“You really aren’t looking for wine reviews after all. You’re looking for validation and your petty attacks on John because he awarded a wine a shocking low score are pretty damn ridiculous.”
Word.
Trust your palate, people-John Gilman does.
Roberto - wouldn’t you be calling that the latest groundbreaking sounds from Brazil?
Not in the least. Miles had to reach out to Hermeto Pascoal and Airto Moreira to get where he go to in the Bitches Brew era. They were already there…
He did not like the wine. He scored it so. He explained himself pretty well in his review. The tasting was blind.
Case closed.
Too often, I see notes like, this wine sucked…86 points.
worthless.
I just caught up on the other board.
Did Gary York imply that Scavino’s wines are not oaked heavily?
OMG!
I have now read all of the review and I think this guy is my new favorite English language wine critic. He tells in detail EXACTLY why he gives the scores and I agree with him on all of it. Especially “this wine does not even taste of nebbiolo, let alone Barolo. Ugh!”. A real straight shooter who doesn’t let previous reputation color his views. Where have I heard before that that is a good idea?
Roberto
We should all appreciate a guy that pulls no punches and a guy who justifies his reviews.
People questioning him have not read the reviews, nor do they care to know the critic in question. But they defend critics who lie about how they taste wines, who they go on vacations with and who pays for their meals and wine trips. Gimme a break.
Sorry, not a bash against the critics, but against those breaking John’s balls without knowing the facts.
I will take the honest critic, thank you.
I would be happy to send anyone the newsletter with the 1998 Piemonte feature if they do not want to go to Cellar Tracker and sign up and read the article there. The wines that scored very low for me at that tasting scored low because I found them technically flawed to the point where they no longer provide any enjoyment now and will most likely continue to dry up further because of their excessive and uncovered wood tannins. As I noted with the Clerico Ginestra '98, aromatically the wine was very promising- marked by its new wood but not out of balance and with great, classic Barolo elements going on in synch with the wood- black cherries, licorice, road tar, lovely soil tones- this was good Barolo on the nose and I had no issue with its new oaky aromatics. But on the palate the wine was screamingly dry and astringent to my tastes- with the wood sloppily applied and searingly dry from the mid-palate back. To my palate, it was so astringent and bitter that I could not spit it out fast enough.
Similarly, with the '98 Sandrone Cannubi Boschis, I scored it even lower as I could not even find any signature nebbiolo or Barolo aromatics or flavors- scents of charred marshmallows, rotting cherries, muddy soil tones and oak resin are not elements that I equate with Barolo. Granted, we all knew this was a 1998 Piemonte tasting, so even though the wines were served blind, we were all looking for nebbiolo signature attributes. But as I mentioned in the tasting note, I had been served a bottle of the '98 Cannubi Boschis a couple of years previously (double blind in that instance) and the wine had shown somewhat better and was scored higher as a result. But this most recent bottle to my mind it was beginning to really slide into decline and had gone past the point where it will deliver any drinking pleasure and was on its way to the grave. And to my mind, its problems were clearly problems generated in the cellars (I see no reason not to give the Sandrones the benefit of the doubt and assume that they used nebbiolo to make the wine, and then somehow contorted it so out of shape through the use of roto-fermenters or cultured yeasts or extraction enzymes or raw new oak or micro-oxygenation or all of the above), that is why the wine scored so low.
Some folks are under the impression that I do not like new oak in my wines, and that is simply not the case. There are tons of 100% new oak wines that I love and have loved over the years- Henri Jayer, Domaine Dujac, Domaine Rousseau’s top bottlings, Chateau Figeac, DRC, La Mouline (pre-1995), Chave’s Cuvee Cathelin, Le Pin etc, but what I always believe is that new oak is a very difficult vessel to use successfully, and these days for every producer who can handle the wood well, there are scores who botch up their wines with the oak. Why is it that Jacques and Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac (to simply cite one obvious example) can use a very high percentage of new wood and have their wines age brilliantly, whereas so many other Burgundy producers using the same amount of new wood make wines that implode with bottle age? Because it is really hard to use it well and not damage the wines’ ability to age. And this is especially important in less well-endowed vintages like 1998 in Piemonte.
In the realm of modern Barolo, I started out as a fan of the genre in general, as IME, most of the modernists really got going with their new style in the 1982 vintage. As an example, I liked and cellared Elio Altare’s Barolo bottlings from 1982, 1985, 1988 and 1989 and really liked them- though I think that over time it became pretty apparent that the wines would have aged even more gracefully with less new wood, as the oak element tended to “pinch” the wines on the palate a bit as they aged. But they developed lovely secondary elements on both the nose and palate, smelled of Barolo framed with new wood, and were quite enjoyable in their idiom. Likewise, I have cellared and/or drunk Sandrone’s Cannubi Boschis in 1978, 1982, 1985, 1988, 1989 and 1990, and really liked in particular the '82 and '85. Again, these were new oaky Baroli- but they were Barolo. In contrast, the 1978 Sandrone, which was made in a much more traditional style, was not as good as the '82 or '85 IMO, and I much preferred his “modernista” styled wines from these later vintages of the '80s to his slightly rustic '78.
