Wine Critics or Judging the Critics

00:00:00: [Music]

00:00:15: Hello everyone, thanks for joining us this week for just another wine podcast. I'm Emily Harman.

00:00:21: I'm Doug Greg, I think there's a very husky voice you've got there by the way.

00:00:24: Sexy radio voice. Yes. I'm Jamie Good. I was going to ask who you were sitting at the end of the day.

00:00:31: Was that sexy too? Was that sexy? So what we're going to talk about today, we're going to about

00:00:38: talk about wine critics and wine criticism. Do we know any Jamie? Yeah do we know anybody that

00:00:43: rates any wine at the table here? Yeah I rate wines. I don't know if I describe myself as a wine critic.

00:00:48: Tell us. I do write. Maybe how do we define a wine critic? Well I think maybe you're right,

00:00:55: I am one, but it's like what we have now in the world of wine is we have people doing different

00:01:01: jobs. So some people write articles, some people write articles and then rate wines and

00:01:10: give them points and everything as well as writing the articles. And then there's other people who

00:01:15: kind of their main job is to go to a wine region or to sit in an office in New York and kind of

00:01:20: score all the wines from a particular region and their job is to produce lots and lots of

00:01:26: notes on wines with scores. Sounds a bit like wine judging which I think falls into your repertoire.

00:01:31: Yes that's that's yes I do do wine judging yes. Is there critical orthodoxy per chance?

00:01:38: No no I think that basically what we're trying to say is there is there is now a profession

00:01:43: which is a wine critic. So I think Robert Parker was kind of one of the first ones. He kind of

00:01:48: established the field I think where he made a viable business of going out there tasting lots

00:01:55: of wines, rating them, giving them a short note for each and then publishing this sort of like for

00:02:01: the benefit of consumers. And in some ways what he did was was admirable because you know not many

00:02:07: other people were doing that. People wanted to know you know of all these many thousands of wines

00:02:12: out there which ones should we be buying and because you know it's quite an investment buying

00:02:16: them. So it's like you might think there's all these wines it's very confusing. I would like to

00:02:20: know which ones that an independent critic thinks the best and so that was the basis of the wine

00:02:28: advocate was Robert Parker's you know unbiased views his ratings and scores and then you know

00:02:37: for the benefit of the people who bought his newsletter the consumer. But were they not also

00:02:42: buying his palette because I suppose his interpretation or what he liked might be

00:02:48: considered different to I don't know the classic English or European palette that he might value

00:02:55: qualities in the wine. I don't know some sort of opulence shall we say that maybe another critic

00:03:03: from another country might find obvious and vulgar. Yes I think that's just generalizing here. I think

00:03:09: that's the case you know that when you follow a critic especially one with strong opinions

00:03:16: therefore you're buying into their their kind of view on which wine's the best wines. And

00:03:23: basically going back to what I was saying I think that what he established is there is

00:03:26: there is a need for this sort of you know rating of wines and many other people came in his wake

00:03:34: and at one stage I think he found that he couldn't do the whole wine world so he started recruiting

00:03:38: other critics to work with him. One was Burgundy was an area where he didn't do very well he wasn't

00:03:46: liked in Burgundy very much I think you know that he had a I think that Faveley had a lawsuit

00:03:52: against him at one stage that he lost. And so he hired Pierre Rivani to work with him in Burgundy

00:04:00: and then he hired other people like Jay Miller to work with him in other areas. And so the wine

00:04:06: advocate became then a critic publication where there was a bunch of critics and now you've got

00:04:10: quite a few of these so you've got I guess the Golognes publication which has a team of critics

00:04:20: you've got the wine advocate it's got team critics Parker's no longer involved. Then you've got

00:04:26: Sutton's got a team of critics working with him and there are more I'm sure of these these obviously

00:04:34: Wine Spectator as a magazine has a bunch of critics who review wines. I mean he counted us too.

00:04:38: Yeah they do that now as well. It seems like the genesis in her minions go around tasting

00:04:45: lots and lots of wines that it seems like they want to get lots of you know they've this they

00:04:49: seem to value these publications a professional tasting note. Yeah but the issue can be I think

00:04:56: that as Doug said is that you know everyone has their own particular take you know there's not

00:05:01: such there's not one correct take of a wine. This is my viewpoint there's not one there's not like

00:05:08: if you were all equally highly skilled you wouldn't necessarily agree on the same wine you could be

00:05:14: equally competent equally sensitive to wines equally experienced equally you know well maybe

00:05:20: you're never going to be equally in any of like in all that but even you were I don't think you'd

00:05:24: necessarily come to the same conclusions on wines. So whether critic publication where you've got seven

00:05:28: eight critics it's almost like you say well I like these three because I think they they

00:05:32: tally with my palate but these four I'm not so sure. But how useful is criticism anyway given

00:05:39: that like I would say that wine is quite a sort of living mutating thing and that wines taste

00:05:45: differently on different days and people taste differently on different days and there's different

00:05:49: atmospheric conditions. When your parkers or whoever are reviewing a particular let's say

00:05:56: Bordeaux estate are they tasting it blind are they tasting objectively do they know the reputation

00:06:01: of the estate are they looking for things in the wine how are they evaluating and equally when a

00:06:07: mark is appended to wine is that wine only been tasted once at that snapshot moment it's a 17 out

00:06:15: of 20 or a 95 out of 100 or has the critic in question the taster gone back and tasted it over

00:06:23: the course of two or three days with so much wine around I would say that would be almost

00:06:27: physically impossible but I stand to be corrected. I don't think they do that and I

00:06:32: actually want to segue in a little bit on an article that you wrote I shared it on LinkedIn

00:06:36: actually where you spoke about wine writers and critics judges having access to prestige cuvet

00:06:47: premium farm wines that are incredibly rare and getting let's say let's say it's the Romani Conti

00:06:54: on premier tasting or something like that these are bottles that most people can't afford

00:06:59: so having an opportunity to taste them you said writing a bad review of a wine like that

00:07:07: will probably result in you not being invited back or a writer not being invited back so most

00:07:16: people probably make the smart move of just giving it a good score. I think there are probably better

00:07:23: examples like the DRC. I'm not using DRC but I'm just saying generally when you taste them

00:07:28: quite they're really really good but I'm just saying like somebody a notorious producer or a

00:07:34: producer that has no this is a good point because I think the great example would be like for instance

00:07:38: with champagne so if you're hired to do the if you're hired as a the champagne expert for a

00:07:45: critic publication or a magazine like Tecanta or Wine Spectator yeah and you go into Bollinger and

00:07:52: then you're like these are all awful they're not going to be like please come back. Two reasons yeah

00:07:56: one you if you if you give really bad reviews to really expensive prestige cuvet first of all

00:08:01: you will not be invited there was a chance I'm not saying you won't be I'm not saying I want to

00:08:05: be indicative but there is a chance that you might not be first on the list next time and to do your

00:08:10: job for that publication you need to taste those wines you can't afford to buy them the publication

00:08:13: can't afford to buy them so this kind of mutes you a little bit the second thing is if you say bad

00:08:18: things about those cuvets then everyone else in the world thinks they're great then that would put

00:08:22: your credibility under question as well so there's a very strong pressure in the system for those people

00:08:28: who you know are acting as critics to to just play the game stay in line you know maybe these

00:08:35: wines often these wines are really good but you kind of you want to hype them a bit and say they're

00:08:40: really really good because you know it's like grain right so Penfolds do these taste things and it's

00:08:47: you know if you're if you're covering Australia you need to be able to try these wines and it's

00:08:53: very very difficult to not give a really high score for these wines or to be ambivalent towards them

00:09:00: because everyone else is really hyped up about these wines and you know it's just like why bother

00:09:08: even tasting them why not just give them a high score and not bother tasting them because you

00:09:11: can't really say anything bad if you thought the wines weren't bad you couldn't say anything bad

00:09:15: and nobody cares about your score in terms of the wine cell anyway so it's almost like it's a

00:09:20: it's a futile game and I think there are lots of examples like this in the world of wine where

00:09:25: do we really need as critics to taste those wines I mean I was at a tasting today a cricket

00:09:31: around and I tried a Barolo and I looked at the note because I tasted it and I was like Jesus

00:09:38: this wine it's shockingly bad it tasted like an ashtray and in all the unpleasant ways a wine

00:09:44: could taste like an ashtray it was awful and I'm a big Nebbiolo fan and I looked under there and it

00:09:50: was like canter world wine awards gold medal and I was just like who the hell is Judd and of course

