“All the same” is clearly hyperbole, I’ll retract that. What I meant more is that once you exceed your personal threshold, the enjoyment drops enough that I don’t really look for nuance in the wine.
None of this is limited to Napa, not for me anyway. There are Rhones I don’t care for (Guigal being the poster child), Bordeaux I don’t care for (Pavie in the prime Parker years, or some of the riper 100% oak monsters). Even some Barolo, at least in earlier years when they went through a riper, heavier, more new oak phase, like Sandrone did.
I guess this is where this tangent originated: someone asserted that most Napa cult cabs all taste alike. I think someone then said, that’s because they’re too big and ripe, which hides the nuances underlying the wines. I don’t drink enough of those kinds of wines to have a strong opinion, though I do agree with the claim that bigger, riper wines become harder to distinguish from each other.
But also don’t agree that all of Napa falls into this category. I’ve tasted across Aaron Pott’s lineup of wines (his own), and there are remarkably clear differences between them all, with distinguishing characteristics that would be obvious to anyone with a half way evolved palate. Plenty of producers make lovely wines, if that is what someone wants to drink regularly.
Context does not matter for you because you are trained to ignore it. And, I agree that wine ratings would be less useful if they were influenced by things like what you just had for lunch.
I am making a different point… or perhaps offering a confession… that I often lack the focus required to completely ignore what I just ate or drank or to prevent a fun night from biasing up my ratings on the wines. Since the comments about MacDonald being big and oaky arose in the context of a wine dinner, I was sugesting that context may have played a role. But, I wasn’t there.
Sorry, putting words in my mouth, and no, I don’t think his wine is big. It’s not like Screaming Eagle or Harlan, which are wines largely of texture and mouthfeel.
What exactly are you trying to accomplish in this thread? You’ve taken it so far off the rails, and introduced wines that if put in a blind tasting of Napa Cabernets would stick out like a sore thumb.
Are there wines that do taste similar? Sure, it happens (and for what it’s worth, there are winemakers making the same wine from the same vineyard for two different clients). The quality level that the OP was talking about isn’t those wines that end up all tasting the same. Scarecrow and Harlan taste very different, and I can easily pick out the differences between the two.
You asked for a list of big wines. I did not provide it. Others repeated your request, so I provided it. Otherwise, to express my opinion regarding Napa Cabs. If the OP asked that this be a Napa Cab lovefest, I missed that.
We are talking past each other. Context impacts how I perceive wine, which impacts how I remember it, describe it to others, and any tasting notes that I write. Think of it as a source of noise if you want, but I don’t think I’m alone in being influenced at least on the margin by the context in which I consume wine.
I understand you. My point, which you fail to get is context is personal. While that context helps or hurts the wine, it’s only important to you personally. If your purpose of sharing your experience is simply sharing the experience, great.
A critic needs to impart to others what the wine in the glass is, so the potential consumer knows what he’s buying, or not, making context irrelevant.
Here is an example. I like to drink ice tea, but during 2020 I basically stopped drinking it. As a result, I became much more sensitive to tannins in red wines. That clouded my perception and almost certainly clouded the tasting notes that I keep for myself, relative to before or after. Had I posted a tasting note complaining about the tannins in a particular wine, this context might have been useful to people other than me.
P.S. My comments have largely been directed at everyday posters, not critics.
I think the market is worth watching closely. I’ve seen big drops in some of the most important wines (Screaming Eagle and Colgin). When do they rebound? Do they keep falling? What new wines join the fold? I know MacDonald and for the most part Kinsman have entered the conversation. I think it will take market recovery, but I’m curious if more wines join what I view as a very narrow scope of wines that maintain strong secondary market pricing.