterness), and Alcohol, Integration looks more at how the whole wine holds together. It is like bonus points for having the above 4 topics at optimal levels. For example too much flavor intensity (for example the pure, intense, raisin flavor of a well made Pedro Ximenez) can rate high on intensity, but loose a point on integration because the flavor itself is distracting.

Typicity: While a Chardonnay for example is considered a winemaker's wine because the grape is so flexible to support many particular styles, nevertheless one SHOULD be able to recognize it as a Chardonnay. It doesn't need a lot of (or any) oak or malolactic butteriness to be a Chardonnay, but one should be able to recognize some citrus and apple flavors. And one should have already described them in the notes above.
If you can't get any recognizable flavors from the wine, it has probably also already failed the Intensity test. If, however, one gets predominantly Stemmy, Grassy flavors for a Chardonnay, no matter how powerful, it also fails the Typicity test.

This is why I say that Quality should be an easy answer, and not a guess or simply an opinion. A coherent tasting note has already provided all the decision points for this attribute. One just needs to pull them together and issue their opinion!

It sometimes drives me crazy to hear people describe a faultless wine with a dozen flavors, medium+ length and describe it only as good. Or vice versa - a fruity wine and has a ton of oak that is the only element that carries over to the finish, and gets described as great, (because the fruit and oak are in your face intense, but there is no complexity).

The Price of a wine ( in an informed and reasonable market ) should reflect the Quality of the wine, but generally also accounts for exceptional production costs such as hand harvesting on mountainsides or having to go through the vineyard several times to pick only the botrytized grapes. If asked on a WSET quiz, one should be able to state a price range for a particular wine based on Quality, Market Demand, and Production costs. You may not be correct, but telling a coherent story can sway the evaluator to giving you a passing score on the exam.

So ... thus I contend that Quality and to an extent Price are objective factors that can be deduced from attributes already described on a tasting sheet. I think this is the way the Systematic Approach is supposed to work. It just doesn't always get taught that way.

john

2012 - Current Plans

It is embarrassing not to have written since mid-November but not much has happened in my wine world and in family life I had grandson's birthday, a large Thanksgiving party, Christmas, etc. So here I am in early January and here is what's happening.

I have been helping and observing at a WSET Advanced class in western San Francisco (1.5 hour commute each way) since early November. The 16 week course continues through February and I am using it to keep current on Wines of the World (WSET-Unit 3) type information and to further calibrate my palate. For example, a constant theme that I hear Adam Chase make is that "One needs to prove that a white wine is not 'youthful. and a red wine is not 'developing'.". Now maybe this is focused mainly at advanced level students but probably holds for wine descriptions in general.

I have only tried 2 bottles of aged Savennieres Chenin blanc in my life and they have both been corked.

There is a tasting group in eastern San Francisco (1 hr commute each way ) that i attended 1 tasting with and would like to attend more but I just need to find something closer. i think I just need to get the word out and wait and a group can grow here in the East Bay. At least i hope so.

As part of my AWS - Wine Judge Certification training, I need to act in some capacity in 2 wine competitions each year. Fortunately there are a fair number here in Northern California, I just have to work to get my name on a list of associate / trainee / non-scoring judges for all the events that I can think of and see how things fall into place. So I have started making a pest of myself with all the competitions and coordinators that I can find.

So here are my 2012 plans at least for the first 6 months:

1) I think I passed my WSET-Unit 6 fortified wines exam. So now I am starting Unit 4 - Spirits / hard liquor. Exam is in June. The text book is David Brooms "Distilling Knowledge" which is actually a pretty good read.

2) I am quite sure I passed my WSET Unit-1 Research Work Paper. I did good research and am reasonably articulate when I put my mind to it. So in mid-February I will start research for the closed book Case Study exam which means writing another paper in formal exam conditions. This happens in March.

3) I am presenting a class on Fortified Wines to my AWS Chapter. Condensing 6 months of research and tasting into a 2 hour powerpoint session. Doesn't seem right. But on the other hand it is my rookie attempt at becoming a "wine educator". I bought a projector (really nice Epson EX3210 on sale at Staples. Saved $100) and built up a slide deck on Fortifieds that I assume I will use and revise over time.

4) I am still working on a way to start teaching "French Wine Scholar". It is a good course and I need to pull the logistics together to make this work.

5) In August the Society of Wine Educators (SWE) is holding their National Conference near San Jose California. Wahoo ! Only about an hour away. Don't need to fly anywhere. I will attempt my Certified Wine Educator exam at that time, but really need to focus on Italian wines for next 6 months to get solid on them. Feel OK about France, but Italy is in ways much more complex or at least unknown to me.

6) May attempt SWE - Certified Specialist in Spirits exam since I am already studying spirits for WSET and figure that the two tests can't be that far apart. Problem is that it is probably another $300-$400 cost to take the test and since I am living on savings and retirement pension and still too young for Social Security, I have to at least consider where the money is going. Wifey beginning to make remarks about me getting another job because I complain of how poor we are when stock market declines.

7) I met with California Alcohol Beverage Control to see what it takes to be legal to serve wine whilst running a wine school. That deserves a whole blog in its own right. Stay tuned.

8) While I was back in New York for the AWS conference and WJCP exam, it became VERY obvious to me that there were many Native North American and French Hybrid wines that I had never tasted or heard of. I know I will need to get more familiar with them if i hope to pass my Year 2 / 3 WJCP exams. I spent a day traveling the Finger Lakes region of New York to taste as many as I could. I need to find more and to keep this up.

All this on top of tasting Whisk(e)ys, gins, tequilas, rums, vodkas, etc for Unit 4 and Italian wines for CWE exam.

So this is where my efforts and future blogs will be focused. I hope they are interesting.

john