00:09:56: I'm not gonna sit on here and shit bag a whoever was on that judging panel but it was a terrible

00:10:04: wine like it really it for me it didn't even taste like Nebbiolo it was really disappointing and

00:10:09: you know I think time and time again I've been in that situation where I see these titles next to

00:10:16: certain bottles and I think I don't understand this right and it's not it can't be that the world's

00:10:24: completely upside down and it's all down to my personal preference being radically different it's

00:10:28: it's most of the time so I wonder does that also play into like the wines that get sent in the

00:10:34: producers that pay to play in that game you know like with getting those bottles and sure this is

00:10:39: true and actually Jamie would be a much better person to sort of observe here because you know

00:10:46: he's involved in obviously heavily involved in in wine awards ceremonies and judging but my

00:10:53: limited experience being years ago invited on to canter panels is the human dynamic it's really

00:11:00: interesting so if you taste with sommeliers and I was usually paired on a panel with you know

00:11:06: paired with four sommeliers there are three sommeliers and me we tend to calibrate our palates

00:11:12: we don't want to find the beauty in things if there's no beauty we want at the end to be able to

00:11:17: recommend a wine to a customer and say this is delicious I would have it on my wine list

00:11:23: I would recommend that you buy this wine and very rarely did we find wines which reached that level

00:11:30: even of competence what we found was wines which were okay and I'm sure on other if another panel

00:11:39: had tasted those wines they might well have been giving the medals but as soon as we're in the mindset

00:11:44: of saying like we will reward good wines great wines we will not reward mediocrity

00:11:51: our panel was judged as an outlier panel other panels were giving golds and silvers like they

00:11:58: you know the currency was going out of fashion and I thought that was extraordinary because

00:12:02: there are great wines in the world there are wonderful wines they're beautiful wines they're

00:12:05: delicious wines but I don't think the standard was that high you know there weren't faulty wines

00:12:11: particularly they were weeded out before we tried them but I think any of us really enjoyed

00:12:16: tasting the wines they weren't giving us interesting flavors they were orthodox they were

00:12:21: conventional if you like and whenever a weird wine came up you could either say oh that's wonderful

00:12:28: because it's weird or that's just weird and we'll chuck it out and give it an even lower mark so

00:12:32: and I refuse to believe that all the other panels were having the time of their lives even though

00:12:38: you know but I but I know that there were high scores incredibly high scores scores which were

00:12:44: near perfection and like perfection and wine come on like do me a favor you know like a 20 out of

00:12:51: 20 wine or 19 half out of 20 that comes along once twice in a life and it was coming along every

00:12:56: half an hour so I wonder whether the the the context of your best life there yeah lucky them

00:13:03: lucky them having those Chilean comedias and finding the joy of the world I

00:13:08: I wonder whether context or the pressure a fellow panelist and the coded to the story is that

00:13:17: when I was with with sommeliers it was all hunky dory all sort of like we were living the life of

00:13:23: mediocrity there and enjoying it after a fashion as soon as I got put on a panel with mw's the

00:13:30: whole ball game changed the scores were ratcheted up to the highest level I don't know why and I

00:13:37: was the outlier saying like but I mean I said really that good they say yeah we're mw's we can

00:13:42: overrule you you know in a way like our experience says that this is a really good wine and I'm saying

00:13:49: like let's look at the criteria competence does not mean greatness does not mean worthy of a medal

00:13:57: you win a medal when you're you know in the olympics when you reach the highest level

00:14:01: gold silver bronze that means you're as good as it pretty gets just entering up a wine and

00:14:07: competition that's not worthy of winning a medal unless it deserves to win a medal on its merits

00:14:13: but it's a bit sometimes like you know like WST and some of the wine education

00:14:17: certification boards like the wines that they use in the education are often sponsored wines

00:14:26: right so sometimes if that's the window of what people have had access to that's also the window

00:14:33: that they're judging from on some of the wines so it's not they may it's not necessarily the same

00:14:38: landscape of maybe what excites us or what we see in can we also see things in a global way I mean

00:14:47: I was on a panel we've tasted a whole flight of jurin song and I think I didn't really care for

00:14:54: the wines even though I love jurin so as a region and you know and someone said I'd be cheeky and ask

00:14:59: for a glass of wine oh well that's like wet our whistle and one of the judges said well that's

00:15:04: we thought that should be a gold medal because that's the best wine we've tasted in this flight

00:15:09: and I said that's not the way it works you know if everyone fails an exam they all fail not the

00:15:15: person who failed least bad gets the award for excellence and I could not make this point clearly

00:15:21: enough obviously because they said yeah no no we should give it a medal because it was the best of

00:15:26: a full punch and I'm thinking that's a weird way of judging I do not judge it on any quality

00:15:33: in terms of the wine itself so back to actually let's have a segue not a segue so a break what's

00:15:38: the term for a break segue is like when you lead on something else no let's have an intermission

00:15:43: let's make a segue it's for an intermission for popcorn a segue to an intermission a segue to

00:15:48: an intermission popcorn and wine um so we're going to be wine critics for a moment and looking at a

00:15:53: wine and the most interesting discrepancy between the cork and the bottle um anyway look out if it's

00:15:58: a heron or a meagre oh yes well I just chucked any cork in it and the wine itself has got a beautiful

00:16:04: label on it it's like a it's like is it a heron or a duck or peacocks or something should I read

00:16:09: you the back label yes it's from George Stone tell us about this wine this is unusual on many fronts

00:16:14: yeah this is the story behind our front label one day the vineyard grasped the blackbird for

00:16:19: eating its grapes the bird begged the vineyard to let it go and return she and in return she would

00:16:26: sing to the grapes to grow the harmony of the music the vineyard agreed to the steel and let it go

00:16:32: the bird eats the grapes and the bird sings back to the vineyard the balance of nature is restored

00:16:38: so this is georgian wine georgian wine this solikori is the grape for our tea

00:16:42: 2023 weighs in 12 percent alcohol and the producer is uh with the estate it's called

00:16:48: and they're in uh emireti in a smart religion emireti so emireti is to the west of georgia

00:16:55: central west of georgia so it's called it's a cooler than it's called the main region yeah

00:16:59: kutayzi is the main area it's cooler climate I find it a little bit like the wines from now

00:17:03: I was comparing a little bit to the juror but like even lower alcohol but I say juror or shabli

00:17:08: there's something burgandian about them and the reason why is it's the terroir um I suppose the

00:17:13: eastern georgia which is more sandstone and clay in western georgia we've got a vein of limestone

00:17:19: running through a lot of the vineyards and limestone clay so the wines are automatically

00:17:24: fresher it's much cooler you get this sort of human air coming off the black sea and um tend to have

00:17:30: more white wines less skin contact wines this is not as clever wine is it or is it you do have

00:17:35: every wine by the way you've every wines but no skin no stems um so this is every nose no skin

00:17:43: no stems and this has been open you said earlier this is a bit of a nine days nine days yes and

00:17:49: it's all vine natural natural no sulfide sided unfiltered so you wouldn't expect this it's a

00:17:54: perfect wine for a judging panel no yes yeah somewhere which chuck this through the nearest

00:17:59: judging panel window it's been having nine days but it's still a beautiful drink and no and it's

00:18:08: not even like just a little bit taken out this was like we've just finished off the yeah this is the

00:18:12: right right right right right right right right yeah yeah you got my you got my sediment at the

00:18:19: bottom of the bottle the jet lag backwash yeah backwash delicious um you must start using our

00:18:27: glass doug it's been telling us for a long time so i had to sit in the kitchen next to the oven

00:18:33: because i've got no room in the kitchen not even refrigerated with that much wine missing do you

00:18:38: know this wine this crystalline yeah but you are there's a tasting note that often find in whites

00:18:44: from this region and it's a bit like a gemai daginjo sake like these sort of like green apple

00:18:49: but like white floral like but it's sort of like candied apple there's something really similar

00:18:53: in that to me um that does come up really good descriptive that's it yeah that green apple but

00:18:58: also like this slightly crunchy pear yeah um the wax gnashy pear yeah yeah and um i love

00:19:05: it's got real um it's not something i normally associate with georgia wines a lot of minerality

00:19:09: and i think that's from super old vines you don't find vineyards you know i mean there are some very

00:19:16: old vineyards but you don't find vines much over it's like 2030 so i think this is a wine that that

00:19:22: a judging panel competition would not be able to judge very well but if you were a critic i think

00:19:28: you could still judge as well as it as long as you're open minded and you're not tasting it in a row

00:19:32: of a hundred wines in office in new york if you're just like this is the other point we're talking

