Notes From The Winemaker

Pinot - Finesse and Scores Mutually Exclusive

Today my designer, David Wishart of freshbait, sent me link to yesterday's "The Pour" column by Eric Asimov in the NY Times, with the question: "Where do you stand on this?"

Where do I stand on the question of "should Pinot be about finesse and balance, or about overripe and syrupy?" My very abbreviated reply was this comment on Eric's blog. Duh.

Following a few links around the topic, I came across a fun post in Josh Hermsmeyer's outstanding Pinotblogger from yesterday, which has a great video by Tina Caputo and Daedalus Howell. I've embedded the video below the fullpost link. Watch it if you have 26 minutes – it's fun, and on the money.



This video expresses perfectly my objections to chasing after scores. Personally I don't drink high-scoring wines, unless it's out of politeness when someone offers one to me. I don't find "cocktail" wines enjoyable – I'd rather have a real cocktail, thank you, preferably a 1:1:1 vodka Negroni, or a Michter's, absinthe and Peychaud's Sazerac. And whatever, I can't afford most of the high-scorers anyway.

But look, I believe that some of the most influential wine rankers have become victims of their own success. They have created a special market for these overripe, manipulated monsters: the "investment-grade" wines. The rankers can't back out now – some people have real money tied up in these high-scoring prizes.

But this conjures an image in my head of cellars around the world filled with these "zombie" wines: trade them, prop up their value – but never, ever open them.

posted 3/11/2009 01:11:00 PM