These Silly Tastings
Numerous people have mentioned yet another wine tasting in which California wines beat out the French. What I keep wondering is not "why do the French keep losing" but "why do this at all?"
Napa Cabernets. Bordeaux. Despite some surface similarities, these are different beasts and should be judged within context. Napa Cabernets will be single-variety bottlings instead of blends. Each region will have different ripeness levels for the fruit, different climates, and different soils.
I've heard one theory that higher alcohol levels always show better in these tastings, and so, what a shock, California wines keep winning. Should we congratulate them for having monstrous alcohol levels that seduce a wine critic but don't go with your dinner?
California wines tend to be more sculpted than their French counterparts (though this is less true when you're talking about high-end Bordeaux estates; reverse osmosis shows up in France the same way it does in California, though it's used to concentrate must before fermentation instead of de-alcoholize the final product). Should we praise that?
What were the alcohol levels in these wines? Which of the wineries use Vinovation's reverse osmosis or Conetech's spinning cone to adjust alcohol levels in the wine? How many use Enologix to custom-tailor their wines to a critic's taste buds? Or their predecessors, since the wines were from the 1995 vintage (though Vinovation existed by then and Leo from Enologix was actively consulting as well). Does this tasting prove that California's a better wine region if everyone on the list had to fiddle with the wine's profile? (I should note: I think these companies are doing some interesting things, which is perhaps obvious in light of my upcoming article about Vinovation).
I understand tastings that try to identify the best in a group, but these inter-group tastings baffle the mind. Why not compare Zinfandels and Alsatian Rieslings? California Chardonnays and New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs? Think of the possibilities.
How about you? Do you think these results mean anything?
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