Browse Author

thor iverson

Writer, educator, communicator, consultant. Wine, spirits, food, cocktails, dining, travel. Authoring a book on the sensorial theory of wine & cheese pairing.

The cab is always greener…

Like all wine lovers, I have my likes and dislikes, and the wines I choose to buy reflect those choices. And like most wine lovers, I don’t much care for drinking bad wines. What’s fun, though, is crossing over to the “other side,” and tasting (mostly) well-made wines that fit the preferences of those with decidedly different tastes.

A recent holiday party gave me the opportunity to do just that. Below are some quick takes — I didn’t take formal notes at the event — on a lineup of wines that, with one or two exceptions, aren’t likely to make regular appearances in my glass.

Lafond 2003 Sancerre (Loire) – Reedy green citrus and grassy notes, though with the skin bitterness and lowish acidity characteristic of the vintage. In the context of many truly awful 2003 Sancerres, this one is actually half-decent.

la Poussie 2003 Sancerre (Loire) – Heavy, green, bitter, and acid free. See above.

Ladoucette 2003 Pouilly-Fumé (Loire) – Gorgeous, silky fruit with earthy elegance and the first stirrings of complexity. Beautifully balanced and long. I could drink this all night.

Paul Hobbs 2003 Chardonnay (Russian River Valley) – Simple and spicy peach, pear, citrus and white fig-like fruit with moderate oak spice and a reasonable dollop of acidity. Pretty decent, though chardonnay’s still not exactly my favorite grape in the world.

Belle Pente 2002 Pinot Noir Belle Pente (Willamette Valley) – Gorgeous, silky fruit with earthy elegance and the first stirrings of complexity. Beautifully balanced and long. I could drink this all night.

Relic 2002 Pinot Noir Alder Springs (Mendocino County) – Forceful pinot noir, dense and throbbing with heavy, leaden black and red fruit, plus streaks of plummy orange rind that make me think of an especially heavy Central Otago pinot. This will be very popular with some, and it’s not a bad wine, but I much prefer the Belle Pente.

Fanti 1998 Brunello di Montalcino (Tuscany) – Luscious, clove-spiced baked berries with not-insignificant oak and a relatively balanced finish. There could be less technology and wood thrown at this, and it would improve, but it’s a nice drink in its present form.

Brancaia 2003 “Il Blu” IGT Toscana (Tuscany) – The sangiovese is, as usual, overwhelmed by cabernet and merlot, but that said there’s merit to the wine; internationalized it is, indeed, but there’s plenty of juicy and fun fruit here.

Gaja 2001 “Magari” IGT Toscana (Tuscany) – Weedy bell pepper and seed pepper dust. There are interestingly floral aromatics, but the palate is disappointing, and a long finish doesn’t mean much when the flavors aren’t that pleasant.

Thomas Fogarty 2001 “Skyline” (California) – Massively overwooded and underripe at the same time. Horrid.

Tor 2003 Syrah Durell “Clone No. 1” (Carneros) – Incredibly thick and dense…a sort of chocolate-and-oak shake…and varietally anonymous. Kind of a waste of the raw materials, but certainly destined for popularity amongst the bigger-is-better crowd.

The young and the fruitless

“I want to gather together to drink dead whites.”

Fearing some sort of stealth Black Panther rally, I rubbed my eyes and re-read the email. “Unusual whites,” it actually read. Oh, OK. That’s better.

The call had gone out from the Rajah of Rioja, the Master of Moose, the man that puts the salt in cod, the Humbert-Humbert of Hamburger, Mighty Young Joe, Mr. Roll Bar, the man that keeps exotic upholstery manufacturers in business…many know him as Joe “I’m-not-the-lead-guitarist-of-Aerosmith” Perry…to assemble on a tiny island off Boston’s North Shore for the imbibing of whites that were, in Joe’s words, “off the beaten track.”

“What do you mean by that?” I queried.

“You know, no popular whites. No riesling, no gewürztraminer, no chenin…”

“Chenin is popular?!?”