00:19:36: about scoring i mean lewis ketierras is like giving um palo blanco and like the envy like from envianate

00:19:42: and a lot of the like natty wines coming out of spain like 99 98 he's a wine advocate critic for spain

00:19:51: and portugal and he's i think does a really good job jamie do you when you're trying wine and you

00:19:58: know thinking about like giving it marks do you um do you think about its evolution and also its

00:20:05: gastronomic quality so you're not necessarily sort of judging it in sort of obvious um aromatic

00:20:11: blocks it's it's no no of course no no no totally not what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to judge

00:20:17: the wine as a whole i don't you know originally parka he would give this breakdown and how he would

00:20:23: allot his scores he would allot something for this something for this a chunk for this and a chunk

00:20:27: for that and then add them all up and i think this is crazy and i wouldn't do that um what i think is

00:20:33: you judge the wine as a whole but it's also like this is a personal judgment as well we're recognizing

00:20:38: and also i assign different levels of constants to different tasting events so if i'm going around

00:20:42: to tasting and it's quite busy and i'm jostling i'm getting a little sample and i'm trying to write

00:20:47: my notes and there's a big crowd of people around me i'm just like shaking a hand with someone and

00:20:52: saying hello to them it's like it's you know whereas when you sit at home with a bottle of wine

00:20:56: you get to know it you get to know it it's like you and so therefore you can assign much more

00:21:00: confidence to a wine that you've drunk in a restaurant um or you've or you've drunk at home

00:21:07: then if you drunk a tiny amount in a busy tasting or if you've done a sit-down tasting with maybe

00:21:13: you've been to the producer and you tasted the wine to the producer then you have a better idea

00:21:16: of the wines as well and maybe you understand the producer better than that that feeds into the

00:21:21: school the same for buying like that's i i see that for buying like going to fairs and versus

00:21:26: like maybe opening a bottle over a few days oh totally i mean yeah it's have it's like having

00:21:32: a relationship and i don't think you ever get to know anything um immediately when a last shipment

00:21:39: of georgian wines came in and i tried 20 or 30 of them and i wasn't left cold exactly but i didn't

00:21:46: warn to them that after three four days in some cases um the wines are warming up in every sense

00:21:53: and settling because they've been on a long voyage um and i'm beginning to understand a bit more

00:21:58: about the wine i'm not putting myself in front of the wine i'm not trying to judge it whether it's

00:22:03: faulty or good all those criteria have sort of melted away and now i'm trying to get to know

00:22:09: like the soul of the wine see inside the wine feel the wine and so much of what i'm about is

00:22:16: feeling this is why i'd be the worst judge in the world because you know it really is about my likes

00:22:21: and my likes are sort of instinctive they're not like logical or rational sometimes i like a

00:22:26: wine for no particular reason i just like a wine anything which i feel like comfortable with which

00:22:32: and it feels comfortable not just in my mouth but in my stomach you know like you i'm digesting it

00:22:38: it's like i feel like having food it makes me feel happy these are really important parts of

00:22:43: of appreciating wine but we think that once the wine has disappeared into your stomach it's not

00:22:48: anywhere near your brain anymore but it gives you a feeling of i think intense satisfaction which is

00:22:54: what wine drinking is all about so i think you can't divorce wine assessment from the act of

00:23:00: desiring to drink that wine i mean in some ways this is a compromise you have to make it's like

00:23:05: i need to i love to try lots of wines and i like to write about wines like

00:23:08: if i go to a fair i'll i'll go and taste with a producer taste for their wines

00:23:13: and i think that's important you know it's like but i know that i think i'm

00:23:20: i'm quite experienced i factor in the fact that i made a trade fair and it's like you know and so

00:23:26: it's like sometimes you've got to see beyond the immediate sensation you get and try to understand

00:23:31: the wine in the context of what their producer is trying to do with the region they come from

00:23:36: their terroir their farming and everything and that kind of facts in a little bit

00:23:40: and it's like ideally i'd want to sit with all those wines but then i couldn't write about enough

00:23:44: wines and so sometimes an imperfect data point is better than no data point but the important thing

00:23:49: is i think to communicate when you transmit this data point to people that you know the level of

00:23:54: confidence you have in it as a critic and that's the thing that critics don't like to do i think

00:23:59: what they like to do they like to think that they're because they've got notes on all these wines

00:24:03: and scores they've got a professional assessment of those wines and that's it they've done it

00:24:08: they've done their bit they've got these endless notes and scores that go out into the world

00:24:13: and i think i was andrew jefford who'd write who i was very highly i saw him on a someone's

00:24:19: instagram feed he was doing an interview he was saying it's just ridiculous really it's meaningless

00:24:23: and um this you know all these people writing all these notes and scores about wines that most

00:24:28: people are never going to taste and see is that the best way we can be wine writers i don't think

00:24:34: it is i think sometimes what i think is that if i can steer people some good wines that i think are

00:24:39: really good and i can help people help the good people win people who are farming well and making

00:24:44: great wines who maybe aren't being recognized in this pay-to-play world of you know you know being

00:24:50: tasted in large peer groups and then then maybe i can make a small difference i'll never be as famous

00:24:56: as the the top leading critics but that you know then i'm just reluctant to to score too highly

00:25:03: but i have changed my scoring since i started even gone up a little bit just to be in step with

00:25:07: critics if i scored the way i did when i started then i think i'd upset all the producers i tasted

00:25:12: with because they probably don't understand it the people reading my stuff wouldn't understand

00:25:16: why i'm so out of whack with most of the critics but this is a really interesting thing this whole

00:25:20: score evolution because i think it might kill wine criticism in the end and you especially if you

00:25:24: look at australia and the holiday guide there really some quite average wines are getting 95 points

00:25:30: and so you're reducing the the scoring range for really good wines to maybe a three point scale

00:25:37: yeah it's almost like why is it out of 100 isn't it well that's always been a problem but at least

00:25:42: when parker started out it was a kind of you know when i got like the first from university it was

00:25:48: like 70 was a first yeah right and still there are only four people in the department that got

00:25:53: first in biological sciences but um that's that's kind of the english scoring system whereas the

00:26:00: american scoring system is really much more higher up you know it's pivoted to the the top end and so

00:26:06: parker was always at playing in that top end um so but there were some really good wines that got

00:26:12: scores in the 80s and 90 was a really good one and so the american collectors will say i just want

00:26:17: 90 point wines in my sellers now they will want 95 point wines plus in their sellers so there has

00:26:21: been a big shift and because there's so many critics they all want to be the ones who have their

00:26:25: their score cited at their stick or on a bottle the shelf talker and the way they get that is the

00:26:31: winery is flattered when they get a high score so they'll be using the the highest scoring critic of

00:26:36: the famous yeah i mean they know like i remember when i went to burgundy last time and um the amount

00:26:41: of producers when they had had a highly rated wine usually by parker like the wine moved immediately

00:26:50: so there was actual impact on producers yeah i do remember one why i went to mount mary in the

00:26:57: yara valley a few years back and they just had a horrible set of scores this is when parker was

00:27:02: still scoring they had a horrible set of scores from parker really really nasty because mount mary

00:27:07: is like one of the yara valley's gems age worthy wines fantastic restrained um and so they put the

00:27:14: parker score on each of next to each of the wines just as a sort of like if you yeah parker gave me

00:27:21: 50 yes to coin a phrase and reminds me all this a bit of um i mean there's so many ways of assessing

00:27:28: and scoring wines it reminds me a bit when i was doing um my PGCE like you trained to be a teacher

00:27:35: yeah i trained to be a teacher did you ever go in the classroom uh you did a teaching practice that

00:27:39: put me off uh that probably put children and now you're just teaching people about wine so yeah

00:27:44: well exactly it comes to us all in the end doesn't it um but one of the things i i did

00:27:48: it like dissertation on assessment and um there was a vogue in back in the day uh to move away from

00:27:56: purely exam things which exam assessments like doing examination you get one score and that's

00:28:03: like that's you that's you totally and you pass or fail you know abc and to move more towards a

00:28:11: mixture of continuous assessment that is every essay you write over the period of two years

00:28:17: counts towards for let's say 30 or 40 percent of your entire you know o-level grade or a-level

00:28:24: whatever it is and the rest is exam so it's a more balanced way of looking at because people

00:28:29: you know like you may be better at doing research um and you know and some people are good at the

00:28:37: sort of doing revision last minute revision and chucking down facts and i think like wine is like

00:28:43: it's various things it's like the story without the story without understanding the origin it's um

00:28:49: you're missing a whole dimension without taking time uh over your bottle of wine you know without

