Most wine geeks place importance on complexity in a wine, especially in more expensive bottles. A couple of weeks ago I drank a bottle of Syrah that was fairly simple and didn’t change much over time, but I found it delicious- the flavors it did have just did it for me.
The question is- how much importance do you place on complexity? Do you think a complex and ever changing wine is inherently better than one that is merely delicious?
Great question. Generally speaking, complexity is more important to me than big flavor, but when I started drinking wine it was the other way around.
It really depends on the situation. If I’m just having some wine while cleaning or doing nothing much, I’d prefer the yum factor. Other times, dinners/with other wine geeks/etc. I’d prefer the complexity and intellectually challenging wines.
Hmm the question kind of implies that complex wines don’t aren’t in themselves delicious and yummy which is something that I disagree with. All of the wines I love are complex wines… they’re also delicious. What they’re not is big. Bigness (darkness, chewniess etc) is overrated as a measure of quality. A big wine is… big. If that’s ALL it is I’m not impressed.
For me, it’s down to price and expectations. Occasionally I just want a well made wine of a given type and I have no intention to age it, intellectually pick it apart etc. Had a Loire CF the other day that was like this (need to get another bottle and write a TN…). Lovely stuff, very much had a yum factor, definitely interesting in that it wasn’t generic and had its own voice… but it mostly told its tale in the first glass. On the other hand, it was $15. If your Syrah was similar, I hear what you’re saying. But if your Syrah was $75, highly touted by critics but had one basic note… I’d be disappointed. There are too many well-made wines that deliver honest representations of the grape, vintage and land for that or less for me to pay significantly more and just get YUM.
This is also where knowledge helps… a wine can HAVE complexity but because we’re opening it very young not be showing all of what it ultimately can give. If you know that you’re doing that, your expectations are different than if it’s a decade old and should be at peak.
Some days I want classical, sometimes jazz and other days rock & roll in my wines.
In the wines I like, I prefer complex more often. I also expect yum to be part of that package.
If want just yum theres probbly a pizza or a bbq within 6 feet of me, and lots of merriment.
Interesting question.
Complexity is just another component of the wine… You don’t need complexity to make a great wine… but it does help.
Also, complexity doesn’t equate to interesting…
Kinda pulling together a number of points from other threads here, I think that a wine can be complex and yummy. On the other hand if we’re talking about one-note, big fruit versus complex, that varies for me by region, with complexity dominating head to head by a good margin. Traditionally I always shade towards great balance in a wine, but in some regions and varietals I’ve developed a taste for more fruit forward.
When I stated “merely delicious” I was implying that the complex wines were delicious too. Obviously complexity does not necessarily confer deliciousness, but one would hope it was yummy as well.
The syrah was about $20 with my industry discount, and it was actually from a Paso winery which I had never been to before because I heard the wines they made were crap, so my expectations were not high.
This is a timely thread and a very interesting topic. Last night, we had an '02 cab that we have had before and always enjoyed. It actually was a backup bottle because the one we originally opened was corked. Anyway, we only had time for a pop and pour, and while the wine was most definitely yummy - even “gulpable” a la Roy’s thread - it was not complex and didn’t evolve or change at all over the course of the evening. I still enjoyed it, but it left me wondering if at this point in my own personal wine evolution whether I need that something extra beyond just “it tasted great”. I think so.
I got a great deal on 2001 Torbreck Descendant a few years ago and bought a 6 pack. So every year I crack one open to see how it’s doing. This has always been a “yum” wine for me, but the last one I opened changed from a yum wine to a great complex wine. It was fantastic and proved to me that some Aussie’s are worthy of the high score that Parker gives them.
So I would much rather drink a complex wine than a yum wine.
I’m almost always enticed by complexity over yum factor. This is especially true at tastings when comparing multiple wines… the wine that makes me think is usually the wine that I keep going back to.
This is not a hard and fast rule in my book, but in general, a wine has to have complexity in order to exceed a 92 or 93ish rating from me. Yum factor only goes so far with me, and complexity is what boosts a wine into the stratosphere. Not saying some wine won’t defy this principle, but I haven’t really found it yet.
I don’t really think of them as mutually exclusive. But, for the sake of argument, I guess yum when I’m laid back, and complexity when I’m tipped back up.