New William Kelley mega-article on Bordeaux today

[Andy_Sc]

@Mark_Golodetz

No disrespect to Steve, but that is ridiculous. It is hard enough to taste a wine and score it for yourself. To try to extrapolate for somebody else’s palate, when you plainly hate it is plainly ludicrous. How can you possibly get it right when you are pretending you have someone else’s palate.

Agree. But the other way round is possible, in my opinion: you score it low but you add the disclaimer that fans of the style might judge it differntly (it’s hard to know for sure, when you don’t like the style).

[Chris_Seiber]

@R_Frankel

William isn’t focused exclusively on farming practices here, but it is a regular subject of his. I’d love to see a rating system so we consumers could have a simple way of understanding quality of farming. My preference would be something simple like

1: Heavy use of chemicals and machinery
2: Light use of chemicals and machinery, working towards organic/biodynamic
4: Fully organic/biodynamic

Any pro who came up with such a system would probably make something far more complex (100 point scale anyone?) but as a consumer this is all I need.

You forgot to include:

3. Profit

[Jim_F]

Not so sure about this. I have had some pretty ripe wines, e.g., napa cab, that I would not buy again becuse they were too ripe for me, but I could see where they could be objectively scored high……unless one thinks degree of ripeness can be a flaw in of itself. Or maybe a highly regarded wine from another region that just is not one’s cup of tea. In other words, you just don’t like it, good or bad.

[Jeff_Leve]

@William_Kelley

. I don’t really understand how people who loved e.g. 2009 and 2010 Troplong can also love 2019 and 2020. It begs the question as to whether they have broad taste, or no taste at all. For me, to credibly praise 2019 you need at some point candidly to address what was being made before.

Count me in as loving 2010 Troplong and 2019.

I also love …

COS and Montrose
Haut Brion and Smith Haut Lafite
Pichon and Pontet Canet
Cheval Blanc and Pavie
Clinet and Trotanoy
Lafleur and Bon Pasteur

Those are just random names of wines in divergent styles.

I’m not a one size fits all taster. I appreciate, enjoy and own a myriad of wine styles. But not all wines and styles. There are wines I don’t care for and my notes bear that out quite clearly on a consistent basis.

[William_Kelley]

Yes, that’s correct. It’s more of a thing than you’d think in Burgundy, too. Wild fermentations in Bordeaux are, it has to be said, strongly correlated with bretty wines. One of the first growths, for example, started inoculating in 2005 and has only had brett issues in two subsequent vintages. Of course, what you inoculate with and when are very important. This is of course a freighted subject for a lot of people and would make a very interesting and long article in its own right.

[William_Kelley]

It leaves me a bit incredulous, too. Wine criticism is probably the only branch of aesthetic criticism where actively not having taste is presented as a virtue. Imagine the music critic saying the concert was good because the instruments were in tune, or the architecture critic saying the house is beautiful because the roof doesn’t leak, or the film critic saying the film is good because the camera was in focus. And if it’s about context, imagine a restaurant critic saying the BigMac is as good as the dry aged Rubia Galena because both are equally well-executed in their different styles. I venture that I have pretty broad tastes, and I make a professional effort to hear what each and every style of wine has to say within a given region. But at some point one has to take a stance.

[RyanC]

This is an A+++ post, WK.

[Tom_DeBiase]

@William_Kelley

It leaves me a bit incredulous, too. Wine criticism is probably the only branch of aesthetic criticism where actively not having taste is presented as a virtue. Imagine the music critic saying the concert was good because the instruments were in tune, or the architecture critic saying the house is beautiful because the roof doesn’t leak, or the film critic saying the film is good because the camera was in focus. And if it’s about context, imagine a restaurant critic saying the BigMac is as good as the dry aged Rubia Galena because both are equally well-executed in their different styles. I venture that I have pretty broad tastes, and I make a professional effort to hear what each and every style of wine has to say within a given region. But at some point one has to take a stance.

About as good a post as one could write. Totally agree.

Tom

[Yule_Kim]

Your comments about the role of the critic reminded me of this article Roger Ebert wrote about the rules he followed for film criticism:

Advise the readers well. This does not involve informing them, “You’ll love this!” If I approached some guy in a restaurant and told him what he would love, I might get a breadbasket in the face. No, we must tell the readers what we ourselves love or hate. If we work for employers who think we should “like more movies like ordinary people like,” we should make a donation in his name to the Anti-Cruelty Society.

But also:

Provide a sense of the experience. No matter what your opinion, every review should give some idea of what the reader would experience in actually seeing the film. In other words, if it is a Pauly Shore comedy, there are people who like them, and they should be able to discover in your review if the new one is down to their usual standard.