But neither of these producers have stood still, and they have changed markedly the style of their wines in the last decade from the wines they released in the mid-1980s, and these changes need to be commented on. It is my strong perception that producers like Sandrone and Altare are sometimes given a free pass today precisely because their wines from vintages such as 1982 and 1985 were so good- as if their success in the past is in some way a good barometer of how these now remarkably different young wines from these producers will evolve with bottle age. Now I have never visited either Altare or Sandrone, so I cannot tell you what may or may not have changed in their cellar regimen say between 1985 and 1998, but I have tasted both eras in their respective youths and with bottle age, and I can tell you that they have unequivocally changed over this period of time. The wood is much stronger in the wines in the mid to late '90s, and the wood tannins are not covered and integrated into the body of the wines the way they were in the mid-'80s. In addition, the Sandrone wines today do not share the same classic Barolo flavors they had in '82 or '89- the fruit is markedly different and the signature of soil has vanished in the new vintages. If someone tells you differently they have simply forgotten how the wines tasted back then (or never had those vintages)- as the differences are striking.
Now some people may of course love these new styles, and I am happy if they have the wines in their cellars and can enjoy them. My job is simply to observe the positive or negative attributes I find in the wines and report on them as accurately as my abilities will allow- this is what my subscribers pay for my newsletter for in the first place. Taste is subjective, and we should all make sure we drink wines that we like. But liking the new style is one thing and reviewing the wines without commenting on the new style is another matter. The styles of the wines at Sandrone and Altare (just to use a couple of examples) are dynamic and constantly evolving (as they should be- one would not want them to stand pat- but we can differ as to whether their changes are for better or worse), but it seems to me that a lot of their press coverage has built up this inertia that judges the wines in the cellars here year in and year out seemingly based on the reputation of the vintage in Piemonte, without mentioning that “gee, the 1996 Sandrone does not taste a whole lot like the 1982 did at a similar age.” And if one dares to question the new style- both as a genuine expression of Barolo and its potential for positive evolution in the cellar- then one must have some sort of personal vendetta for the producers, because everyone else wrote such nice things about the wines.
Just for the record, I did not score the 1998 Cannubi Boschis from Sandrone 56 points- I scored wine number 8 or whatever it was at the tasting 56 points- it just happened to be that when the foil came off it was a Sandrone. Similarly, as a blind tasting recently of '96 Barolo and Barbaresco, wine number 11 turned out to be the '96 Sandrone Cannubi Boschis- which happened to show better than the last three bottles I had of the wine. So I will score the wine higher in the next note I publish for the wine, because it showed better- rather than leaving my score the same because I had already scored the wine previously and now have a history with it. I guess I just forgot to pack my inertia when I hit the road…
Best,
John
John
Great post.
Your honest perspective should earn you more subscribers, not more bashings of your tasting notes.
It is not the palate that concerns me, it is the integrity of the wine critic.
The fact that you do not hide or rush anything under the rug or pull punches, speaks volumes about who you are, in my opinion.
John,
I agree with you that the excessive use of new oak in late '90s Barolo has proven to be largely unsuccessful with age. What is your take on the more recent (toned down) efforts?
The bottle I had of the 98 Sandrone Cannubi over Labor Day weekend simply didn’t taste like what John mentions. I’m at a loss to figure that out - aside from bottle variation or a damaged wine in John’s case. It just wasn’t a 56 point wine. Definitely more open on the nose and generic on the palate, but simply not a DNPIM wine or one that I couldn’t wait to spit out. I guess I’ll have to chalk this up to different bottles.
Congratulations John!
Your post was perfect, explaining your POV yet without being defensive at all. A class act.
Tasting blind is tough and all you can do is go with your palate, experience and gut. Nice job!
If people take issue with this, pay no attention. ![[welldone.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/fc9709a841aa9379fd892a9cf0b535b05f473b86.gif "[welldone.gif]"){kind=small}
I know that’s not easy, but I hope you can turn away and know that you stuck to your guns. Integrity … priceless.
John,
Thanks for the detailed analysis. I especially appreciate your efforts to review wines with some bottle age. Also, I appreciate your thoughts re how barolo styles have evolved (for better or worse). More of this type of multi-vintage meta (?) criticism would be very helpful in trying to evaluate potential purchases, especially as prices continue skyward.
Wait, John, aren’t you just a nutter who’s looking for attention? You mean, you actually thought about the wines? Ha! Nah, excellent post. Most enlightening. I don’t know how people can’t appreciate something that’s been legitimately thought through, even if they disagree with it. I don’t know if I’d agree with your ratings, but I appreciate the perspective.
Wow, the mad rush to salute John for his well-reasoned TNs and integrity misses at least my entire point - I don’t have a problem with someone scoring a wine 56 or 68 points if that what they honestly feel. My problem all along has been with the amazing disparity between John & Greg on these same wines - as I said before, in three instances the scoring was more than 20 points apart. At least IMO, that differential exceeds any reasonable bounds of potential subjectivity.
In other words, given that they both sampled the same wines on the same night from the same bottles and managed to come up with an AVERAGE scoring diversity of 15 points, one of them got it wrong.
