Thanks to Jason and Wine Co for the link to this.
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The connection between high scores and ageability
15 comments
Posted by steve on Jul 11, 2013 in Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Tasting, Wine Critic, Wine Writing | 15 comments
It.s funny that I never really thought about it until recently, when I was browsing through my reviews in Wine Enthusiast.s database and realized that I had chosen the special designation of .Cellar Selection. for about 80% of my highest scoring wines.
If you.d asked me what parameters form the basis of a high score (let.s say anything above 95 points), I would have referred you to the magazine.s guidelines. They say things like .truly superb,. .great complexity,. .memorable,. .pinnacle of expression,. .complete harmony and balance,. .absolute best,. but the guidelines are silent on the question of ageability.
Had you pressed me to more fully explain a high score, I suppose at some point the .A. word would have arisen. But in and of itself, .ageability. does not equal great wine. Many wines will age, some for a long time, yet are not particularly complex or beautiful, either in youth or in old age.
And yet, my highest scoring wines, from this year alone, include Williams Selyem 2010 30th Anniversary Pinot Noir, Rochioli 2011 West Block Pinot Noir, Freemark Abbey 2009 Sycamore Vineyard Cabernet, Flora Springs 2010 Hillside Reserve Cabernet, Tantara 2010 Gwendolyn Pinot Noir, Matanzas Creek 2010 Journey, Terra Valentine 2010 K-Block Cabernet, Stonestreet 2010 Rockfall Cabernet, B Cellars 2009 Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Cabernet, Jarvis 2007 Estate Cabernet, Von Strasser 2010 Sori Bricco Cabernet, Sodaro 2009 Doti-Sodaro Blocks 2 and 6 Cabernet, and, another Beckstoffer coup, Janzen 2010 Beckstoffer Missouri Hopper Vineyard Cabernet. All 95 points or higher, all Cellar Selections.
What I look for in predicting ageability are two things, or three, depending on how you define them. First is an immediate reaction (from the nose/palate via the brain) of stunned impressionability. It.s a simple .Wow!. factor, although of course there.s nothing simple about it. Now, any wine can possess the .Wow!. factor without being ageable. A lot of it has to do with what Dr. Leary called .set and setting,. i.e. where you are (the external circumstances) and your mindset (subjective factors). A silky Beaujolais, like the one I had the other night, achieved the .Wow!. factor, because it was a warm evening, I had slightly chilled the bottle, and with it I enjoyed a soy-glazed tuna burger (homemade) and the company of someone special to me. But that Beaujolais was not an ageable wine, and if I were scoring it, I would have given it around 90.
The next thing I look for, in determining ageability, is an immature quality that makes the wine, good as it is, undrinkable, this latter word used in the old British sense of .too young to enjoy now. (although I.m always careful to point out that even a California wine that.s .too young to enjoy now. is, of course, enjoyable now, if you like it that way. The Cellar Police will not slap you into Guantanamo). What makes a wine .too young now,. for me, are, usually, dense tannins that numb the palate, but this is not so great a problem as it used to be (in California or in France) because modern tannin management regimes render even the hardest tannins more mellifluous (the adjective .mellifluous. being a good example of its own definition). A greater problem is what I call the unintegrated quality of a young wine.s parts. Those parts include oak, fruit, alcohol, acidity and tannins, and if they feel (in the mouth) like a herd of cats, each going its own way, resistant to corralling, then the wine is unintegrated. A subset of this is that California fruit can be overwhelming in youth, a detonation of jam that makes them too obvious..Tammy Faye Bakker,. in the words of a Frenchman I know who crafts wines (or seeks to) of greater finesse and control.
The final aspect of determining ageability is the history and reputation of the winery. I make the previous two determinations blind, but this third factor weaves its way in when I take the bottle out of its covering bag. If I.ve already determined that the wine is ageable, that is going to appear in the review; but if I then see that it.s a wine I know for a fact ages well (say, a Williams Selyem Allen Vineyard Pinot Noir), that seals the deal, as they say. In general, I don.t like to stretch the window of ageability too far into an uncertain future (the way RMP does), but if I know the wine has a good history of hitting, say, 10 or 20 years, I.ll say so. (Corison Cabernets are a good example of this.) Which obviously makes it difficult when the wine is a new brand, without history, of which there are many, particularly in those bastions of ageability, Napa Valley Cabernet and cool-climate Pinot Noir. But, going through my highest-scoring wines, I see very few new brands among them. Mostly they are the older, traditional names, which is just as you.d expect.
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