I prefer flavor descriptions that are more generalized, i.e. red fruit vs. Oregon Bing Cherry, mostly because I think bulls*#@ when I see notes chalked full of really specific descriptions. The exception is when someone hits one specific flavor amongst an otherwise non-bloated note, especially if its unexpected. Otherwise tasting notes become a contest of who can find more flavors and dream up more adjectives.
I think complexity is key to a great wine. I also think its different in a younger wine than an old wine, and which is better is a matter of preference, availability notwithstanding. However, I think that some big wines that are meant to be drank and enjoyed young can shoot them selves in the foot seeking to be overly complex. There’s a line between complex and a jumbled mess, and it’s not always that fine.
I really like the notion in Keith’s post about that magical synergy, or as they put it, amplitude, of the various constituents. That is a kind of holy grail for flavor composition.
When I think of complexity it doesn’t necessarily mean several different flavors at various times, to me it usually means what I perceive to be called “layered”. Tones that are simultaneous but move in a wave-like fashion, with waxing and waning of various components. At first brush they seem to be together and it takes a while to peel them apart and figure it out. Seems to parallel the “amplitude” idea.
Yup. The key point here is that complexity is actually not a very difficult trait to manufacture. Start out with the grapes for your basic fruit flavors, maybe even blend a few if you want both red currants and blackberries!, use some designer yeasts to bring out some bacon or juniper-berry flavors or whatever else is promised, then put it in a nicely toasted oak barrel to add the “pain grille,” vanilla, cedar, cinnamon, and other spices. Voila, you’ve now taken the leap from one flavor to nine or ten, just look at all that complexity!
Keith, interesting points. First, I really like the point about coca-cola. The sum of all parts are perfectly balanced (as far as cola goes), resulting in a clearly complex beverage loaded with flavors. You can’t really pick out any one thing that dominates a coke (other than sugar). I think a truly complex wine falls into a similar parameter: When utterly complex, no one flavor or aroma dominates the wine. The flavors all work in unison to create a sum that is incredible. That is why over-oaked chardonnay isn’t necessarily “complex” to me, even if it has many underlying aromas or flavors. The oak dominates, and therefore minimizes, the rest of the notes. I think the key to true complexity is even expression of countless notes that work together to create a sum-of-all-parts that creates an incredible tasting experience. Sierra Carche wines may have a lot going on, but if the parts don’t work together, it doesn’t meet my definition of complex. Perhaps I should write “appears complex” instead of just complex.
I think the tasting note criticism goes a little too far though. When a wine that meets my definition of complexity truly shines, no one note dominates. A tasting note like, “Oak, black fruit, tannins, good” would not do any justice to the wine, nor would it delineate between wine A and wine B. As you have surely experienced, some wines just pour off layer after layer of notes in which you can identify various fruit notes, earth notes, wood notes, and smells that remind you of x or y. With a truly complex wine I don’t think you get an appearance of simplicity. You get an extended flash-mob of notes pouring out of the glass. Each note is different, but they all work together to create something truly interesting. I appreciate an effort to put that experience to paper. Not every wine has 10 different notes, but some sure as hell do. Just calling a wine amalgamated doesn’t specify anything particular about the experience. Attempting to identify the components of the amalgamated wine help to delineate styles, flavor profiles, etc. which can be helpful when buying wine. Someone might like to know the it is a bunch of berries and baking spices that make up the “integrated” wine, as opposed to iron, rust, green olive, pepper, and bacon. As I have said before, tasting notes really only have three purposes: (1) consumer aid; (2) sharing experience with others; (3) catalog personal tasting experience for future reference. Detail can be very helpful in all of those contexts.
For precision, I think of the great food that the chef Frédy Girardet produced. You can call it clarity, too. The flavors were all there, but each stood out and didn’t get in the way of the others and as a result were intensified in a harmonious and integrated fashion. As a result, he was able to take traditional and not especially complicated or original dishes and bring them to a new and previously unimagined level.
For purity, I would say that there is nothing negative that gets in the way, there is a pristine quality to what is in the wine.
Right, but here’s my point about tasting notes. Sure, sometimes a wine might have a number of distinct flavors that you can pick out and isolate, but just because they are identifiable doesn’t mean that they have anything to do with what makes the wine compelling. More often, it may be difficult or impossible to isolate the individual flavors; perhaps if you really put your mind to it some decriptions would come to mind, but in my experience those descriptions tend to be highly inaccurate. For example, how often has this happened to you: you’re tasting a wine and all you’re really thinking is, “Hm, nice pinot,” when some guy across the table exclaims something like, “I’m getting raspberries!” All of a sudden, you taste the wine and you think raspberries. Is it really in the wine or is it just the power of suggestion? Sometimes the former, sometimes the latter, but my key point is that it doesn’t make a difference, because whether it tastes like raspberries or cherries or a hypothetical blend of raspberries and cherries was pretty much irrelevant to what you found compelling about the wine in the first place.
If you’re saying Coca-Cola and Sierra Cache are complex, then you’ve never had a really great old Madeira or Burgundy. Complexity is like that definition of pornography; I can’t really describe it, but I know it when I see it.
