SELECTING
... use relationships and references to find quality and value wines
...
Without
some reference or guidance, shopping for wine can be an
overwhelming experience. Thousands of labels from
hundreds of different appellations throughout the world
can present a confusing maze. Few humans have the time,
money, and constitution necessary to taste or sample the
array. Fortunately for the average consumer, there are
many ready reference sources available.
THE
WINE MERCHANT
The handiest source is the wine shop. Find one that
stores the wine properly, away from sources of direct
light, that maintains the shop at even temperature
year-round and that turns over the inventory at a regular
pace. Developing a relationship with a wine merchant that
cares about both her inventory and her clientele will
allow you to keep up on the latest releases and have
wines recommended to your personal taste.
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Be prepared
to give feedback on your purchases and respond to suggestions; the more the merchant learns about your
personal taste, the more accurately they can recommend
wines you are sure to enjoy. Accept the responsibility
to remember the labels you purchase. (Women who shop for wine should definitely read Marlene
Rossman's article, "Where
are the Women?")
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Big
Wine Sale, France, 1936.
Photo
courtesy of Fleet
Irvine
Photomurals,
a viewable collection of wine and other theme
photos that may also be purchased.
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PUBLISHED
REVIEWS
Good sources of published information on wine
collectively form "the wine press." Books about wine are
good for background information, but are not timely
enough to keep up with the scores of wines released to
the market each month. The best sources for current
recommendations include articles in the daily paper and
"food and entertaining" magazines, as well as magazines,
newsletters and sites (such as this one!) on the World
Wine Web devoted primarily to the wine
theme.
NEWSPAPERS
Most city newspapers have one particular weekday (often
Wednesday) with a food section, containing recipes,
articles about food and wine, restaurant reviews and
usually a wine column. Except for large newspapers which
may employ their own columnist, most articles and columns
are syndicated. Editors generally give wine articles low
priority and find wine reviews expendable when they are
trying to save space, so articles are often truncated or
the number of wines reviewed minimal. The writers
themselves usually live in major cities like Los Angeles,
San Francisco, or New York and frequently review wines
that may be hard to find in the local shops away from
these metropolitan areas. Some of these large newspapers
have web sites.
E-ZINES
Web
Sites
devoted
to wine abound. Loaded with information, although
sometimes loaded with advertising, their content runs the
gamut from excellent up-to-date news and reviews to
ill-informed, wrong-headed opinion and antiquated dogma
boldly masquerading as fact (see Wine
Myths).
Most are good sources, with tasting notes by
professionals or dedicated amateurs updated weekly or
monthly. Epinions.com
has a different twist: reviews of wines by consumers.
Anyone who signs up can post a review. Some are quite
good and often very entertaining. There are thousands,
but some of my personal favorites are "Oldest
Living Wine Idiot Tells
All",
"It
VOSS Meant to be",
and "Of
Dreams and Things".
MAGAZINES
Food and entertaining magazines, such as
Food
& Wine,
Gourmet, and Bon Appetit (this pair shares
a Web presence on Epicurious)
and others contain some wine articles and occasional
reviews, subject to some of the same editing limitations
as newspapers. Magazines depend on advertising as their
main source of revenue, although most claim this has no
influence or effect on their editorial policy. Magazines
with a wine-only theme may find this even more difficult
to enforce and many have softened their wine focus and
broadened coverage to include articles on beer, spirits,
food and travel.
Decanter
is an excellent publication from England with thoughtful
articles. Especially strong in its coverage of Bordeaux
and Port, its main drawback is limited reviewing and
reporting on New World wines generally and California
wines in particular, although coverage is slowly
improving.
The
Wine Enthusiast
began as a retail catalog of wine accessories and has
expanded into wine reviews and wine-related articles (the
only way to the e-zine is through their catalog page).
All the aforementioned publications depend on advertising
from the wineries whose products they review.
The
Wine Spectator
has changed its format several times, evolving from a
newspaper-style to an oversize magazine-style
publication. It offers news articles and regular columns
about wine, wineries, wine-growing areas, collectors,
auctions, restaurants, and wine-related events with many
reviews of specific wines in each issue. It is the most
current and complete source for wine information and has
the largest circulation of any wine publication in the
world. Issues are available by subscription or from wine
shops or newsstands; published bi-weekly, except in
December, when a double-size issue is printed mid-month.
Its wine reviews are based on the 100 point scale, with
descriptions. The Wine Spectator is the
"MicroSoft" of wine-in-print; in that marketing has
propelled its influence well beyond product value. The
major flaws are: potential influence of advertisers; most
tasting notes are by a single, often unidentified
reviewer, rarely do more than a few taste any one
particular wine, and; not all tasting is conducted
"blind."
Wine
& Spirits
limits its publishing of complete tasting notes to
include only positive or complimentary reviews and simply
lists all the other wines as tasted without comment;
articles seem not quite as polished and authoritative as
the Spectator.
SUBSCRIPTION
NEWSLETTERS
Newsletters, lacking advertisements, depend on a large
number of paid subscribers for income. This factor alone,
that their constituents are buyers rather than sellers,
lends them greater credibility in reviewing and
recommending wines. Published monthly or bi-monthly, each
issue may review hundreds of individual wines. Most
include tasting notes, a proprietary ranking system,
average retail prices, number of cases produced, food
matches and ageability estimates. This list is not all
inclusive and there are other regionally-based
newsletters, but these are some of the most well-known
and trusted.
The
Wine Advocate
is written by Robert Parker, an attorney turned full-time
wine critic. He is an extremely prolific taster and
writer, with hundreds of wines reviewed in each
bi-monthly issue, grouped by some shared criteria of
region, delimited appellation, vintage, varietal,
producer, or the all-encompassing "New Releases". Parker
invented the 100-point scale, tastes from all wine
producing countries and regions.