00:28:55: having food you're missing the purpose of wine so just to taste it blind in in the some artificial

00:29:02: circumstance with juries and so on and so forth you're not really saying anything about the wine

00:29:07: that at that precise moment that wine got exactly that mark that doesn't isn't the truth about the

00:29:13: wine i think it's good i think it's good for kind of like more commercial wines i think then that sort

00:29:19: of blind competition tasting i do the international wine challenge every year and i think for many

00:29:23: styles of wines that's kind of creating something that's useful to consumers who are shopping in

00:29:29: retail outlets like supermarkets or something because i then you know i think with our two-stage

00:29:36: and you know process and then having the co-chairs looking at everything again the the medal scores

00:29:41: so it's like bronze commended bronze silver or gold i think they're quite robust in the sense that i

00:29:47: don't think we give many golds to bronze medal standard wines and vice versa you know the there's

00:29:53: enough caches to pick it up because tasting blinds really hard so i think on that sense that's quite

00:29:58: useful in for for wines like this it's it's not as it's not going to work because you need to

00:30:05: understand what the way the wine's coming from in for instance there's a there's a panel one of the

00:30:09: panels were judging um vignette which is a you know a red vignette from the vignette was the great

00:30:16: right same as susanne and these are very distinctive wines um they're i think they're fantastic they're

00:30:21: like dark and intense and fresh high acidity they don't go from molactic fermentation usually

00:30:27: they're just joyful gastronomic wines that are crazy and wonderful and the panel had kicked

00:30:34: all these out and so i went back to them because i you know i knew there were vignettes but i didn't

00:30:40: know what they were but i said to them guys this is a really legitimate style of wine and they're

00:30:45: not all for some of these i think there's two or three silvers here um just to say because as

00:30:51: coaches we can as long as two of us agree we can remark the wines just to say this is just just for

00:30:56: your benefit this is you know you i think you you've got to understand this is a legitimate style

00:31:02: of wine and and i think you've you've marked these really badly because you don't you've never come

00:31:06: across them before i said that this is what they are just so you know next time you come across these

00:31:11: don't be so quick to just kick them out because they're distinctive and unusual other um i remember

00:31:17: i think Alice firing a few years ago did a tasting in Italy in which she abandoned like the classical

00:31:24: marking system and marked on categorization so it might be transparency beauty purity to our

00:31:34: expression and i think there were like seven or eight yeah and if the wine kicked i like the idea

00:31:40: but i think it's impossible as well oh well is there a good is there a good is there a good

00:31:47: unless you know the identity of the wine how do you know that i mean i like the idea of moving

00:31:51: away from this just like this system we've got now and trying for some wine certainly

00:31:57: if you were tasting a flight to natural wine so then i think actually you know it's almost

00:32:00: like i feel bad if i give a score to a natural wine because it's more about trying to understand

00:32:04: what that person's tried to do and then make the wine and also knowing that as you say that wine's

00:32:09: change with time and wine's change on different occasions we change on different occasions so

00:32:14: trying to trying to say that a score is a property of a bottle of wine this is an 86.1 or 93.1 i think

00:32:21: it's unhelpful you could say you know just for benefit i tried these wines and just as a shorthand

00:32:26: this is how much i like them but that score is not a property of the bottle that score is actually

00:32:30: just it's a property of me interacting with that bottle and it's like

00:32:34: You know, you should put those qualifiers in, but people just look at the score.

00:32:38: Jamie, would you like to interact with those closed bottles and make them open?

00:32:42: Yes, so we have two wines that we're going to, I think it's a segue into an interaction.

00:32:47: Into an action and an action, yes.

00:32:49: So we have two wines here, we have two bandoles, both of which are reasonably old.

00:32:55: We have Chateau de Pibarnon, 2007.

00:32:59: And we have the Domaine La France Veyreaule 2002, and this is their cuvee spécial.

00:33:07: So I'm quite interested to look at these wines, we can do our wine critic job on them.

00:33:13: There's no dust on this bottle, it's not something that we're just lying at the back of the shelf.

00:33:16: He's pretending it's an old bottle. Who knows? Or make our assessments.

00:33:21: The label is quite sort of fading.

00:33:23: I bought this one from La Vigneron when they were kind of closed down, you remember that?

00:33:28: Oh yes, they did a big closing down sale, and they used to love.

00:33:31: So La Vigneron was a London wine merchant in South Kensington, on Old Brompton Road.

00:33:36: They now hand for the wines, that shop is now hand for the wines.

00:33:39: And they specialised in all sorts of really interesting wines.

00:33:42: This is kind of my university was going to their tasting.

00:33:44: Is this where the woman was working?

00:33:46: Liz, Liz and Mike, yeah.

00:33:49: You said you went in and then you were saying...

00:33:51: Oh no, that was another place, that was the previous place, yeah.

00:33:54: Looking for something fruity and then she was like maybe you just want some fruit.

00:33:58: And so one of the things that Liz and Mike love was bandoles.

00:34:02: So they had a wide range of bandoles.

00:34:03: Yeah, they did, yes.

00:34:04: And when they kind of closed down, they had a sale and I was like

00:34:09: rich at the time, so it was a great opportunity to stock up on things.

00:34:12: So I've had this for quite a long time.

00:34:13: And this one, the Pibon and Doug, you bought that.

00:34:16: So should we start with this?

00:34:17: Yes, let's do that.

00:34:19: As it's a stripling at 2007.

00:34:24: Pouring wine effects for the listener.

00:34:28: So this is a sort of wine, if you're critic,

00:34:32: you kind of need to know what you're drinking.

00:34:35: If you just presented this red wine, I think,

00:34:37: then they're more Vedra dominated wine.

00:34:39: More Vedra is an unusual variety.

00:34:41: You can taste it and not get it.

00:34:45: And then it really helps to know what you're drinking

00:34:51: to be able to assess this in a sensible way.

00:34:54: Yes, you have to be tuned into a great variety that you're probably

00:34:57: not so accustomed to trying.

00:34:59: And it's a unique great variety.

00:35:01: And I think a great, great variety in the right hands.

00:35:05: But there's something about Bondol and more Vedra that goes together.

00:35:10: It's almost like a crew.

00:35:11: Oh, this isn't a beautiful place.

00:35:12: It's, we know we just opened it.

00:35:16: And it's maybe a little harsh to start concluding about it now, but it's...

00:35:19: You're just being a wine critic.

00:35:23: Act as a wine critic, getting this.

00:35:24: I give that 97 points.

00:35:27: Done, done, done.

00:35:29: I'm so rare for me to go to 97.

00:35:31: You just said 99, are you a 99?

00:35:36: I've never been to 100.

00:35:37: Okay.

00:35:37: Who has?

00:35:38: I hope.

00:35:40: I gave one wine last year, 99.

00:35:42: Okay.

00:35:43: And it was a Barbeto with Ricardo and a few others.

00:35:48: We just had a big lunch at Gavetto.

00:35:51: It's an amazing restaurant.

00:35:52: Do you think he gave it in 99 because you were a bit drunk?

00:35:54: It was, no, it was a Madeira from 1895.

00:35:56: Okay.

00:35:57: 1895 Arrojo Madeira.

00:36:00: And it was insanely good.

00:36:02: We were a bit drunk, but it was insanely good.

00:36:03: There's no getting away from the fact that this was insanely good.

00:36:05: It wasn't an inappropriate question.

00:36:06: Yes.

00:36:07: No, no, of course not.

00:36:08: But it's like, this was like insanely good.

00:36:10: I mean, it was like...

00:36:11: Yeah.

00:36:11: And another memory I had of a wine that was breathtaking that would

00:36:16: move me greatly was in back in 2009, I did this landmark Australia tutorial

00:36:22: where they took people who were kind of like emerging talents.

00:36:26: Sorry, back in 2009, people mistook me for an emerging talent.

00:36:30: You already proved them wrong.

00:36:32: You're already there.

00:36:32: No, I've proven them wrong since.

00:36:33: And one of the wines we have was a 1928 Campbell's

00:36:37: rather Glen Muscat.

00:36:40: And it was just amazing.

00:36:41: Campbell's or Chambers?

00:36:43: Chambers, maybe.

00:36:43: Chambers, yeah.

00:36:44: Sorry, yeah.

00:36:45: No, just check it.

00:36:46: Good, good.

00:36:47: But it's like, wow, it's like...

00:36:49: They're amazing.

00:36:50: Because I've had lots of these wines before,

00:36:52: but this one was just a particular point.

00:36:54: And it was moving.

