I’ve long pondered how to monetise the amount of time and effort who employ other less rigorous. Banner ad sponsor
At the suggestion of several wine producers I’m also offering an assessment service such as one might traditionally receive in an Australian wine show. With the difference that there will be. Becasue not all blemishes are bad things. For $75 per bottle submitted you will receive — to quote one producer — a ‘warts an’ all’ assessment of each wine as it presents in the ‘half-blind’, peer-group line-ups that I frequently undertake.
This ‘raw’ note will be accompanied by a tasting note in my style, as well as a more restrained one which might be used — say — on a winery tasting note specification sheet. Any of these notes may be used at the discretion of the exhibitor, of course. Or a combo of each.
This service should proves useful for a number reasons. Firstly, the producer is going to get rigorous appraisal from an experienced wine show judge and critic. Second, the tasting note and review are ready for immediate upload or other form of publication. Lastly, it takes some pressure off the winemaker / winegrower / marketer to conjure up a tasting note of their own. Which I know some find pressure — occasionally difficulty — in doing. Additionally, there is no need to supply multiple bottles of the same wine.
I’d pondered describing this service as ‘Alternative Rigorous Sensory Evaluation’. But I thought the acronym sounded a bit too clever by half, nor commensurate to the seriousness of my assessment and review service proposal. Any wines submitted for this purpose will, however, be assessed in exactly the same rigorous manner as I approach all other wines submitted for evaluation.
There is, however, one DYI aspect for anyone who submits wines to me for this evaluation process, and this pertains to colour. For one thing I assess all wines in Riedel Blind Blind glassware as I find the look of a wine may — sometimes unfairly — predispose the palate and opinion of the taster to either the positive or negative (it’s rarely in between in my experience).
And also, I’m deuteranomolous — that’s colour-blind — red-green colour-blind — in old speak. While this can, on occasion, be a little embarrassing — not being able to pick subtly-hued rosés in line-ups, for example, apart from what they smell and taste like — it doesn’t appear to have hindered my tasting capabilities.
Indeed, I make a point of confessing to this sensory deficiency every time I’m a guest judge on The Australian Wine Research Institute’s Advanced Wine Assessment Course. And I’ve been invited again to AWACs #56 and #57 in May so I must have been getting something right over the decades. One thing you’ll never find me debating is colour. It has little bearing on complexity — or intensity — of aroma, flavour, and texture in wine. Some of my absolute favourite cultivars — Nebbiolo, Grenache, Sangiovese — are often quite anthocyanically challenged.