“Well, what I’m thinking is…”

“Gewürztraminer is popular?!?”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

A resigned sigh. “Yes, I think I do. You want to drink oxidized whites from Spain.”

“And the Rhône. Don’t forget the Rhône.”

“Oh, no. How could I?”

…continued here.

Bass, baritone, Tremenalto, tenor

Dama del Rovere 2004 Soave Classico Tremenalto (Veneto) – Fuzzy and indistinct at first glance, but opening up with air and rising temperature to show pulverized dried white flowers and dusty, chalky earth with hints of lightly tart grapefruit and a buzzing texture. The alcohol sticks out a bit, but it’s a nice enough wine.

This wine is made from 100% garganega, a grape out of favor with Soave’s industrial and low-quality producers, but very much in favor at the top houses of the region (including Anselmi and Pieropan). The grape, unless carried to chancy levels of ripeness, is exceedingly light-bodied and shy for this full-malo-and-barriqued chardonnay world, where size is some sort of bizarre synonym for quality, but it would be a shame to miss its simple but pleasant charms.

The importance of negativity

The philosophical reasons for balance are beyond the scope of this document – and probably beyond the abilities of the author – so I will leave them as an exercise for the reader. But the notion of balance is necessary when considering one of the more difficult aspects of wine criticism: the need to be negative.

Nice people

Wine people are, in general, very good people. From the humblest vineyard worker to the wealthiest multi-generational patriarch, the kindness exhibited by and among those in the (broadly defined) wine industry is remarkable. It is thus difficult to comprehend the need to criticize those who have been nothing other than nice. Who have been generous. Who have welcomed critics into restaurants and stores, warehouses and wineries, and more than occasionally even into their homes. Difficult…but not impossible, for the product is not the person. The producer of any reviewable product who is incapable of absorbing criticism will be a perpetually miserable producer. (The same, incidentally, applies to critics who are overly convinced of their inerrancy.)

The deliberate act of not buying a wine after encountering it is, at its heart, a negative review. Any winemaker who pours their wines for the public deals with this phenomenon on a regular basis; not to mention the face-squinching and frantic-spitting reactions to some undesirable sample. A negative review simply formalizes those responses, though it does also raise the possibility of the reaction being preserved in perpetuity. This is why the ephemerality of a tasting note is so important for the reader to understand.

Cygnus, bringer of balance

Just as a good tasting note is supported by a foundation of context, the presence of a range of reactions to wine provides contextual clues that are important to a consumer of that note. When assessing the utility of a critic, it’s as important to understand what that critic dislikes as what he or she likes. A critic who is, say, reliably sensitive to volatile acidity, or routinely forgiving of abrasive tannin, must be identified to form a bridge of trust between critic and consumer, lest unpleasant surprises arrive in the form of critically-lauded bottles. A corpus of notes, positive and negative, forms the professional (as opposed to the personal) profile of a critic; a lopsided profile may be avant garde but carries worrisome implications about the critic’s chosen subject.

For it is also true that unrelenting negativity is undesirable in a critic. Why review a product that makes one miserable? This is not to say that numbers must balance around some arbitrary median – the good bottles equal to the bad – but that a critic must find joy and sorrow of equal intensity in their chosen field. A critic who leans too far to either side is worthy of suspicion.

Such a lonely word

Also, there is the important issue of honesty. A critic who cannot honestly report negative reactions to wine cannot be trusted to reliably report positive reactions to wine, because he is holding something back. A critic may choose how to best express strong negativity (or positivity), but that is entirely different than suppressing the reaction.

Ultimately, an honest critic will find more friends than enemies. There will, from time to time, be sensitive types that do not appreciate criticism, or the tone of criticism, and as a result friendships will erode or end. Yet this would seem to be an outcome necessary for a critic to accept. For in the end, sensible producers and critics will realize that it is more important to be respected than it is to be liked.

Price tomfoolery at Martignetti Liquors

So I was at Martignetti Liquors on Soldiers Field Road in Brighton, Massachusetts today. Martignetti is rarely known for the area’s lowest prices, but they do have an excellent selection and they know their stuff.