00:36:55: But then I still didn't go to 100.

00:36:58: Because it's like, you just don't know and it's like...

00:37:01: When are you going to go to 100, Jamie?

00:37:03: No, I don't think so.

00:37:03: Maybe tonight is one of these battles.

00:37:04: No, you've got to leave that.

00:37:05: Otherwise there's nothing to look forward to.

00:37:08: Really, do you?

00:37:09: But if there is a wine that you're like, this is just amazing.

00:37:12: You'd have to be very drunk.

00:37:13: I think a lot of people,

00:37:17: critics, when they give out their 100-point scores,

00:37:21: it's kind of like in marketing, they're being tactical.

00:37:23: They choose the right wine from the right producer.

00:37:26: There's going to be a really, really good wine,

00:37:28: but it's like a tactical 100-pointer.

00:37:30: I don't know.

00:37:31: Some open-wapple-sard, not 100-pointer?

00:37:34: No, but I think...

00:37:35: Rather not reported.

00:37:36: No, it's almost rude to give those wine scores.

00:37:38: Exactly, yes.

00:37:39: I feel guilty giving those wine scores.

00:37:42: I'd rather not score,

00:37:42: but I know that they do have scores on your website.

00:37:45: Yes, I know what they have to,

00:37:46: because otherwise people don't know how much I liked it,

00:37:49: and it's like they're disappointed.

00:37:50: So it's like, it's a compromise,

00:37:52: but it's like life is about choosing a compromise.

00:37:54: What about doing a score in a different way instead of numbers?

00:37:57: Could you give an emotional score, an EQ?

00:38:00: Maybe I should just make a noise and record it,

00:38:03: and it's like an audio.

00:38:04: Or you just give it like one heart, two heart, three heart.

00:38:07: Yes.

00:38:09: That's a good way of doing it.

00:38:10: I quite like that.

00:38:11: I remember the...

00:38:12: I remember what was it, the Hachette Guide,

00:38:14: when I was learning about wine.

00:38:16: I quite liked that, you know.

00:38:18: It got a star, or it got a coup de coeur.

00:38:20: Did they have more than one star?

00:38:22: I liked the three-star system.

00:38:24: And we're obviously like missioning,

00:38:25: missioning in the restaurants.

00:38:27: The star system is, I think, very clever.

00:38:29: What about instead of stars,

00:38:31: you just give little glasses, you know?

00:38:32: Like then it's less pretentious.

00:38:34: Yes, yeah.

00:38:35: Well, yeah.

00:38:36: But somehow I think language is really important,

00:38:39: and we haven't really talked about our feelings,

00:38:41: not our respect for people.

00:38:42: But yeah, exactly.

00:38:44: I want to use words like beauty and pleasurable.

00:38:48: And also, the wines I like most and would score most highly

00:38:53: are the wines I'm most inarticulate about.

00:38:56: I just like, yeah, it's that agreeable sort of sound.

00:39:00: And that comes from within, again.

00:39:02: It's not like an intellectual reaction.

00:39:03: Even going to words betrays the wine somewhat,

00:39:06: because that leap to a Mexican...

00:39:08: All words are always going to be reductive

00:39:09: to some point over experience, right?

00:39:11: Because you can't articulate experience.

00:39:13: No, you can't.

00:39:14: But it's almost like that they...

00:39:15: We ask too much from our words about wine.

00:39:18: But if it moves us...

00:39:19: We ask them to...

00:39:20: If a wine moves us to language,

00:39:21: or to sort of try to express...

00:39:24: You know what I mean?

00:39:25: I said this to me once.

00:39:26: You said it's almost like you, after a wine,

00:39:27: you might go then and then,

00:39:28: and you move to language, and after the event,

00:39:30: you might go to the then...

00:39:31: Yes.

00:39:32: You won't take toasting notes then,

00:39:33: but after the event, you will talk about

00:39:34: what that made you feel and how it was.

00:39:37: That's the legitimate thing, I think.

00:39:39: Yeah.

00:39:40: I liken it to, you know, like...

00:39:42: Something beautiful could be a sunset,

00:39:45: or, you know, like...

00:39:46: I don't know, just walk through woods.

00:39:49: And it evokes really strong,

00:39:52: almost poetic sensibility in reactions.

00:39:55: And there's a lot of words churning around.

00:39:58: At that moment, you could not put them together,

00:40:01: other than it's just like a burst of energy.

00:40:03: But in a wordsworthy way,

00:40:08: recollect emotion in tranquility,

00:40:10: when you've had time,

00:40:11: to put perspective on the experience.

00:40:13: Suddenly, you find sort of harmony.

00:40:15: An intellectual harmony and an emotional harmony,

00:40:18: they come together,

00:40:19: and suddenly, you almost recreate the experience.

00:40:22: This is sort of filtered through time.

00:40:23: But the language is like...

00:40:26: You come to a certain sort of agreeable language,

00:40:29: whereas at the time, it's too explosive.

00:40:31: And why would you filter the experience

00:40:34: at the time so much?

00:40:35: If you want to gasp, gasp.

00:40:37: Don't use a stupid word.

00:40:40: If a gasp is a better word.

00:40:41: Maybe the problem with scoring and rating,

00:40:47: and that sort of professional assessment,

00:40:49: is that you forget what a wine is for.

00:40:52: Like, what tool is this wine?

00:40:54: What situation is this wine going to be good at?

00:40:55: And this idea, I remember Kermit Lynch

00:40:58: and Adventures of the Wine Roots,

00:41:00: talked about Beaujolais.

00:41:02: And at the time, obviously,

00:41:03: Beaujolais was less sophisticated than it is now.

00:41:05: I think now we've got lots of really good natural Beaujolais.

00:41:07: There's some very serious wines in Beaujolais.

00:41:09: And it's one of the wines I buy from good producers.

00:41:14: And he talked about the Beaujolais,

00:41:17: the one-night stand of wines.

00:41:18: And it says that when Americans come to wine,

00:41:20: they're always looking for the great wine experience.

00:41:22: And this idea that if you're of a certain level

00:41:26: of gastronomic interest and wine interest,

00:41:29: that you want to drink great wines.

00:41:31: And I don't want to drink great wines all the time

00:41:33: or storied wines or fantastic wines.

00:41:37: Sometimes I want a wine that is good and true

00:41:39: and honest and is ripe for that moment.

00:41:41: And to enjoy that and revel in that

00:41:43: and be thrilled by a wine.

00:41:45: So it's like almost sometimes when I'm reading,

00:41:48: so as long as the wine doesn't get like

00:41:49: a really low score from somebody,

00:41:52: I think the wine is described in such a way

00:41:54: that you know what sort of style of wine it is.

00:41:56: And is this a good wine?

00:41:58: Is the producer good?

00:41:59: Did the producer farm well?

00:42:01: Are they nice people?

00:42:02: Delicious.

00:42:03: They're a really good word to use because of me.

00:42:05: Yeah, that could be a wine that I'll buy and drink.

00:42:08: Yes.

00:42:08: It's interesting.

00:42:09: Someone's found this really interesting

00:42:10: and it might resonate with me.

00:42:12: Yeah.

00:42:12: It doesn't have to have 97, maybe 92 is plenty.

00:42:15: Now I think the Beaujolais thing is quite an interesting one

00:42:18: because like I think I read, I can't remember who said it,

00:42:21: but the reason why the gang of four Beaujolais producers,

00:42:27: why it all blew up in 2007, 2008 is because there was a recession

00:42:34: in the States, people couldn't afford to buy Burgundy,

00:42:37: which they consider great, particularly in New York.

00:42:39: So they opted for something cheaper, Beaujolais.

00:42:43: So they wanted Beaujolais to be great, you know, worthy.

00:42:48: If you were a New York sommelier,

00:42:50: you wanted to sell something like top draw,

00:42:52: but you couldn't afford, no one could afford to buy Burgundy.

00:42:55: So they defaulted to Beaujolais as, you know,

00:42:58: the top producers in Morgan.

00:43:00: And they said, well, you know, like it could be Burgundy,

00:43:02: it's not that far away.

00:43:03: And yeah, as Jamie says, I think we're obsessed with greatness

00:43:08: as if it confers worthiness on us to drink these wines.

00:43:12: When, you know, like a delicious wine,

00:43:15: a wine that we want to talk about actually,

00:43:18: and we want to react to, that's really much more important

00:43:22: because drinking the wine is really what you're going to be doing

00:43:25: at the end of the day, rather than putting it on a pedestal.

00:43:27: I don't mind.

00:43:29: Is that another wine bottle being opened over there?

