By Leticia Borges.
I strongly believe that no one can force you to like a wine you dislike. The notion that someone can say a few magic wine words and make you enjoy a wine you hated two minutes ago is improbable. If Robert Parker showed up at your doorstep with a dreadful bottle he rated 100, would his expert opinion change your mind? I guess not. I started this blog because I believe there’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to liking wine. Recently, my philosophy was put to the test in the most entertaining way.
I invited a group of clients for a day of wine tasting in Sonoma. We selected a few wineries and included one that I had been eyeing for a while. The winemaker’s larger-than-life personality was notorious, so I was looking forward to a few hours of entertainment as we sampled his wine.
The winemaker greeted us with a nice rosé and arranged for a tour of the facility. He spoke about how he started in the wine business and the fact that he had learned to make wine on his own. He casually mentioned that wines in the Valley were decent but that his wines were superior because they tasted like fruit. Wait. What? (Insert loud record scratching sound here). Had he just said his wines were better than ANY wine in Sonoma? Impossible. I’m sure I misunderstood so I stopped texting and paid attention.
There was no misunderstanding. He was tooting his own horn so loudly that I almost lost partial hearing in one ear. “Wine has to taste like fruit” he said. “If it tastes like anything else, it’s flawed.” He explained how his recent visit to Bordeaux had helped corroborate his opinion. The wines he tasted –apparently 80 of them– were all flawed because they were not fruit forward enough. Did he just say that the 80 wines he tasted in Bordeaux were all flawed? (insert exorcist head spinning video here). My eyes were the size of one of those lemurs on National Geographic.
How narrow-minded could this guy be?
There was a little part of me wanting to confirm I hadn’t made the entire thing up. “So, what you’re saying is that every single wine you tried in Bordeaux was defective because your personal taste preference is different?” My question was received with a resounding “Yes!” According to him, his wine-making style represented what all wine should aspire to be.
I didn’t want my clients to feel uncomfortable so I took a deep breath and retracted my eyes back into my skull. From that moment on, the notion of wine being as subjective as global warming was seared, forever, into my brain.
On my way back home, I couldn’t stop thinking about his words. Saying that all wines produced in Bordeaux were flawed seemed insanely narrow-minded to me. Let’s not overlook the fact that, for centuries, the wine community has agreed on the quality of Bordeaux wines. Are there better wines in the world? Of course. Are all Bordeaux wines flawed? Absolutely not.
So here is this random guy, who happens to have a voice in the wine community, with a strong opinion about all Bordeaux wines being a hoax. It was too interesting to be left alone.
Our close encounter of the third wine.
A few months later, I ran into him at a harvest party in Sonoma. This was my chance with the fruit-forward Nazi and, luckily, there were no clients around.
I introduced myself and reminded him of our encounter. I mentioned that something he said was still bothering me. He replied, “I get that a lot”. We both chuckled. “You referred to Bordeaux wine as flawed because the style isn’t fruit forward enough. Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?” I asked.
He spent fifteen minutes speaking about how he taught himself to grow grapes and make wine. He took advantage of every moment to remind me that if you don’t taste fruit first and complexity second, the wine is flawed.
“Wouldn’t you say that flawed is a harsh word?” I wanted to make a point. “I mean, there are many variables that determine how a wine will taste and many regions aren’t conducive to producing fruit forward wines. Does that make them flawed or are they just a good representation of their regions?” I was expecting him to scream “NO WINE FOR YOU!” but his response wasn’t surprising either. “It’s my personal taste and flawed is the word I chose to describe it. Wine is just one of those things that will always be subjective. Some of us are just less afraid to say it out loud.”
You have a damn good point, Mr. Winemaker.
A guy that I thought was narrow-minded taught me a great wine lesson that day. The only thing that matters when deciding whether you like or dislike a wine is your personal taste. A complex wine rating system or the opinion of all wine experts in history are useless if you think boxed wine tastes fresh. Is white zinfandel your favorite wine? Then go out there and indulge. Do you think that Napa wines taste like a fruit basket or that Rioja wines taste like chalk? That is your opinion to have and hold.
Wine is about embracing your personal taste. Owning it. Not giving into peer pressure. Eat the fatty steak with Pinot Grigio or the flaky fish with Oporto if you feel like it. Who cares about the rules? Don’t be shamed into liking a wine just because Robert Parker gave it a 97 or because it came from a hard to pronounce Chateau in France. You can hate good wine because good is subjective and you can define what good means to you.
Thank you, Mr. Winemaker for helping me keep things in perspective. Despite the lesson, you shall remain nameless. All your horn tooting was just too loud for me.