You guys can now continue to salute John’s amazing integrity.
Obviously they have different palates and likely use the 100 pt scale differently. Practically speaking, does it matter if a wine scores 85 or 58 if it costs a$100/bottle? You know that the reviewer didn’t like the wine much, certainly not enough to make a blind purchase. Don’t you need to know how reviewers assign point scores before making a conclusion that the differential “exceeds any reasonable bounds of potential subjectivity”? Your underlying assumption is possibly flawed. Maybe John and Greg can tell us how they assign points and lay your uneasiness to rest?
I’d agree with Sam.
The usual folks who always defend the WA and its critics were the ones out in force crying about it.
Most free-thinking wine drinkers would at least appreciate the fact that it’s just an honest report - unlike a Jay Miller junket. 
It could have nothing to do with “any reasonable bounds of potential subjectivity” at all. It could have everything to do with how a particular critic treats the 100-point scale. People just aren’t used to seeing scores that low for any wine, no matter how crappy. In practice, the RP version of his scale operates 85-100. I’d like to see stats on what percentage of wines actually score below 80 points. I’m not trying to belittle your point, Bob, but it also could simply be that John and Greg view the 100-point scale different and how much of it you use. The scores might “exceed any reasonable bounds of potential subjectivity” but do the notes themselves? Can Person A really love a wine and have it be a life-changing moment while Person B spits it out after a sip? Of course.
Mo, I don’t think so. For the record, I don’t follow Gilman and have never drunk with him, so other than the fact that I’ve seen him review various Giacosa wines, and therefore am presuming that based upon the content of those previous notes he has an understanding of Barolo, I don’t know anything about his reviewing style or his use of the 100 point scale.
However, I am very familiar with Greg’s take on Barolo. I would describe Greg as a conservative reviewer (for example, all things being equal, I would generally expect him to award fewer points for a particular bottle of Italian wine than Antonio Galloni does) who has an affinity for traditionally made Barolo. I would not necessarily describe Greg as an oakaphobe or as being unduly biased regarding modernist interpretations, although I again know generally that he will rate a wine by Altare or Scavino lower than I tend to. In other words, while Greg’s and my palate’s are not necessarily in accord all the time, I feel that I know what he likes well enough to put his scores/notes into a context that will calibrate to my palate.
Now given the way I’ve described Greg’s palate, along with the fact that he has a voluminous knowledge of Barolo, I can tell you that if Greg gave a wine 89 points (which he did to the Clerico), he liked it quite a bit, and this is a wine I would enjoy. As I’ve already mentioned, John gave this very same wine 68 points. Now to your point, if somehow on John’s rating scale, one that I have already conceded I am unfamilar with, a 68 point score equates to the descriptive “this is a nice wine that I would like to drink”, then I retract all my previous comments about my opinion that two knowledgeable tasters of a particular wine could not have a point difference of 21 points unless one of them “got it wrong”.
On the other hand, if 68 John Gilman points means “Do Not Put in Mouth” or something similar, then I maintain that on this night with these wines, one of these two gentlemen was wrong in his assessment of the wines.
I guess the best analogy I can come up with is with respect to Australian wines and my own palate. The easiest way I can describe my opinion of virtually every Aussie wine I’ve ever tried is that they categorically suck. Because of that inherent bias, I would never bother to post my opinion of an Australian wine via a TN. That doesn’t necessarily invalidate my opinion of the wine, but it does tend to recognize the fact that for whatever reason my palate will be unable to communicate any reasonable/usable information for that particular type of wine to the reader of the tasting note.
It could have nothing to do with “any reasonable bounds of potential subjectivity” at all. It could have everything to do with how a particular critic treats the 100-point scale. People just aren’t used to seeing scores that low for any wine, no matter how crappy. In practice, the RP version of his scale operates 85-100. I’d like to see stats on what percentage of wines actually score below 80 points. I’m not trying to belittle your point, Bob, but it also could simply be that John and Greg view the 100-point scale different and how much of it you use. The scores might “exceed any reasonable bounds of potential subjectivity” but do the notes themselves? Can Person A really love a wine and have it be a life-changing moment while Person B spits it out after a sip? Of course.
Can we stop creating fictional explanations out of whole cloth? Please?
Sure, maybe Gilman is using a very different interpretation of the 100 point scale, but where does HE say that? If he doesn’t I think we need to do what every other reader will and suppose that his use of the scale conforms pretty closely to the common usage.
There are explanations of how Parker defines the point scale (hint: read the thread, look for my first comment) and the Wine Spectator uses it similarly - http://www.winespectator.com/display/show/id/scoring-scale" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . In neither system are 56 or 68 remotely drinkable wines and, like it or not, the definitions used by Parker and the WS are pretty much the common ones if only because of their popularity. So, unless John uses this VERY differently than the above folks, Bob H’s point stands. If he does do that, he should note it very prominently to avoid the very issue you raise.
In neither scale is 56 or 68 even remotely drinkable. So let’s not veer off into the ‘well maybe Gilman has some unique interpretation of the 100 point scale’ unless you’ve got support for that one.