00:43:31: Yes, yes.

00:43:31: It's a lot of glass, a lot of squeaking.

00:43:33: So that just goes to the Pibarnon, I think, 2007.

00:43:38: This is now 17 and a bit years old.

00:43:40: Beautiful place, still quite primary,

00:43:43: but some mellowing around the edges,

00:43:45: but still a really core of quite dense, like grainy fruit.

00:43:49: Yes.

00:43:49: It's not very herbaceous on the nose, though.

00:43:53: I love it.

00:43:53: I'm not going to use the glass of mint as well, isn't it?

00:43:56: Yes, yes, let leafy sort of thing.

00:43:59: Mint and thyme.

00:44:00: Yeah, I mean, like, I always, I always want to say

00:44:04: Gary with Provence wines because, because that's what makes,

00:44:07: but it really does feel like those dried herbs.

00:44:10: Yeah.

00:44:10: So we're going back a little bit in time, less.

00:44:13: Also quite silky, like texture, like it's pretty smooth.

00:44:16: Not the greatest vintage, this is 2002.

00:44:20: So it's now 22 and a bit years old and a different producer.

00:44:26: So how is this fat?

00:44:30: Colour is a bit more advanced.

00:44:33: Yeah, much more, I mean.

00:44:34: It's got more tertiary for the potato.

00:44:35: Yeah, I was just saying, very, like a lot more savory on the,

00:44:38: on the nose there, the slight mustiness to it as well,

00:44:42: but like a developed way rather than a.

00:44:44: Hinted tomato, nice red fruit still.

00:44:50: Cherry.

00:44:51: Yeah, it's a soft cherry.

00:44:53: Yeah, sort of cherry liqueur and yeah, rounder style.

00:44:57: Whereas the, the people on it is like a tortoise.

00:45:00: Yeah, this is like, this is like sometimes if I think of structure in a wine,

00:45:04: I think about it like a fishing net and how tightly woven it is.

00:45:07: And this would be a much kind of looser net.

00:45:09: Yeah.

00:45:10: Yeah, it's on the sort of plateau edging towards the other side of the plateau.

00:45:15: This is the time to drink this one.

00:45:16: Yeah.

00:45:17: Yeah.

00:45:18: And I think it's got that nice, it's going to.

00:45:20: It's got, still got some character from the place and the variety,

00:45:25: but I think it will still drink nicely in a few years time,

00:45:27: but I think that it will taste more of old wine then.

00:45:30: Yes.

00:45:30: You taste it and you think, is this from Bordeaux?

00:45:32: Is this from.

00:45:32: It does remind me a bit of like when you're tasting things,

00:45:36: yes, you say in their secondary or tertiary sort of phase and pretty well all wines at that age

00:45:41: sort of merge almost into, into one style.

00:45:45: I quite like it.

00:45:46: Enjoy this sort of wine.

00:45:47: This is a quite gastronomic wine.

00:45:49: The Parbanans definitely got some.

00:45:51: I'm going to say just because the aromatics are there,

00:45:53: it's like it's such an experience in the nose, eh?

00:45:55: Do you think you enjoy.

00:45:57: Doug's already, Doug's already tipped his glass out.

00:45:59: Oh, sorry.

00:46:00: Yeah, it was just a reflex.

00:46:01: A reflex.

00:46:03: I hate that.

00:46:04: Doug as a critic has decided by the,

00:46:08: and ultimately this is the, this is also the thing.

00:46:10: It's like really the best way to assess a wine

00:46:13: is to have a table of wine people with some food and put 10 tables on.

00:46:18: Maybe 10 people and put 20 bottles on the table.

00:46:22: It's also opening up.

00:46:23: And then you look and see which bottles are finished.

00:46:26: Okay.

00:46:27: So this is an interesting thing.

00:46:28: And which ones are finished.

00:46:29: So finally that'll be a reputation.

00:46:31: Because now there's all like tobacco coming out.

00:46:33: Like it's opening.

00:46:34: I think you should get some more glass.

00:46:35: When you, when you open a wine like this, it's 22 years old.

00:46:38: I don't necessarily think you should decant it,

00:46:41: but you do need to give it like 15 minutes.

00:46:44: Give it an opportunity to show itself.

00:46:47: I could give it a little more Doug, but you can dump this as well if you don't mind.

00:46:49: You know, like think about an older person coming down the stairs.

00:46:52: Like me.

00:46:53: They're not going to be sprinting down the stairs.

00:46:55: Are they like the young folks?

00:46:56: No, actually I do.

00:46:57: But what about Doug then?

00:46:58: Yeah.

00:46:59: Okay.

00:46:59: He's still quite young, isn't he?

00:47:00: We're both pretty sprightly still, but what about in 30 years?

00:47:03: I'm still 130 years.

00:47:05: I'll be a mate.

00:47:06: I'll be a mate.

00:47:07: You said earlier, JB, that we're all not around in 60 years.

00:47:10: I know, I said in 60 years we won't be all around.

00:47:12: But obviously we were exactly free to cease to.

00:47:16: Remember climate catastrophe?

00:47:17: Have a look.

00:47:18: No, I think JB's got longevity going on.

00:47:20: No, I think many of us will outlive the climate.

00:47:23: To be honest, I think he is going to be an old guy.

00:47:25: No, I'd be kind of surprised if humanity lost another 60 years.

00:47:30: Oh my God, yeah.

00:47:30: That's another discussion though.

00:47:32: We won't see on that note.

00:47:33: AI and various presents.

00:47:35: Yes, we're already living.

00:47:36: Chat, GPT has murdered us in our sleep.

00:47:39: These are the best years of our lives.

00:47:41: The dystopian future is still to arrive.

00:47:45: And I just want to ask both of you.

00:47:48: I like wines which are slightly reserved,

00:47:52: which don't give up their secrets in the first sniff or slurp.

00:47:56: Because I know that there's still more to go on there.

00:48:00: Okay, he says he who just emptied his glass after a second.

00:48:04: No, because I wanted to go back to the pre-vunnel.

00:48:06: I'm sorry, yes.

00:48:07: I'm sorry.

00:48:08: That's okay, I will go back to the pre-vunnel anyway.

00:48:10: But do you feel the same?

00:48:11: I mean, or do you like wines that are immediately,

00:48:13: "Wow, I can fall in love with that now."

00:48:15: Or do you like wines which are a bit like a Jane Austen heroine

00:48:19: or hero of its hiding still much to give out?

00:48:25: Yeah, I mean, I kind of like my wines to be a bit like a vampire villain,

00:48:30: you know, not lurking in the shadows, what's going on.

00:48:32: It shows the generation difference between us.

00:48:33: You're an Anne Rice, I'm in sort of Jane Austen.

00:48:36: That's a big difference.

00:48:38: But Nibbiollo, like I'm a big Nibbiollo fan.

00:48:41: So, definitely, I like the journey.

00:48:43: Gravna, Robola, Jallow, I want still one of my go-to favorite wines.

00:48:47: I like to sit with those wines and just see how they change over time.

00:48:51: And, you know, also sometimes have a case of the wine

00:48:56: and open it periodically and then sit with it and, yeah, really be with the wine.

00:49:02: This is a bit like music.

00:49:03: So, like, I mean, when I was like a 15-year-old,

00:49:07: I started getting into music and I used to go down the hill,

00:49:10: lunchtime from school to Scorpion Records and buy secondhand vinyl.

00:49:15: And because that's all we had then, and you've kind of like a...

00:49:18: What a name, Scorpion Records.

00:49:20: It was a very cool shop.

00:49:21: And so, you go in there and it'd be like the usual records store dudes in there.

00:49:25: And you find a record you're interested in the sleeve and take it there

00:49:27: and they pull out the, there's a condition sort of indicator on the label and the price.

00:49:33: And obviously there's a relationship between the two.

00:49:36: And so, like, is this an A or B or a C?

00:49:38: And you go in there and they say this is a B

00:49:40: and so you look at it, see how scratched it was.

00:49:41: Yeah, that's good. We'll take it home.

00:49:43: But sometimes you get the record home and you play it.

00:49:46: And some songs you like immediately, other songs you knock so into,

00:49:50: and sometimes the songs you like immediately don't endure

00:49:53: as the fascination doesn't endure.

00:49:55: You get bored of them a little bit and sometimes you...

00:49:57: Yeah, it's like Ed Sheeran.

00:49:58: It's like give it a rest, mate, after a while, you know.

00:50:00: Love it at the first hear, right?

00:50:01: This is why it's so popular.

00:50:02: But it's like things you love immediately don't always...