To me ‘more necessary’ doesn’t make sense. Things are necessary or not and I’m not really into stack ranking them. I agree with Claude about purity and precision, but a wine with those characteristics but that’s simple and straightforward isn’t great to me - again ‘necessary, not sufficient.’ Likewise, if Keith is arguing that complexity = a laundry list of flavors poorly integrated it doesn’t strike me as profound, but a polemical . His article seems more an argument against a particular style of TNs.
[quote=“Rick Gregory”]
Note that I’ve nothing against straightforward wines… > but I don’t count them as great > and they’d better be priced like quaffers. A tasty Riesling, CdR, Pinot, etc that just goes down easy can rock, but those wines don’t make my cut for being considered great.
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The funny thing is, I think a lot of Cotes du Rhones and Rieslings have a lot of complexity. If they’re not great, it must be for some other reason – lack of depth, focus, structure, or whatever.
Thats the risk of general examples… I’ve had complex versions of those too. But my go to example, a $10 Cline Syrah, is so specific people aren’t likely to have had it. In most years it has nice, cool climate, pure fruit. But that’s it.
[quote=“Claude Kolm”]
For me, > you’ve first got to have purity and precision before complexity becomes a factor > in any positive way, perhaps in any way at all as I’m not really sure that you can have complexity without a certain degree of precision and purity. And there are many, many wines that can’t pass the P&P hurdle, even though they may be drinkable. And even once you get over the P&P hurdle, I may still value increased P&P more than increased complexity – it all depends on the individual wine, I suppose.
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I think I’m with you. Now all we have to do is define purity and precision. >
Again, I don’t see it as a ranked list. There are certain characteristics a wine needs to be great. It needs ALL of them and to rank order each doesn’t mean much. One can talk about where a wine falls if one is missing and it might be that a wine falls farther in Claude’s estimation if it’s missing purity and precision than if it’s missing complexity… but even that seems dicey to me since none of these characteristics are binary.
No, that’s not what we’re saying at all - Coke is a great recipe precisely because it doesn’t have the attributes that pass for complexity in winespeak. As for old Madeiras and Burgundies, some are complex, some aren’t, and the greats can be in either camp. For example, La Tache is a fundamentally complex terroir - there is always a multiplicity of stuff in it. Romanee-St.-Vivant I think is not at all complex in that sense; you can sum up the essential features in just a few words (fruit, five-spice, and satin - there, done) - but it is still a profound wine because its form is beautiful even though it’s not complicated.
To me ‘more necessary’ doesn’t make sense. Things are necessary or not and I’m not really into stack ranking them. I agree with Claude about purity and precision, but a wine with those characteristics but that’s simple and straightforward isn’t great to me - again ‘necessary, not sufficient.’ Likewise, if Keith is arguing that complexity = a laundry list of flavors poorly integrated it doesn’t strike me as profound, but a polemical . His article seems more an argument against a particular style of TNs. [/quote]
My logic professor rolls over in his grave at the thought of “more necessary.” How about “more essential”?
I think we have a fundamental disagreement here. If I am looking to buy a pinot noir of a certain style, I want to know if it is more raspberry and floral or cherry and cola. Both flavor profiles might be compelling, sure. But it absolutely matters which I am getting if I have a preference for one style over the other. And, as I said before, information is what tasting notes are about because they are really only used for the three reasons I stated above. There is no point in writing a tasting note that isn’t informative. Something that says “great structure, power, and finesse. Integrated and compelling,” doesn’t inform anyone about what the wine is actually like. Those notes are like saying “nice house.” Is it Victorian? Is it Tuscan? Does it have a pool? Hardwood and granite? Descriptive terms like cherries, raspberries, etc. help give a better idea of the sensory perceptions experienced when tasting a wine. I won’t get into the power of suggestion issue, other than to say that some things are phenols, which are more than a power of suggestion, and others are impressions, which lead to power of suggestion issues.
No, I’m not “conflating” anything. But I suppose I would take the view that nothing can be complex unless it’s also complicated, and that there is also virtue to be found in being simple and uncomplicated (and thus not complex). If you want to call that “conflating,” go ahead…
FWIW, American Heritage Dictionary definition of “complicated”: “Complex, intricate, and involved.”
which doesn’t mean that the two terms are identical.
and that there is also virtue to be found in being simple and uncomplicated (and thus not complex). If you want to call that “conflating,” go ahead…
Did I argue otherwise? Has anyone here argued that wines lacking complexity have no virtue? I’ll help you here… no, no one has made the argument. Several of us have made the argument that to achieve greatness we feel a wine has to have what we term complexity.
FWIW, American Heritage Dictionary definition of “complicated”: “> Complex, > intricate, and involved.”
Oh, well a dictionary defintion! GAME OVER! I mean, how can anyone argue against that??
Hmmm I’m not so sure about that. You can move towards infinity; there are no degrees to the target, just comparative rates at which you move towards it.
And I am arguing otherwise. A wine can be great without having what we term complexity. And quite a lot of what we term complexity can also be described as mere complicatedness.
. His article seems more an argument against a particular style of TNs.