There are several ways to slice and dice what matters among new release wines. My best advice is find a dependable bottle shop (hopefully with > 500 selections) where you can strike a rapport with one of the staff. Tell them what you are looking for; slutty malo chardonnay, Spanish Garnacha or First-growth BDX. Beyond that, consider this - be open to discovering the new stuff. Having worked in high-end retail, we bought heavily and sold out of wines before they were rated which built credibility. A good shop will help you navigate better than a sommelier or a critic simply because they are more accessible and have committed to having it on their shelf. Enjoyment of wine relies on consuming it within its optimal bandwidth which may be NOW, or 40 years hence. There are no clever hacks that I have come across over four decades in the business. You can read stats and tables all day and learn nothing about what you like. You will experience wines you don’t like but ultimately you build a map of where a wine falls in to your plans, it doesn’t need to mesh with any other person on the planet. There is always something new. You will hopefully be able to identify the sprinters apart from the marathoners. Be prepared to fail, you learn nothing from winning every day…
The caveat here is that it’s only true if there is some sort of meaningful continuity in winemaking practices. It would be easy to think of plenty of producers in France where the label, vineyards and grape varieties are the same, but where almost everything else has changed. In such circumstances, having formerly produced age-worthy wines is no guarantee of new releases’ longevity.
I agree on both points. I cannot think of a hack that works better than tract record. But, you have to make sure the winemaker has not changed, they haven’t hired Rolland, etc. For example, I would not really consider the track record of Figeac anymore because they changed a lot a few years ago. Wine may still age great, but I don’t consider them to have a track record anymore.
As much as anywhere, I think track record applies in California Cabernet, again with the same caveat. Certainly, wineries like Ridge (although with the caveat that a new generation has taken over the winemaking to a good extent), Chateau Montelena, Mount Eden, Dunn, Forman, Dominus, and a number of others are wineries with a proven track record for making wines that age well and for a very long time. One that I have taken a chance on over the last few years have been Cabernet from Stony Hill based on the long aging ability of their Chardonnays.
This is an interesting concept. So syrah would Not be an ‘Atlantic varietal’ but mencia would be? What about Listán negro, as it is grown surrounded by the Atlantic ocean? And I’m assuming anything grown near the Mediterranean Sea would also Not be included in your matrix?
Ask Jay and see what he says .
Markus,
I use ‘Atlantic varietals’ as shorthand for the red Bordeaux grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet France, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Carmenere. With Bierzo 150 miles from the Atlantic (Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras are a little closer), I don’t think I would call Mencia an ‘Atlantic’ grape. Syrah definitely not. I won’t speak to Listan negro, as I’ve never heard of it. But I find some Portuguese reds from indigenous varieties grown near the Atlantic seem to have at least something at least tangentially in common with the Bordeaux grapes.
Please don’t take any of this as hard and fast dicta.
Dan Kravitz
What gets me is how professional tasters can foresee the future of a wine that on release is tight, tannic, acidic etc. I opened a 2016 Barbaresco last night that is light to medium bodied, lots of tannin and very acidic with underlying powerful sweet red fruit and some noticeable oak. And this morning it is the same. I’d give this wine a low score for how it drinks right now, but I suspect this wine will be great in 10 years and who knows how long it will remain great before it declines. But a professional reviewer raves about this wine and gave it a 94. I’d give it around an 88 right now. But the reviewer gives it a high rating AND speaks about how great the wine is right now, but to me it isn’t great, yet.
Who was the reviewer? There are few published scores below the low 90s now, so 94 is almost in the ‘meh’ category. Your score might be more realistic.
Nebbiolo is particularly hard to taste young because it has such high tannin AND acid levels. That’s where experience comes in. And, even then, these wines can fool you. The same young nebbiolo can taste good one day and lousy the next – probably because the tannins and acids are so high. It’s a lot easier to judge with food (meat, or rich sauces), I find, because that counteracts both tannin and acid.
In judging young wines – nebbiolo included – what I look for is some combination of (a) correct aromas, (b) decent but not over- or underripe fruit, (c) sufficient concentration of fruit to balance the tannins and acids, (d) alcohol that isn’t too conspicuous. I’m suspicious of wines in a category that is known for aging (e.g., classified Bordeaux, Northern Rhone, nebbiolo) if they’re too accessible young. (In the case of nebbiolo, I’m leery of wines that show oak young. Too often it never integrates, and it can add wood tannins, which can be extra harsh.)
All of those criteria I apply based on decades of tasting, I’m afraid.
If you really want to pursue this, you should try to taste with other people who have more experience over some stretch of time – 10, 15 years or more. You can learn a lot about wine by tasting widely on your own, but at some point you hit a limit, and assessing young wines is a case in point. If you can taste young wines with knowledgeable people, you’ll get a sense of which wines they think have the most potential in the long term.
