Some Tips on Buying Wine

Picture this scene. You’re going to celebrate a special occasion and your spouse has dressed up. Your partner turns to you hoping for a compliment. Instead, you  say, “You’re an 87 this evening.”

Now picture this scene. You’re in a wine store, trying to choose between wines for dinner. You have your handy vintage guide and you’ve decided that a 2001 Bordeaux looks promising. So it’s a matter of choosing one wine from a retailer’s selection of that one year. You read what the wine writers have to say, and note that many of them are assigning scores to the wine. You narrow it down to two wines. “A blockbuster, gobs of fruit, 94,” reads one, for $24. “Good effort from this property, 87,” reads another, for $18.  Which do you choose?

If price is the most essential factor, you buy the $18 wine. On the other hand, if you’re a firm believer in mathematical scoring, you will probably cough up the additional money and buy the $24 bottle. In neither case have you judged the wine on its merits. You’ve followed someone else’s subjective evaluation for which a numerical score has been assigned.
 

That’s the wrong way to purchase wine. More importantly, it’s the wrong way to evaluate it; much the same way as giving your significant other a point score for how she or he looks. It’s true that many wine writers now routinely use point scores that are also routinely reprinted in wine magazines and retail shops. There’s a suspicious correlation between wine prices and scores.

Wine, let it be said, is an agricultural product, subject to the vagaries of soil and climate. Rainfall and when it happens during the growing season (not to mention its concentration) are vitally important. So are the types of grape varieties planted, depending on the soil and sub-soils. That is why the same grape variety will do very well in one area and less well in another. Cabernet sauvignon predominates in the Medoc and Graves regions of Bordeaux, while Merlot usually thrives in Pomerol and St. Emilion.

It is essential that a vintner understand the possibilities and the limitations of what he has to work with — what the French call the terroir.  Only then can the proper grape varieties be planted and aged and culled to maximize that property’s wine growing potential, factoring in such differences as the different grape species have and when the harvest should take place. This can be a last minute decision depending on unpredictable weather conditions. After the harvest, the juices must be evaluated to determine the blend, or assemblage of the wine.
         

Assemblage is crucial but only one of many factors where judgment and experience are needed.  Winemakers have learned over the years, through many vintages what their property can best produce, and will blend  an optimum proportion that suits their raw materials of grapes and terroir.  I once participated in the assemblage at Chateau Haut Brion, thanks to master winemaker Jean Delmas. We first tasted the different varietals used, from both established and newer vines. Then we tasted the final wine, as blended by Delmas. It was a revelation. The whole was far superior to the excellent individual varietal wines.

At this point, before the wine has started to close up and begin the aging process — the evolution of fruit and tannins, flavor and structure — there is a short period, usually in a ghastly tourist season such as March, when a taster can form an idea of how the wine may evolve.
Why this is so, I cannot say. This is the period when wine writers troop through the winegrowing regions each year and form their assessments. I strongly urge those who enjoy wine to visit a winegrowing region at least once, and sample wines at several different wineries.
           

It is also the case that different wines age very differently. Some may be drunk with pleasure very soon after they are bottled. For others, it would take many years before they are ready. The bottle size also makes a difference, with larger bottles such as the magnum aging more slowly (and, according to Bordeaux vintners, more evenly). Wines have a period when they are showing at their best. Some very old wines may also have charm even after the structure has gone. For my birthday last month, we drank a 1935 Vosne-Romanee “Les Malconsorts,” which was delicious, showing a fully concentrated flavor, almost like a Madeira. With the foie gras, the taste combination was fabulous. We also drank a 1988 Burgundy from exactly the same vineyard. It was mature, flavorful, and went perfectly with the venison.
         

I had bought these wines many years ago. You couldn’t find them today. Having special wines for a special occasion is reason enough to start a wine cellar.
         

It follows that a good wine served at its peak is to be preferred to a potentially excellent wine served before it is ready. In 1985 I once served  1980 Chateau Pavie, a fine St. Emilion wine, at a formal dinner in France. The invited guests were surprised that the wine was so good, since 1980 was considered a mediocre vintage year. But I knew the proprietors of Chateau Pavie, and had been assured by them that their 1980 vintage wine was then at its peak. It certainly was.

My point is that appreciating wine, and its corrolary — not being taken by wine writers — requires some effort. It is not achieved overnight, and that is a good thing, since the effort to learn about wine is so pleasant.
“Fine,” you say. “But I’ll never visit all those wine estates, so why not use point scores? Do they do any harm?”

Yes, they do. For one thing, if the wine writer has a pronounced taste of his own, he will reward his own taste repeatedly, whether or not that taste represents the optimum blend from a given wine property. A popular wine writer, whose scores influence sales, and who therefore rewards the faithful reproduction of what he is looking for, could even manage to influence winegrowers anxious for the bottom line to change their blends, not because the weather and terroir so dictate, but to get a better review and therefore, more wine sales. That would be pernicious.

For another thing, a wine score cannot tell you when a wine will be at its peak. Only a detailed knowledge of the vintage and the individual property can do that. Otherwise you are in the position I was in back in 1960. The 1959 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which now sells for many hundreds of dollars at auction, was hailed by one and all as a splendid wine. I bought a bottle and we tried it, probably at least a dozen years too soon. It was a nice wine, with structure edging out the fruit, and I didn’t understand what the fuss was all about. That is why you may wonder why the wine that scored 94  you bought for dinner has proved disappointing. You may have made my mistake, and are simply drinking it too soon.

Wine scores also provide false comparisons. A vintage Burgundy that costs $80 and scores 90 is not at all the same thing as a Beaujolais costing $10 which has the same score. They are not comparable wines in the least. I say that without prejudice to Beaujolais, my favorite summer wine, which dollar for dollar provides some of the best values in your wine store.

So I would say, be most suspicious of wine scores. At best they will give you some shorthand indications, often helpful I would admit, of how a winegrower did in a given vintage. At worst, they stand in the way of your wine enjoyment, substituting someone else’s tastes for your own, which may or may not be helpful. It follows that expensive new boutique wines that are made by a formula to suit a reviewer’s taste, the so-called garagiste wines that have neither terroir nor aging history, should be avoided like the plague.

What would I substitute for scores? I say, develop your own taste, without shortcuts. The best individual advice I ever received was from Alexis Lichine, who wrote that it was helpful to buy three bottles of wine, same vintage, same producer. Have one with dinner, and make notes on how the wine seemed to your taste. Taste the second bottle in six months and take notes without reading the first ones. Taste the third six months later. Then read the three sets of notes, and see how the wine, and your tasting of it, has evolved.
 

Read whatever you like about wine, concentrating I would say on given regions that you prefer. And then, collect to strength. If you find that St. Emilion wines are to your liking, start putting some down in your cellar, three now, six later. Have an assortment of vintages, bottle sizes, and classifications. It will take some doing, but over the years, and not very many at that, you will have a fine assortment of excellent wines.