AnuvaBlog

The LA Times reported today that:

“Only 10% in a four-year study of California State Fair judging were able to consistently give the same rating, or something close, to the same wine sampled multiple times in a large blind tasting.”

Click here for the full article

This is not at all surprising to me since I have quite often seen the variance in opinion in person, of wine judges and consumers alike. Why is this surprising to anyone else?

I suppose when someone adorns the title of Judge or simply writes something down on a piece of paper or puts it on Television, it becomes truth.  It never ceases to amaze me how many people put their blind faith in whatever they read, no matter where it comes from, and no matter what they see on TV.

I think it is much the same with wine even though, in my opinion, it is one of the hardest things to judge in the world for several reasons: people and their palates evolve and change and wine itself evolves and changes over time. The food and drink that I liked when I was 8 years old were very different than what I liked at 18 and then at 28. I didn’t even start liking wine till I was 24. My dad didn’t start liking wine till he was 55!!

Also, it is a myth that they always get better over time. Most wines cannot survive ideal storage conditions for more than about 5 years. Only very high quality wines continue to improve over long time horizons. But all wines change over time in the bottle.

So when this article refers to tasting the same wine at different competitions, does it mean an hour later or a month later? Because either way, if the wine has been exposed to oxygen for that amount of time longer it will have at least changed somewhat if not dramatically.

With such room for error within the person judging and the wine judged, how can anyone really be expected to be that consistent.