A case in point: There’s someone in a wine group of mine who’s in his 30s. He’s extremely knowledgeable, drinks lots of different wines (including old ones he’s bought on the secondary market), and is a good, critical taster who picks up on lots of nuances. But he consistently disses young reds (e.g., Northern Rhones, Burgundies, nebbiolo) that are very tannic and acidic. I don’t think he has much experience tasting the same wines young, when they’re tough, and seeing them evolve into something beautiful. I’m a lot older and often rank very highly (for potential) the wines he disses.
Am I always right? Absolutely not. But I’ve aged enough wine that I bought on release based on my gut sense of its potential to have a fair deal of confidence in my instincts. I’ve been right more than I’ve been wrong. I don’t think he’s been serious about wine long enough to have bought many wines on release and sampled them over time.
Thoughtful post John. I like what you said about how nebbiola is a hard varietal to judge when young (esp barbersco barolo but not necessarily Langhe) and you look for markers to be there when judging on release. I’ve only been collecting and storing whine for 10 years now so I’m just now getting to gain experience in how aged wine evolves in to something so fantastic, but was so tight on release. I love it.
Michael Franz. Winereviewonline.com.
I like his reviews from what I’ve read so far. Seems to know a lot of Piedmont wine. Doesn’t seem to be a point whore suckup. Produttori Barbaresco normale scores in the high 80’s low 90’s which seems honest to me.
The wine in question is Giuseppe Nada (Barbaresco) “Casot” 2016
Btw, when I first read the subject line of this thread, I assumed it was a derogatory reference to wine writers.
CellarTracker is probably the best hack. Look at past vintages of the wine, particularly vintages which seem more similar to the young one in question, and see what people are experiencing of that wine as it aged.
Of course, it’s not a guarantee of anything for a number of reasons (unreliability of the CT posters and posts, vintage variation, producer could be making the wine differently now than it did then, etc.), but as shortcuts go, it’s quite helpful.
My… feeling defensive today? 
Well, I was calling you out a little because in looking at geography you have reds wines grown right by the Atlantic ocean in Portugal and Spain. Listan Negra is grown in the Canary Islands and I wasn’t thinking of Bierzo when speaking of mencia, but more the plots throughout Galicia that are grown in inlets of the Atlantic. I’m glad you are not putting syrah in with that group, as I wouldn’t either!
Markus,
When I began drinking wine, red Bordeaux was the world standard. In fact, I almost named my business ‘The Red Bordeaux Wine Company’ because it was then over 90% of what I sold. I’m very glad I didn’t go there, it’s now about 1% of sales.
France was the unquestioned center of the world of wine. Bordeaux was Atlantic. Burgundy was Continental. Rhone, a very minor backwater, was Mediterranean. Nobody had ever heard of Hermitage and less than nobody had ever heard of Cote Rotie. Cornas was the maybe the name of a crater on Mars?
Rioja was Lopez de Heredia and Cune Monopole, and was for poor wine lovers. Sherry was for Ladies of a Certain Age who were rarely seen sober. That was Spain.
Chianti came in wicker flasks and was for people who knew nothing about wine. Barolo was a fringe bargain for a few weirdos who actually liked wine.
Port was for insufferably arrogant Limeys who you wanted to slap, or better yet slug.
California was for Californians, a different race if maybe not a different species.
Welcome to the '60s.
Dan Kravitz
Dan, oh, some of that sounds very familiar (remember Italian restaurants thinking they were fancy by having those straw-wrapped Chianti bottles used as candle holders)! But I can’t believe you actually sold Bordeaux, because I always think of you as a Rhone importer.
What producers did you use to bring in, if you don’t mind naming names?
Send me a bottle and my son and I will test it. Isn’t that what the thread title is all about?
This.
I tried the '16 Produttori and wished I hadn’t wasted a bottle. For me the '16 Nebbiolo Langhe is much better at this point. I’ve been loving the basic Nebbiolo bottlings from a number of good producers in '16-'18. If they succeed with those “lesser” wines, that bodes well for the higher levels in my experience. That approach works in other regions as well.
Some grapes can have more of an early look period. Pinot, even in Burgundy, can give you a nice early window to see what the fruit is like before it shuts down. That’s another thing to remember about the professionals; they are likely tasting in barrel, then again when the wine is at release, and they taste a lot of other wines from the region for comparison. They probably taste a producer’s wines in ever vintage. That’s very different than tasting a 4 year old Barbaresco and trying to predict what it will be like down the road.
Also, what exactly are you expecting to foresee? If you want to know if a wine is going to be 94 vs 96 points (whatever that means) in ten or twenty years, then I have no idea what would help with that. But if you’re simply wanting to know if the wine will be good down the road, I don’t think it’s that tough. Does there seem to be enough structure? Enough fruit? Does it seem too hot or lack acidity? Is it dilute or hollow? Does the fruit seem to have some focus or does it seem kind of anonymous? Those things should tell you most of what you need to know, accepting that it isn’t a very exact science.
Yeah I always wonder how reviewers can review wine that’s not supposed to be good for 20 years and tastes like crap now, and give it a high score .