00:50:08: They're not always enduring tastes.

00:50:10: And I think what...

00:50:11: Wine might sound great, but it's like if you're just tasting a little bit,

00:50:14: and this is obviously a well-known sort of thing in the wine world,

00:50:17: you have the first taste, you think it's fantastic.

00:50:19: Then, you know, you're with this bottle for the evening

00:50:23: because you've bought at a restaurant.

00:50:24: And progressively you've grown more bored of it and less...

00:50:27: And you start to see the tricks in the wine that made you like it immediately.

00:50:33: And so I think that I'm kind of with Doug.

00:50:36: It's like I really want to have that relationship with the wine,

00:50:40: both in terms of the progression in terms of the evening,

00:50:42: but also the wine changes me.

00:50:44: So as I drink the wine, I become modified by the wine.

00:50:48: And then I interact with the wine in different ways.

00:50:51: So I think really good wine tasting is like...

00:50:53: An exchange.

00:50:56: Interpretive theatre.

00:50:57: You're part of that experience.

00:51:00: You're interpreting the wine.

00:51:02: The wine's changing you.

00:51:04: There's a relationship between you and the bottle.

00:51:06: And as you drink it, that's quite interesting.

00:51:08: And I think some wines do that much better than others.

00:51:10: And they're the really interesting ones.

00:51:11: So it's a...

00:51:13: And the other thing is when you come...

00:51:15: You know, I don't do this often, but if you buy...

00:51:17: You said Emily, you buy a case of wine,

00:51:19: you experience it on many different occasions.

00:51:21: Then you have a very interesting relationship

00:51:24: with the wine on...

00:51:25: Not just repeated experiences with the same bottle,

00:51:28: but on repeated occasions where you come to it

00:51:31: in different moods, different contexts.

00:51:33: And that's really interesting.

00:51:34: And I think it must be fascinating for people who make wine

00:51:36: to...

00:51:37: Obviously, they taste their wine on many occasions.

00:51:40: They're often pouring it at first.

00:51:41: They're usually drinking it all the time.

00:51:44: And that must be a very interesting sort of like...

00:51:47: Relationship with the wine.

00:51:49: Because you think you've got it.

00:51:50: And then another day, you think it's just different.

00:51:52: Well, I started doing that.

00:51:53: It's never the same, is it?

00:51:54: Like, for example...

00:51:55: I mean, you talked about Graf, you mentioned Graf.

00:51:57: But...

00:51:58: And I think a lot of orange wines are like this,

00:52:00: but I think a lot of very complex wines are.

00:52:04: And you use a smelly, you know, as a former smelly,

00:52:07: but someone who works at restaurants would know this,

00:52:09: that basically when you order a bottle of wine,

00:52:12: you're not ordering a square bottle.

00:52:15: You know, it's not a square flavour,

00:52:17: but you can get six square glasses.

00:52:20: If the wine is interesting,

00:52:22: it will develop in the glass or you can wrap it.

00:52:26: And sometimes, I mean, I often define the most interesting wines

00:52:29: are six different glasses in one bottle.

00:52:32: But they're not six equal glasses in any way.

00:52:37: Sometimes the wine will start out open and then it will close.

00:52:39: And they're all open and it closes.

00:52:41: It'll be more like a wave of aromas and flavours.

00:52:45: And that may be...

00:52:46: I'm sure there's chemical reasons.

00:52:49: Yes, more of a spiral.

00:52:50: Or it might start going oxidative.

00:52:53: Then it might go back under the leaves or something.

00:52:55: And then, you know, trying it on different days and different times,

00:52:58: different temperatures and different glass,

00:53:00: where in different moods, there are so many variables when we taste

00:53:07: that like pinning down the wine is really tricky.

00:53:10: But if you had that evolution on the bottle, it's charming.

00:53:16: Even if you don't like some of the glasses and love some of the others,

00:53:19: it's like, wow, it's a living thing.

00:53:21: And that's a remarkable thing when you think about wine,

00:53:24: because you think you often as a product and you pull the cork

00:53:27: and it's the bottle.

00:53:28: But actually, it's the liquid, isn't it?

00:53:30: And it's you and the liquid, as Jamie said.

00:53:32: It's the relationship that you develop over a period of time

00:53:36: that gives us the value to the experience.

00:53:38: I remember when I was in Tuscany in 2011

00:53:41: when I was working at Richine for three months

00:53:44: to harvest with Sean O'Callaghan.

00:53:45: And I had a Vespa that was rented with my ex-boyfriend.

00:53:50: And we'd been wine tasting, actually.

00:53:53: But not wine drinking, just wine tasting.

00:53:56: And he drove us back.

00:53:58: And it was the day where I had just had the first rain.

00:54:01: So the roads were actually quite slippery.

00:54:02: And we were on the corner and then the bike went down.

00:54:05: So we had an accident.

00:54:07: And I had a bottle of Gravena in the back of the Vespa.

00:54:10: Vespa ended up in the ditch.

00:54:13: I ended up with bloody hands, bloody feet, quite shocked,

00:54:17: but bumped and scraped rather than anything broken.

00:54:20: And a few days later, anyway, the Vespa was in there.

00:54:24: The bottle didn't get broken, collected up the bottle.

00:54:27: Like, end up getting picked up by another car, taken home.

00:54:30: He rode the Vespa back and then a few days later,

00:54:33: we opened the Gravena.

00:54:34: And again, I still don't know if it was me

00:54:36: or it was that experience that the bottle had.

00:54:39: But it was one of the worst bottles I've ever had.

00:54:41: It was just like, just didn't say anything.

00:54:43: It was like, really, I think, shocked from the whole experience.

00:54:46: And I don't, again, how much of that was where I was at,

00:54:50: how much of that was where the bottle at.

00:54:51: Maybe it was both.

00:54:53: But I do believe that, like, with wine,

00:54:55: and I see that even more now that I'm an importer.

00:54:58: Like, when wine moves places, like, how it responds to that.

00:55:03: Well, I've got Kelly once saying to Kelly Fox,

00:55:06: who we tasted in wine the other week, another month,

00:55:09: that leave my wine two months, not my wine,

00:55:14: but leave the wine two months, if you really wanted to speak,

00:55:16: because it's shopped.

00:55:18: It's been on a long voyage.

00:55:19: It's just gone through so many different temperatures.

00:55:21: You just want to pull the cork and whatever.

00:55:23: And I think she's absolutely right.

00:55:24: I think wine is, it's got to be treated with respect

00:55:27: and, you know, handled cautiously.

00:55:30: Yeah, sorry, I'm going to.

00:55:32: No, I've got some here.

00:55:33: I saved mine from my, I'm an economic drinker in this way.

00:55:36: I would just say that Pibanan is a beautiful neck.

00:55:39: And that cork is in such amazing condition.

00:55:42: I've not seen a cork on a 17-year-old bottle of wine

00:55:45: looking so pure.

00:55:46: It looks like a single piece of cork, doesn't it?

00:55:47: Yes, it's a really nice cork.

00:55:48: Yeah.

00:55:49: But it's starting to change in the glass a little.

00:55:53: And it's got more of this velvety texture now.

00:55:55: It's just the texture that's changed.

00:55:57: It was a little grippy before,

00:55:58: but now it's become sleek and in a nice way.

00:56:00: This is why you, you know, it's pointless

00:56:05: just taking a little sip and writing a note on this.

00:56:08: You've got to, once a wine is of a certain category

00:56:11: or is of a certain age,

00:56:12: I think we have to approach it with humility.

00:56:15: I think we need to approach all wines with humility, actually.

00:56:17: And this is where I'm in a slight tension point

00:56:19: with what I do is that it looks like what I'm doing

00:56:23: is creating notes and scores that are normative

00:56:28: that everyone else should have the same experience.

00:56:30: And it looks like I'm doing something

00:56:34: because I have a certain level of experience and expertise

00:56:38: that is this is what you should be getting.

00:56:40: And this is so not true.

00:56:41: I think we need to be really humble in the face of wine.

00:56:43: It's a well, especially wines that are not fixed

00:56:48: in place by being super technological

00:56:50: and protected by so many self-fights.

00:56:53: And they're just like that.

00:56:54: Yeah, those wines, yeah, they probably don't change much.

00:56:58: It's like, but there's this beautiful world of living wine,

00:57:01: authentic wine, that these are wines of meaningful,

00:57:07: but then you're catching a little glimpse of them.

00:57:10: It's like if someone were to spend two hours,

00:57:13: to watch me for two hours in one day,

00:57:15: they'll get a feeling for what I'm like and what I do,

00:57:19: but they don't know my whole life.