However, while browsing their clearance bin, I noticed something peculiar. The Eric Texier 2000 Côtes-du-Rhône-Villages Chusclan was in the bins at $19.99. Now, that might not be an unusual price, except that the other sticker on the labels indicated that the original price was $29.99! Now, this is a wine that, at release, went for various prices in the mid-teens. So what’s going on at Martignetti Liquors? Some of the other prices are a bit…fishy…as well. Caveat emptor.

Livin’ La Livinière loca

Ournac “Château Cesseras” 2001 Minervois La Livinière (Languedoc) – Intensely smoky meat liqueur – like a Northern Rhône, but not quite at the same volume or with the same intensity – and deep, basso earth notes. Delicious, but not for fruit hounds.

Minervois La Livinière is a new sub-appellation (a cru, as the French would have it) of Minervois, with stricter rules and a directed focus on syrah and mourvèdre (rather than carignan and cinsaut). Judging by this bottling, the delineation is a worthy one.

Reno, Virginia & California (New Zealand, pt. 2)

[Venice Beach]

Tall tales

I stare out the window at a woman’s thigh. It’s not what one might think – she’s fully clothed – but it is rather remarkable: here I am sitting in a car, and there’s a woman walking by whose waist is actually above my sightline. Who is this Amazon? Someone from the WNBA, perhaps? I lean closer to the window, look up. Way up.

It’s Janet Reno.

OK, so it’s not quite the celebrity sighting I’m expecting. But then again, we are in L.A.

Sinking is Venice

Theresa’s long-time friend Jan is once again our tour guide for a relaxing preflight half-day in Los Angeles, and since we’re still pale escapees from a frigid New England winter, she takes us to the beach. The beach of story, song, and insanity. But for the locals taking every possible form of transportation along the endless line of cheesy trinket shops at Venice Beach, it’s a chilly day and there’s not much actual beach activity of any kind. While there’s no perceivable gap in the panhandlers, preachers and purveyors on the seaward side of the boardwalk, I have to admit that I’m somewhat disappointed by a general surfeit of noisy crazies. Too much television, I suppose, leading to unsatisfiable expectations. But then, this is the city that has perfected illusion.

(…continued here…)

Sierra sludge

Renwood “Sierra Series” 2003 Syrah (Sierra Foothills) – Chunky, monolithic and dark Sierra fruit, clunky tannin, and a chewy texture. Certainly drinkable, but it lacks class.

The entire Sierra Foothills area has enormous potential, though much of it is destined to go unrealized given its lack of proximity to major California tourist centers (the region itself isn’t all that far from San Francisco, but getting anywhere once you’re there is a different story. And the major flow-by of tourists are heading either to the Tahoe-area ski fields or to Reno; not the sort of drop-in business on which one can rely. Wine regions need recognition, they need acclaim, but most of all they need funds…money to improve viticulture and cellar operations that will in turn lead to better wines, reinforcing the cycle.

Of course, there’s an upside to all this: the area is a lot of fun to visit, and largely devoid of pigeon-like hordes of tourists.

Renwood is as big a name as the area has (the other contender would be Domaine de la Terre Rouge/Easton), but not all fame is good fame. The winery has a long and checkered history, and the ownership is not the most popular in the region (or, for that matter, among in-the-know wine buffs). History and gossip aside, what’s more immediately relevant is that the quality of Renwood’s wines has slowly but inexorably declined. Part of it is related to the slow bleed of high-quality vineyard sources, as in the above-referenced article. Part of it is an inability to attain new high-quality sources of fruit…and that, too, is tied, for better or worse, to the reputation of the ownership. But mostly, it’s a clear and (one presumes) deliberate shift away from higher-end wines (though Renwood does still make a few of those) to mass-market bottlings at a lower price tier. The “Sierra Series” leads this movement, and while the wines are never exciting, they’re usually fairly solid and at least quaffable.

