Insider Look at Wine Critics

Wine is simple. People are complicated.

Wine Critics

Judging and giving number scores to wine originated in England in the 19th century. For the 8,000-10,000 years before that, people managed to stumble along using the price and their own senses as the only guideline to quality.

England, at the time, had a rigid social hierarchy running up the scale from Peasants to Kings which rendered it virtually impossible to change the social level you were born into. The English were the biggest importers of wine (French) and so they structured wine the same way they structured the rest of society.

The Bordeaux classification of 1855 is still used today even though nothing about the wines is the same. I imagine if the Italians or the Greeks had done the classification, it would have been a lot looser than what we actually inherited.

Italians and Greeks hate hierarchy. Italians and Greeks also treat their wines differently—more like close friends.

Or, did. Today everybody has to have a number. Back in 1855, hardly any of the wines even had a name.

The advantage of chaos as a classification system is that you are forced to rely on your own senses to decide whether the stuff is any good or not. Nobody else tells you what to think.

Now, wine critics are like any other art critics. They make a living by passing judgement. The problem is, you can’t create and criticize at the same time.

When your brain is passing judgement, it is not open to the experience of the wine itself. Two completely different parts of the brain are involved and you can’t be aware of both of them at the same time.

If a wine critic could make wine, they would make wine. But they can’t, so they criticize.

I could go into all the reasons that critics choke the wine industry but, instead, I’ll just give you this little story. It’s been gussied up to work as a story, and hopefully make you laugh, but everything in this story really happened.

That alone should give you pause.

Wine is a celebration of nature. Wine critics have no idea what the winemaker has been given to work with, nor can they command the grapes to grow even one second faster. A healthy respect for nature would mean less ego and more wonder in wine reviews—and better wines.

THE WINE CRITIC

The defiant little, bald man in Bermuda shorts was staring at me.

“This happens to be a good wine.”

I was behind a folding table pouring wine at a tasting. The defiant little, bald man was waiting for me to respond so that he could show off his vast knowledge of all things oenological, thereby reducing my already sketchy social class to somewhere slightly lower than a used car salesman.

“This happens to be a good wine, young man.”

I wiped the table with an old dishcloth and put it under the silver spit bucket.

“Is it, sir?”

I had an overwhelming need to beat him with my towel and scream at him that wine doesn’t “just happen”—it takes dozens, sometimes hundreds of people with decades of training to produce a wine. Nothing about it just happens.

But, I was Vice President of Clos du Bois Winery at the time and I had flown to San Diego to do this tasting with strict instructions from all concerned that I should never argue with a customer. For some reason, my boss felt I was a little aggressive with stupid people. And, wine critics by definition are stupid people.

No matter how crazy what he or she says is, I was supposed to just nod my head and make appropriately wine-like soothing noises while holding up the label high enough that it could be clearly read from the laundry next door.

“You got a light, son?” the little man asks, pulling out a cigar from his jacket pocket.

“I’m sorry. I don’t.”

Apparently he was not used to hearing no. “A match? A lighter?”

“No, sir.”

“Two sticks of wood and a string?”

That last remark may have been just a touch sarcastic but I let it go.

The Importance of Cigars

I actually knew who he was. He was a leading wine critic. I just figured he’d had enough people recognize him that night already. Why should I add to the carnage?

“What does a man have to do to get a light around here?”

The defiant little man shifted uneasily in the face of an immediate lack of fire. Perhaps, he was some kind of fire addict. This man was too nervous. He really needed a cigar. He needed a cigar a lot more than a man ought to need a cigar.

It occurred to me he might be crazy. It wouldn’t be the first crazy person at a wine tasting, I can tell you that. I braced myself against the wall in fear that he might suddenly leap up on my table, whip a blowtorch out of his pocket and scream, “You don’t have a light? Well, I do! Ooooh Whah...hah....hah...hah....”all the while maniacally laughing and setting fire to the curtains.

I could hear the murmur, well by now the roar, of people gliding about the ballroom saying to each other firmly,

“Well, this just happens to be a good wine.”

I was shocked out of my reverie by the bald man’s throaty voice. I don’t think this was his first cigar.

“You sure you don’t have a light?”

I braced myself for his leap.

“I have a corkscrew, sir. Would that be of any help?”

The man frowned like an old dog unhappy with suddenly being awakened from a deep sleep. He thought a minute about how he might light a cigar with a corkscrew when suddenly it seemed to come to him.

“Does it have those crazy little scissors on the end like a Swiss pocket knife?”

“I’m afraid it does not, sir.”

“Damn.”

“All in all, it’s a poor tool for setting random objects on fire, sir, but it seems to serve adequately for opening things imprisoned by a cork.”

He paused, snuffling through his pockets for an invisible match, looking at me suspiciously out of one eye.

“What kind of waiter are you, son?

“The temporary kind, sir.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m from the winery, sir.”

“You wait tables at a winery?”

“Close enough.”

The little bald man pulled out his sunglasses and perched them crookedly on his warm and glowing head. Then, he began to pat himself down.

“Stay with it, son. You’ll catch on after a while.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Sultry Little Thing

Convinced, at last, that no match was to be had in the immediate vicinity, he began to swirl the wine vigorously, breathing deep through his magnificent nose, which was now in so deep he almost suffocated himself against the bottom of the glass. He emerged from the ordeal glassy eyed and confident again.

“Sultry little thing.”

I assumed he meant the wine.

“Filled with an insouciance that one seldom finds in so young a vintage.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A bit of petillance I detect?” (that’s French for little bubbles)

“I think that’s the soap, sir.”

“Soap?”

“They didn’t wash the glasses that well. It’s a hotel.”

“Soap?”

It was as if I had just told him his mother was his sister.

He sniffed again and rolled the wine in his mouth like a great ocean entering a vast cavern of arching rocks along the dark Monterrey shore. A sound like a cat drowning issued from his mouth.

“Soap? No, son, I don’t think so. Lavender, perhaps.”

“No doubt, sir.”

“Just a hit of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in the finish, I’d say.”

I opted for simplicity.

“That would be Champagne, sir. This is a red wine.”

“The hell you say.”

I couldn’t tell if he meant the champagne, or was just surprised to find he was drinking a red wine. He turned in a circle and looked intently in all directions before returning his gaze to me as if he had never seen me before in his life.

“Do you have a light, son?”

“No, sir.”

He had already started to leave my table and move on to a more agreeable setting when he stopped suddenly and looked back at me staring for what seemed like several minutes.

Then, he spoke.

“This just happens to be a good wine.”

“Yes, sir.”