The Zen of Wine

I recall that day in the stadium vividly. I was covering the Olympic Track and Field trials and, unaware of the budding greatness of Oregon wine, I had brought some California wine to get me through the 12 days I’d spend in Eugene.

The final day of the spectacle was hot and hectic. The temperature under the metal roof of the University of Oregon stadium was well above 100 degrees.

After the final event, to celebrate a record in the high jump, I pulled the cork on the last bottle of wine I’d brought, a 1970 Simi Cabernet Sauvignon. I poured the wine into plastic foam coffee cups and handed them around to my comrades, who were all busily filing stories to newspapers around the globe.

The wine, warmed by the heat in the stands, smelled fine, but it was too warm to enjoy. A friend from the Washington Post asked for an ice cube. The reporter for Agence France-Presse said beer would have been better.

A week later, back home, I pulled out another bottle of the Simi Cabernet and served it with rare prime rib, asparagus and baby red potatoes. The wine was in lovely stemware; close friends were at the table. The wine was rich and sublime, utterly different from what I’d been drinking out of a foam cup just a few days before.

The lesson wasn’t lost on me: The enjoyment of wine is as much a part of its provenance and its environment as it is of cold, calculating, pseudo-scientific analysis. People who use numbers to rank wine with such precision never take those factors into account. Condensing the experience of wine into a two-digit number is simply not possible, given what wine is--a rapidly changing entity that can be grand or not, as the experience dictates.

Examples are endless. Try a young Cabernet, still raw from tannin, with lean, austere acidity, unformed and untamed. You say it’s a 90? Then try that same wine with a plate of Dover sole poached in Champagne. Is it a 90 under these conditions?

The number-fixated reviewer would argue that the wine was never intended to be served with sole. Fine; take that same wine and pour it into three different vessels--a plastic cup, a water glass and a tall, elegant wine goblet made by Riedel of Austria, one of the finest producers of stemware in the world.

Not only does the wine now smell like three completely different wines, but tasters’ reactions to the wine will be different. This is the Zen of wine. We change as we perceive subtle differences in our surroundings. This has a way of making the wine seem different.

(I firmly believe that the shape of the wine glass is critical to the proper evaluation of a wine. More about that in an upcoming column.)

Moreover, bottles of the same wine differ. Take four bottles of the same wine: One may have been transported shortly before opening and be suffering from travel sickness. Another, from its original box, may have been stored in perfect conditions but have a bad cork. A third bottle may have had some small problem at bottling that has caused a trace of oxidation. A fourth bottle is perfect.

Which wine did the reviewer get? Even he can’t know.

In addition, how long did the evaluation take? About 15 minutes per wine, or 20 seconds?

Another key factor in wine appreciation is the mood of the consumer. A friend, recalling the time he was served one of the greatest French red Burgundies ever made, observed: “I hated the wine because I really disliked the people I was with.”

For reasons such as these, putting numbers on wine is not, can’t be, an exact science. We change; wine changes; settings change. Yet those who profess to have the ability to place precise numbers on wine--in blind and open tastings--swear they could replicate their numbers if put to the test.

Bosh. No one can avoid the vagaries of headaches, colds, pollen, off days, differences in the wine or the glassware, the air temperature, the irritation produced by a flat tire and myriad other factors over which we have no control. The best we can do is try to frame our reviews of wine in terms of their style and general quality.

Yet many people are trapped by their own prejudices. We are supposed to judge Chardonnays against one another, and not Chardonnays against Chenin Blancs. But some wine critics do rate Chardonnays against Chenin Blancs--to the detriment of the latter.

For instance, a wine critic once wrote that a Folie a Deux Chenin Blanc was one of the finest Chenin Blancs he had ever tasted. He gave the wine a score of 85 out of 100.

Now, these days an 85 rating for a Chardonnay is seen as a slap in the face. The implicit message was that even the best Chenin Blanc could probably get no more than a 90. The reviewer was so prejudiced against Chenin Blanc as a wine that he could not give the best of them a score as high as the best Chardonnay. (Or was it simply that any wine selling for $6.50 couldn’t be worth a 90?)

Recently, Wine Spectator magazine let its prejudice show by giving the 1990 Phelps Vin du Mistral Grenache Rose ($9) an 87 rating. I believe this is one of the finest roses ever made anywhere. It also rated the 1990 Chateau Ste. Michelle Dry Riesling ($7) an 85. This is one of the most perfect dry-styled Rieslings I have ever tasted--spicy and delicate, a perfect match for a wide array of lighter foods.

Question: What does it take for wines of this extraordinary quality to get a 90 or better? Must they have the word “Chardonnay” somewhere on the label to qualify for entrance into the complete 100-point club? Could any rose or Riesling ever qualify for a 100?

Numbers can’t replace the act of sniffing and sipping. Wine writers should deal less with numbers and more with the style of a wine and its context (the foods it goes with). And wine lovers should stop blindly buying by the numbers: There are a lot of 90s out there that aren’t worth much, and some 70s that are.

Wine of the Week

1989 Clos Pegase Chardonnay, Napa Valley ($13) --In spite of rains that caused rot in some Chardonnay vineyards in 1989, many wine makers avoided problems by careful handling of the fruit. Clos Pegase wine maker Bill Pease did a brilliant job, accenting the delicate spice character with just enough oak to flesh out an otherwise delicate wine. The faint citrus and clove notes in this flavorful wine are hard to find if it’s too cold. A most engaging wine at a reasonable price.