For me, personally, (and I think William does a good job of this), it’s really valuable to know what a wine critic likes so I can get a sense whether her/his palate aligns with mine. BUT, if they can convey technical details or at least a vivid description of what the drinking experience is like (i.e., is oaky, acidic, fruity, etc.), there is still plenty of value for me; I can surmise whether I can enjoy the wine even if I know the critic has a very different palate from my own.

[Howard_Cooper]

@Mark_Golodetz

The debate centers around style and which paradigm you go for. I don’t think in a time of climate change, you can hope to compare the wines. For most of the twentieth century the objective was to bring alcohol levels up, and chaptalization was the norm. The challenge for todays winemaker is to make wines from ripe grapes without overdoing the alcohol. William’s brilliant analysis shows the problems and how the best estates solve them.

Ultimately I remain old school. Not only are the kinds of wine I love not easy to make, but the rewards for making them now do not justify the effort. The likes of Alfert and I are disappearing, and with good reason. The wines we love come from a different era, made by winemakers with long experience of making wines from Bordeaux barely sustainable climate. Three vintages per decade were good to great and two were semi disastrous. This is not a moneymaking model.

The learning on the job from father to son does not exist among the top estates (they do at a lower level). Fresh ideas, new techniques and most importantly of all, ripeness at a time of climate change have basically forced winemakers into making more modern styles.

Nor can we rule out the role of the critic. There is so much wrong with the modern scoring system, I am not sure where to start. The majority of critics have little formal training, in fact most trained as journalists rather than as wine people. They taste huge amounts of wine, so naturally it becomes more difficult at the end of each day to keep things straight, and score correctly after tasting fifty plus wines.

So fierce is the competition, that 95 point scores are thrown to the public like confetti, and the perfect 100 point score, once so rare, that it caused a frenzy, is now so ubiquitous that it inspires nothing more than a polite yawn. And that paradigm that happily accepts the modern paradigm only becomes self fulfilling.

It was interesting that Kelley whose palate I find reasonably close to mine, praised the 2021 vintage as hearkening back to the style of wine I enjoyed. I didn’t buy for three reasons.

1. They were too expensive
2. Although he is probably right I would love them, I doubt whether I will be around to enjoy them at maturity.
3. They are not of high enough quality to be investment wines.

So there you have it. Those wonderful low alcohol wines are unlikely to be produced again except under exceptional circumstances. They were produced in a bygone era for people who loved that racy style fashioned by people who learned their craft from their parents. The new buyer wants the high scoring wine and is not too worried by alcohol levels hovering at 14.5% plus, and the aging potential when the balance including acidity is just right. I feel lucky to have drunk the wines from these old days.

Mark,

Is the situation as dire as you present. As you said, in the older days, there were about 3 very good to great vintages in a decade. Same today - say 2014, 2016 and 2021. Only difference is the best ones used to be the ripest vintages and today you have to look deeper than that.

Similarly, when I started buying wine, there were a lot of producers making really lousy wines. So, there were a relative handful of producers making good wines. Now, more producers are many “modern” wines, but my guess is that just as many or more are making good, traditionally made wines as there were when you started drinking wines.

And, farming practices have improved and it seems like wines that Troplong-Mondot that have over the years made ink are now making excellent wines (I have not tasted any of these).

Seems to me that the only negative is that you and I are getting to old to buy Bordeaux that needs decades to mature.

[CFu]

@William_Kelley

It leaves me a bit incredulous, too. Wine criticism is probably the only branch of aesthetic criticism where actively not having taste is presented as a virtue. Imagine the music critic saying the concert was good because the instruments were in tune, or the architecture critic saying the house is beautiful because the roof doesn’t leak, or the film critic saying the film is good because the camera was in focus. And if it’s about context, imagine a restaurant critic saying the BigMac is as good as the dry aged Rubia Galena because both are equally well-executed in their different styles.

Finally @ToddFrench and @Robert.A.Jr can get off my back for not loving bordeaux

[Robert.A.Jr]

@CFu

@William_Kelley

It leaves me a bit incredulous, too. Wine criticism is probably the only branch of aesthetic criticism where actively not having taste is presented as a virtue. Imagine the music critic saying the concert was good because the instruments were in tune, or the architecture critic saying the house is beautiful because the roof doesn’t leak, or the film critic saying the film is good because the camera was in focus. And if it’s about context, imagine a restaurant critic saying the BigMac is as good as the dry aged Rubia Galena because both are equally well-executed in their different styles.

Finally @ToddFrench and @Robert.A.Jr can get off my back for not loving bordeaux

Never! Cause we know you diss Bordeaux for the cool factor!!!

[Howard_Cooper]

@Charlie_Carnes

This is, without a doubt, why I was so turned off by wine criticism. One could not love both styles, and purely objective criticism, is hard to believe…

What good does objective criticism do? I don’t care how good “objectively” a wine is. I only care how much I will like it. IMHO, the way to approach a wine critic is first to determine how much his tastes align with yours.