Ultimately, the whole Renwood saga is a little sad; a lot of might-have-beens quashed by the usual palette of human frailties. What could be a standard-bearer for an underappreciated region is, instead, an outsider in its own environment, and while the wines do present some vague notion of Sierra-ness, they are certainly not representative of the capabilities of the region.

(Other wines, other stuff: visit oenoLogic’s parent site.)

What is a tasting note?

A tasting note is an impression frozen in time. It is fleeting and ephemeral. It is one person’s opinion at one particular moment. It is a one-night stand.

It is not an objective assessment of the wine’s past, present and future. It is not Holy Writ. It is not a communal judgment, and does not represent some Zagat-like conventional wisdom. It is not a poll. It is not “wrong.” It is not a personal attack, or indeed to be interpreted personally in any fashion whatsoever.

It may or may not be an invitation to dialogue. The note itself may be all the dialogue its author intends. Alternatively, the note may instead represent the author’s dialogue with the wine. It may or may not be reflective of an overarching philosophy. Sometimes, a note is just a note. It may or may not be consistent with previous notes. Wine, despite the best attempts to industrialize it, remains a variable and living product.

What is a good tasting note?

If it pleases the author, it’s a good note. Nothing is more destructive to the purpose of tasting notes than the demands of others; neither descriptors, nor data, nor formatting, nor points and other qualitative shortcuts should be imposed upon the author from outside.

Notes may be structural, as exemplified by the methods taught to candidates for the Master of Wine examination, wherein the components of wine are systematically broken down to aid in analysis and identification. Notes may be organoleptically iterative, in the manner of modern North American wine writing – “laundry lists” of fruits, vegetables, flowers, rocks, etc. – or they may be as austere and ungenerous as the wine they describe. Notes may be metaphorical, comparing the experience of the wine to just about anything in the realm of experience, including anthropomorphism. Notes may be fanciful, reflecting the joy inherent in the beverage. Notes may be contextual, comparing one experience to another or giving the wine an active role in a real world narrative. Notes may be educational or informative, carrying the weight of experience and the power of data collection with every word. Notes may be a ranking and a justification thereof.

Indeed, notes may be all, any, or none of these things, and will still find their audience. What an audient should not do is insist that all critics compose notes to their preference. Critics are – usually – not prostitutes. On the other hand, requests, sensibly justified, are acceptable. (Similarly, critics should not insist that all winemakers create wines to their preference, but it is acceptable to express those preferences in the context of criticism when those preferences are supported by reasoned discourse.)

What is a useful tasting note?

A useful tasting note answers three questions:

  1. What is the wine?
  2. What are the critic’s impressions of the wine?
  3. What are the reader’s likely impressions of the wine?

1 requires that proper notation be observed. There are many paths to correctness, but undue abbreviation is not one of them. 2 has already been covered herein. 3 requires communicative skill on the part of the critic. Around this point revolves the fundamental different between a good note and a useful note; the former is free to ignore the consumer, the latter must not forget the consumer.

oenoLogic

At times I attempt to compose good notes, and at times I attempt to compose useful notes. Sometimes, I attempt and achieve both, but I do not always make that attempt, and do not always achieve that goal. Sometimes, I fail in every manner possible. When forced to make a choice, I choose good over useful. Accuracy, however, is a must, and I will go to certain lengths to assure it; corrections are always welcome.

Living history

J. Girona “Castell del Remey” 1929 “Reserva” (Cataluña) – The bottle is in shockingly good condition; low neck fill, mushy but otherwise intact cork, a good solid red liquid within. The cork starts disintegrating upon contact with a regular worm-type corkscrew, but a two-pronged tool removes it intact and with little difficulty. At first, there’s just some oxidative fruit remnants and alcohol, but with a little swirling and encouragement the faded core of what must have been a rather gutsy wine emerges for a last, lingering look around. Like the faded remnants of a cool autumn leaf-fall, with subtle urgings of red cherry carried on a dusty breeze, this pulses for a moment, pauses, and then fades finally and decisively away. But even that brief moment of pleasure is a remarkable one.

More blah blah blah on this wine.