Good Grape Wine Company

May 30 2006

My Wine Radar is Blowing Up!

... Beep ... Beep ... Beep ... Beep ... my radar is officially going off.

I generally believe that the prevailing wisdom amongst the popular wine critics of the day is to make wine less intimidating.  Most every writer of any renown eschews the pomp (or at least tries to) and plays to an audience that might not be as in tune with the language of wine as they are.   Maybe sometimes its professorial, but there’s still an attempt to connect to a wide audience.

And, of course, sure there’s the occasional blowhard--a guy or gal so inebriated on their own faux gloriousness that they have lost touch with reality and their palate ... and I think I’ve run across him ... an idiot whose tasting notes are so egregious that he deserves to be called out. 

While doing research on a post on Wine Sediments, I came across the reviewer for the Las Vegas Review Journal.  I read his review.  I read it again.  I read a couple of other reviews ... and ... well, I thought, "This guy is so completely full of crap, I can’t believe he gets away with it."

My friends and I, when watching live music, refer to overly indulgentguitar solos and musical jams as sort of a self-satisfaction kind ofexercise because usually these types of things lose their lustre withthe audience long before the musician has tired of the masturbation. 

This wine reviewer does that as well--going into vain glorious detail that would make Parker swoon.

I won’t name him because we’re kind of gentlemanly here at the GoodGrape, but I sure will provide you a link to look at the folly and Isure will excerpt some of the b.s. below.

Here’s an example:

…raspberry sorbet and herbs de Provence.

Inthe mouth, the wine overwhelms the palate with rich forward crushed blackberries, including cassis, boysenberries, loganberries and a streak of the morerustic form of blueberries called huckleberries. The wine lingers on theafter-mouth for a full minute with yet creamier cassis and hints of licorice.

Raspberry sorbet? Being able to taste the difference between a boysenberry and aloganberry while delineating a wild blueberry?

Here’s another example:

…raspberry coulis, some licorice and intense notes of crushed black currant,with phenolic references and cedar box underlying.

Inthe mouth, there is serious upfront black fruit with cherry, brambleberry,sweet cranberry crush, raspberry jam and a multitude of flavors held togetherby great concentration and superb structure.

Raspberrycoulis? Crushed Black currant? Which is different from black currants intaste, how exactly? Sweet cranberrycrush?

And, here, as well:

…melted licorice molasses.

Other’s may disagree and say this guy has a super-phenomenal palate and really is able to identify the difference between a boysenberry and a loganberry  as a note in a wine made FROM GRAPES.  But, to me, the coup de grace here is, for the Gnarly Head Zinfandel, he picked up notes of "reductive fruit stew and beef jerky."

I’m calling b.s.

This clown is not only full of himself, he very well may be dangerous to the wine drinking public at-large.  How many, untold, countless people in the friendly community of Vegas have had their vigor for wine put off, delayed or stopped because of this guy’s alleged ability to pick up parts per 1000 notes of lemon verbena?

In most parts of the business world there’s the generally understood notion that as long as you say something with conviction others will believe it to be true.  Ahem.  I’m not buying this. 

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