[Howard_Cooper]

@Mark_Golodetz

@David_Bu3ker

It wasn’t a Bordeaux, but I still vividly recall Steve Tanzer using the words “for fans of this style” in reviews where he gave some very good scores. Made it clear that he thought the wine was not his cup of tea, but not objectively flawed.

No disrespect to Steve, but that is ridiculous. It is hard enough to taste a wine and score it for yourself. To try to extrapolate for somebody else’s palate, when you plainly hate it is plainly ludicrous. How can you possibly get it right when you are pretending you have someone else’s palate.

I agree, but isn’t this what a wine retailer has to do every day? It is a reason I would not make a good wine retailer, but my father was, and he could find people wines they would like that he did not like.

[Charlie_Carnes]

I think I put my, in a bad place, because I do not like objective criticism that’s exactly what I was trying to say

[Howard_Cooper]

@Jeff_Leve

@William_Kelley

. I don’t really understand how people who loved e.g. 2009 and 2010 Troplong can also love 2019 and 2020. It begs the question as to whether they have broad taste, or no taste at all. For me, to credibly praise 2019 you need at some point candidly to address what was being made before.

Count me in as loving 2010 Troplong and 2019.

I also love …

COS and Montrose
Haut Brion and Smith Haut Lafite
Pichon and Pontet Canet
Cheval Blanc and Pavie
Clinet and Trotanoy
Lafleur and Bon Pasteur

Those are just random names of wines in divergent styles.

I’m not a one size fits all taster. I appreciate, enjoy and own a myriad of wine styles. But not all wines and styles. There are wines I don’t care for and my notes bear that out quite clearly on a consistent basis.

I really believe that your comments are correct for you, but, frankly, that makes your scores and reviews virtually useless to me.

[Howard_Cooper]

@CFu

@William_Kelley

It leaves me a bit incredulous, too. Wine criticism is probably the only branch of aesthetic criticism where actively not having taste is presented as a virtue. Imagine the music critic saying the concert was good because the instruments were in tune, or the architecture critic saying the house is beautiful because the roof doesn’t leak, or the film critic saying the film is good because the camera was in focus. And if it’s about context, imagine a restaurant critic saying the BigMac is as good as the dry aged Rubia Galena because both are equally well-executed in their different styles.

Finally @ToddFrench and @Robert.A.Jr can get off my back for not loving bordeaux

Don’t know. I don’t see myself ever getting off Alfert’s or Leve’s back because they don’t get Burgundy.

[Charlie_Carnes]

Well, I cannot speak for Jeff but I know Alfert appreciates good Burgundy if I open it for him

[Jeff_Leve]

@Howard_Cooper

@Jeff_Leve

@William_Kelley

. I don’t really understand how people who loved e.g. 2009 and 2010 Troplong can also love 2019 and 2020. It begs the question as to whether they have broad taste, or no taste at all. For me, to credibly praise 2019 you need at some point candidly to address what was being made before.

Count me in as loving 2010 Troplong and 2019.

I also love …

COS and Montrose
Haut Brion and Smith Haut Lafite
Pichon and Pontet Canet
Cheval Blanc and Pavie
Clinet and Trotanoy
Lafleur and Bon Pasteur

Those are just random names of wines in divergent styles.

I’m not a one size fits all taster. I appreciate, enjoy and own a myriad of wine styles. But not all wines and styles. There are wines I don’t care for and my notes bear that out quite clearly on a consistent basis.

I really believe that your comments are correct for you, but, frankly, that makes your scores and reviews virtually useless to me.

My notes clearly and concisely describe the wines I taste. I am quite consistent on what I like or not. That’s all you should need to know to tell you to buy or avoid .

[Matti_Virtanen]

Thought your article was fantastic, but have to object slightly here…

I’m professionally involved in music criticism and it is indeed very important to be able to distinguish ability and interpretation to some extent (of course they can never be fully separated). If you disagree with someone’s idea of a piece of music, you still cannot ignore their brilliant mastery of the instrument for example.

I would imagine a writer could appreciate a well written article, even if they don’t accept the final argument. Use of language and reasoning could still be on a high level as independent virtues.

A much more fitting food comparison would be two pieces of that expensive meat prepared in completely different ways, let’s say one by Paul Bocuse and the other by René Rezdepi. Is a food critic not allowed to like both? A Big Mac is simply a low quality industrial product.

If as a food critic you don’t like a certain spice, do you trash every chef that uses it in a dish? Unfortunately that’s often how I feel about John Gilman’s wine reviews when he rates some perfectly fine grand cru Bordeaux wine 74 points, if it displays slightly too much ripeness for his taste.

I have not tasted Troplong Mondot’s different versions and might very well agree with your assessment. But I don’t see why it would be wrong in principle for someone to enjoy different interpretations of the same material, just like we do in classical music.