00:57:20: They don't know my whole, what I'm really like.

00:57:23: They have an idea, but they don't really know me.

00:57:26: And maybe they're stretching it a little bit

00:57:28: with that sort of analogy, but it's this idea.

00:57:32: But the inner life of a wine is we taste the very end of a long process.

00:57:38: And you know, when you learn about wine,

00:57:40: you're learning geography, geology, climatology, culture, gastronomy.

00:57:46: And, but you just drink your liquid and say,

00:57:48: well, it tastes like blackberries or tobacco or whatever it reminds you of.

00:57:53: But no, it's an incredibly long process.

00:57:56: And that's not including the farming

00:57:57: and the wine making and the person behind it.

00:58:00: And to pass judgment in that one fell swoop.

00:58:04: But when that wine in question, you feel it's beautiful.

00:58:08: It moves you, it makes you feel good about life.

00:58:11: Then as Jamie says, I think, you know,

00:58:13: and I said to you in the taxi, humility is like,

00:58:16: I realize how little I know about things.

00:58:18: And if this wine transports me

00:58:21: for a few precious moments of my life

00:58:23: to a place I might never have been.

00:58:26: And I'm suddenly smelling pine trees or sandstone

00:58:32: or the azure Mediterranean.

00:58:34: Wow, that's something that's truly remarkable.

00:58:38: We'll probably lead into his wine art,

00:58:41: but we're not going to go there this time.

00:58:43: That's a good idea for another podcast.

00:58:44: I think that would be an excellent podcast, don't you?

00:58:47: I think that wine, wine, wine.

00:58:52: I've had a point, I've now jet legs kicked in,

00:58:54: I'm going to have to edit that out.

00:58:55: But the humility point is a good one around this.

00:59:00: I've lost it.

00:59:02: Well, we should never put ourselves in front of what was there.

00:59:05: I mean, yes, if a wine is industrially made

00:59:08: and a bit sort of like it's static,

00:59:10: and you can say, but okay, go and say it.

00:59:14: So when you say all of that,

00:59:16: I think about my own journey to where I have got to today in wine.

00:59:22: My own experience, like, so for example,

00:59:25: certain producers that I maybe had tasted 10 years ago

00:59:29: that I had an appreciation for,

00:59:30: but now have a very profound connection to those wines.

00:59:34: And I relate to them very differently.

00:59:37: So I think, I want to acknowledge that it is a process

00:59:42: to get to that point that you can sit and wonder

00:59:45: and lose yourself in a bottle

00:59:47: and appreciate the human aspect.

00:59:49: I think it's not something that's necessarily easy

00:59:53: for the everyday person or the everyday drinker to grasp

00:59:57: that concept and think about things in such a deep

01:00:00: and heartfelt, sensitive way towards wine.

01:00:03: I think it's really beautiful,

01:00:05: and it's something I personally relate to,

01:00:07: but I can see that my way of relating to wine like that

01:00:11: has deepened more and more over time.

01:00:13: And the things that excite me

01:00:16: and what I pivot towards has evolved over time

01:00:21: because of that relationship to it.

01:00:23: Like, we've all gone back to how much for each of us,

01:00:28: farming is such an important foundational piece

01:00:32: of what excites us about what we do.

01:00:35: But now to the point where sometimes I'm a little bit snobby

01:00:39: when I'm trying something that's basically made in a factory

01:00:42: where I'm like, sure, I could drink this,

01:00:44: but do I actually want to?

01:00:46: That's going into me.

01:00:47: Like, I want to be in that energy

01:00:49: of somebody making something a little bit imperfect,

01:00:52: but doing it really with the best intentions

01:00:56: and all of the sweat that they've got

01:00:59: and the graft that they put into that,

01:01:02: that for me is very meaningful.

01:01:04: And it connects me and gives me a sense of purpose in my work.

01:01:07: But it didn't start like that.

01:01:09: If I think of my early days getting into wine,

01:01:11: it was more like, oh, flavour, really interesting.

01:01:14: Oh, all this new information.

01:01:15: But we have to start somewhere.

01:01:17: And again, there are sort of like, you know,

01:01:18: everyone's on a journey and some people don't make the journey

01:01:22: and some people make it slowly

01:01:23: and some people make it quickly.

01:01:25: I was on a Radio 4 programme a gazillion years ago

01:01:28: called Room for Improvement.

01:01:29: And funny enough, I've got a Bondol.

01:01:32: I'm on a TV show as well.

01:01:32: I've got a Bondol onto the programme.

01:01:35: Is it on YouTube somewhere?

01:01:36: Oh my God, I'd love to see this.

01:01:39: It was Radio 4.

01:01:40: It's okay.

01:01:41: No, it's all right.

01:01:42: And I was...

01:01:43: Hear this.

01:01:43: And the idea is that I think your sense of taste

01:01:49: develops over time by learning.

01:01:52: And I don't mean you have to sort of be all academic

01:01:54: about it, but the more you taste, the more you appreciate it.

01:01:57: It's a natural transition, isn't it?

01:01:59: It's not.

01:01:59: And sometimes you just have that moment, don't you?

01:02:02: Have we all had that epiphany?

01:02:04: Where we taste something and you said,

01:02:06: there's just more to this than I know,

01:02:09: than I thought before.

01:02:11: This is beautiful.

01:02:11: This is great.

01:02:12: You know, this makes me appreciate things about wine,

01:02:16: but about myself and about the fact

01:02:18: that it must have come from a place,

01:02:19: in a person, and, you know, a process,

01:02:22: which is really amazing.

01:02:24: But most of the time, you know, wine is like,

01:02:26: for a lot of people, wine is booze or fuel.

01:02:29: It's like, you know, it's something

01:02:30: to have over the evening.

01:02:32: And you don't think about it.

01:02:34: And it's like cheap and cheerful.

01:02:36: But at some point, we need to make a decision about,

01:02:39: is it good for us?

01:02:40: Do we like it?

01:02:41: Really?

01:02:41: Are we just drinking it out of a reflex?

01:02:43: And as soon as we...

01:02:45: You can't put the knowledge away once you've learned it.

01:02:47: As soon as you learn it, or, you know, like,

01:02:50: as soon as your taste develops in a certain way,

01:02:53: like, whether you're, I don't know, eating sourdough bread,

01:02:56: or drinking, you know, un-pasteurized cheese,

01:03:00: or, you know, real cider, or something like that,

01:03:02: it's very difficult to go back to something

01:03:05: which is really artificial, mass-produced.

01:03:08: So I think with wine is like, you know,

01:03:12: to go back to the idea is that we're all on our journey.

01:03:15: Like, what you describe Emily is,

01:03:17: I think, really poignant and true.

01:03:19: It's like, at one point, you don't care.

01:03:21: It's just like a very basic subject

01:03:24: or something you're involved with.

01:03:26: And then you think, like, no,

01:03:28: it's actually way more than that.

01:03:29: It's people's livelihoods, it's farming,

01:03:31: it's the planet, and it's beauty as well.

01:03:34: It's something that, at the end of the process,

01:03:36: something amazing emerges.

01:03:38: And, fortunately, you're at the stage

01:03:41: where you can appreciate, you know, it.

01:03:44: Not as like a poncy, superior thing,

01:03:48: but as a really fine, fine and magical product.

01:03:52: What a way to encapsulate this episode, I think.

01:03:57: Yes, that's what Bondol does for you.

01:03:59: Who would have thought Mr. Bondol over there?

01:04:06: Thank you, Mr. Bondol.

01:04:07: Yes.

01:04:07: That's you.

01:04:09: From rakes dregs to…

01:04:13: Rakes dregs, yes.

01:04:14: …Bandol beauty.

01:04:17: Thank you, everybody, for tuning in with us.

01:04:19: We'll be back again with another episode

01:04:21: on something scintillating.

01:04:23: Yes.

01:04:24: And you can find us on Instagram

01:04:26: at just another wine podcast

01:04:29: where you'll see lots of pictures of us, actually.

01:04:33: That's…

01:04:34: …Few videos.

01:04:35: Yeah, I understand what you're saying.

01:04:35: Don't let that put you off.

01:04:37: There's two beautiful people,

01:04:38: and not the one who's talking.

01:04:40: Oh, Doug!

01:04:41: Oh, Doug, that's not true.

01:04:42: Please, please, for sympathy.

01:04:46: Yes, so thank you for listening,

01:04:49: and see you next time.

01:04:51: See you next time.

01:04:51: See you next time.

01:04:52: Cheers.