Photo:
Jean-Luc Chapin |
33000 Bordeaux |
Tel: (+33) 5.56.44.35.32 |
Many
subscribers swear by his reviews. Written in an extremely
authoritative tone, he can be prosecutor as well as
advocate, sometimes even boldly (and quite often
correctly) suggesting how a winemaker could make better
wine. His influence is second only to The Wine
Spectator and his scoring of a wine at "90" or above
can cause a wine-shop-stampede, while anything less than
"70" can lead to brand shunning! It is, after all, only
one man's opinion, although very entertaining. Parker's
credibility is higher than any because of his insistence
to pay his own way and refusal to accept perks or free
samples. A December, 2000, four-part Atlantic
Monthly online feature, titled "The
Million Dollar Nose"
by William Langewiesche, analyzes Parker's influence and
provides an engaging biography. Wine
Advocate's
annual six issues are supplemented with an end-of-year
"Pocket Buying Guide" and occasional guide to restaurants
of a particular wine region. Parker also had a hand
producing the Wine
Advisor & Cellar
Manager
software to track tasting notes and collections. A
subscription web site, Robert
Parker Online,
is now also available (US$99 annually). A "Free Trial"
area allows limited access to the offerings of articles
and tasting notes.
Connoisseur's
Guide to California
Wine
began publishing in 1974, making it one of the oldest
subscription wineletters dealing primarily with
California wines. (There's a special subscription offer
on the website.) Published monthly, CGCW's format is to
review from ten to fifty examples each of two to four
varietals per issue. A short essay dealing with general
overall trends of consumers, winemakers, growers, or some
other interesting aspect prefaces individual reviews of
the particular variety. The wines are listed
alphabetically by brand. Each wine review includes the
usual description of color, aromas and flavors, along
with several icons that refer to the general score (3
"puffs" is tops), type of food match and a suggestion for
drinkability or ageability. Good Values are also noted.
These
notes are written primarily by editor-publishers Charles
Olken and Earl Singer. They have consultation in tasting
the wines from a floating panel of winery owners,
winemakers, merchants, collectors, etc. All tasting is
conducted and discussed blind and preceding a meal where
the wines are re-tasted with food and the discussion
continued. The notes are reasonably consistent, if
frequently turgid. Occasionally they award a wine a good
rating with somewhat contradictory, relatively
hypercritical notes, possibly indicating controversy
among the contributors. Several tasting sessions of a
dozen-or-so wines are needed to assemble the extensive
lists reviewed. There is no reference to indicate which
wines were actually compared, head-to-head, in the same
sessions.
California
Grapevine is a bi-monthly newsletter with yet a
different format. Like CGCW, they have consultant-tasters
to help evaluate the wines. In this case, it seems to be
a large, somewhat static group from which a panel of
eight to twenty participates in each tasting. The
tastings compare an average of a dozen examples of a
varietal from a particular recent vintage. Published as
consensus notes from the particular tasting, in ranking
order of preference, they include the 20-point-scale
score, number of first-, second- and third-place votes
and statistical significance. Editor Nick Ponomareff
takes special care to maintain an accurate and consistent
prose style in the tasting notes, which can also make for
dull reading if one tries to absorb all the reviews in
one sitting. There are also a regular column from Dan
Berger, ruminating on wine appreciation factors, and from
Bob Foster, reviewing wine books, as well as a
progressive compilation of results from important annual
U.S. wine competitions. The back page is devoted to
listing the best-reviewed wines by varietal as "Grapevine
Recommendations." An annual supplement is the final "Wine
Competition Results." Professional Friends of Wine's
conduct of tastings and results reporting is modeled
somewhat after this publication's panels.
Restaurant
Wine
specializes in reviewing wines specifically for the
restaurant trade. The effort of Ronn Weigand, who holds
both Master Sommelier and Master of Wine titles, it is
the only publication by a credentialed critic. On his
WebSite he makes several good arguments on behalf of his
tasting and rating methods. Restaurant Wine also
includes articles about staff training, wine list
creating, merchandising ideas, etc.; very interesting,
but probably a little more specialized than would appeal
to the average wine consumer.
Robert
Finigan's Private Guide to Wines, was one of the
first and best newsletters in the late 60s and early 70s.
He took a hiatus, filling in with
Wine
Discoveries,
which specializes in low-price wines and seems generally
a little less discriminating than most forums. Finigan
tried to make a comeback in the mid-80's, but the
involvement seemed to wane.
DIVERSITY
INCREASES SUCCESS
What's
the best scheme for assembling wine buying advice? Using
several of these sources is much more reliable than
depending on a single "guru." Establish a good
relationship with a wine merchant. Read the food and wine
section of the daily paper. Surf the World Wine
Web. Subscribe to one magazine and one newsletter,
have a friend subscribe to a different one of each, then
share and compare. Finally, cross-reference the
individual wine reviews from each of these sources to
separate the "controversies" from the "crowd-pleasers,"
make a list and take a wine
shopping
trip.
Jim
LaMar
RELATED
LINKS
A
Critical Survey of Major Wine Review
Publications by
Steve Pitcher is a thoroughly researched and
excellently-written article, with samples of covers,
circulation and publication data, scope and quantity of
reviews, explanations of tasting methods and scoring
systems, analysis of writing quality and marketplace
influence. Includes California Grapevine,
Connoiseurs'
Guide to California Wine,
The Wine Advocate, Wine & Spirits, Wine News and
The
Wine Spectator.
