Some of the writers out and about who were once destined to be historians and could not find a career found wine instead. This leads me to the subject of this blog. Is it important to know everything there is about a wine region, wine family before you can truly enjoy the bottle of wine. How many times have you been to dinner when the authoritarian speaks up about the Duke or King or Family feud that took place over 400 years ago? Is it of interest, “YES”, but does it make the wine any better, not really.
I for one love the stories and like a prospective of the places I visit. I like the history of the family I am visiting to know their connection with their land, their commitment to their craft, their passion for their region. More times than not however after all the buildup you’re left with disappointment. Sometimes it’s privately because how dare you disagree with the orator who is now talking of some second cousin to the queen that invented nothing and contributed little.
Too many times in our life’s we bow to the loudest most dominate in the room giving into this so called expert for fear of embarrassment. The plain truth is many of these experts are snobs, elitist, who have no better palate than your own. I do believe knowing about a subject is a personal adventure. But it is your choice to listen or not. Knowing all the dirt on a family won’t improve the wines. Only the Vineyard and wine making practices can do that and only your tastes will give you the feedback necessary to enjoy or not what you are drinking. I say some of these writers should go look for work as a professor somewhere. Because then you would have a captive audience that’s there for that purpose. I don’t know about you but if I want to know something I ask? Because you’re an expert on history, it won’t make you an expert on wine! They are not exclusive to one another and that’s the Truth.
In the future we should have a group of tasters not an individual scoring wine. They should be people with experience measured in decades not years. They should be in the business of enjoyment, know the Vineyard and Winery. They should not compare notes with one another, should score with “No” chatter, in isolation, then send their scores to someone who will compile them and give the net weighted average. All text should be compared, then publish the most common amongst the tasters.
In this way you get several trained tasters averaging the score to make the final number more believable.
Anyway that’s my take what about you?
To net weighted averages and history upon request,
Greg Linn
greg@greglinnwines.com