This line is the most poignant: “The placebo isn’t about what’s in it, but the beliefs that we load onto it.”

You see this all the time with wine. Expensive wines score better because people are happier drinking expensive wines.

Are you looking for reviews?

As a teacher I’m awash in numbers and data and objective ratings. But wine isn’t objective. It’s subjective. Wine will taste one way to me, another to Matt, another to Gary, and yet another to you. I may taste boysenberry and cherries, and my cherry-loathing husband might taste stink bugs and sunscreen. (And sometimes, I just picked it for the label. Can’t lie.)

I ask because Lenn Thompson of the New York Cork Report (excellent wine blog, by the way) posted a few weeks ago about changing the rating system on that site. Eric of the Terroirists posts about why numerical scores need to go gently into that good night. The Wine Curmudgeon agrees, and goes a step further to say that scores diminish the variety available in regional wine (i.e., a Maryland cabernet franc isn’t a California cabernet franc, and shouldn’t be). And then there’s the ScoRevolution, where the magic of Web 2.0 lets you sign a manifesto saying that you don’t like numbered wines.

We generally don’t post a lot of reviews, let alone use a rating system. I personally, for the reasons above, wasn’t looking to start using numbers a la Robert Parker and many wine publications. But if that’s what you’re looking for, let me know in the comments below.

And while we’re at it, what else are you looking for here at VinoTrip?

Let’s be frank here: there are a ton of books about wine. The vast majority of these books intend to guide the novice wine drinker past their fears and into the territory of the confident, assertive wine drinker. The transformed wine drinker will then stride confidently into his or her local wine shop and inquire about a “full bodied Cabernet” or a “Grassy Sauvignon Blanc…preferably from New Zealand.” They are all “the last book on wine you’ll ever need.”

So it was with minimal enthusiasm that I dove into Mark Oldman’s newest book Oldman’s Brave New World of Wine: Pleasure, Value, and Adventure Beyond Wine’s Usual Suspects. I expected another wine book, another thirteen varietals, tannins, body, confidence, etc, etc… A printed re-hash of that which a legion of wine writers had written before. I suppose the cycle of wine books is perpetuated by the permanently expanding base of wine drinkers, each of whom is looking for a new book to guide them. Or, maybe, people just don’t know what to buy wine drinkers for Christmas. Regardless, this endless parade of “WINE!” books will never stop.

Be advised: this book is not re-hashing a bunch of boring crap! I was overjoyed to find that Oldman’s Brave New World of Wine goes a different route. What you have is a vast number of chapters, each covering a different grape or style of wine. Each chapter gives you five to seven paragraphs on the subject, usually enough to get you going but not enough to leave you bored. Take an example from the chapter on one of my favorite whites: Gruner Veltliner

If you are to fully revel in the mystique of this wine, you need to forgo its usual sobriquets [nicknames -Ed]–GV and GruVee–and attempt the full mouthful: Grewn-air Felt-LEEN-air.

Your information minute is followed by relevant quotes from random people. Most of the quips are from the usual winemakers, wine producers, wine reviewers, and drunks. Occasionally, though, someone famous pops up in the list.

“When I visit my sister in the southwest of France, we take an empty jug to the local supermarket and the pink stuff comes out like cool water. It is my version of madeleines only tons more fun.”

-Jodie Foster, actress, on Rosé.

[By the way, you hear that, Pennsylvania and Maryland? They just took a jug to the Safeway and got a gallon of Rosé like it was a two-liter of Pepsi. Did the Southwest of France descend into crippling anarchy from teenagers drunk off of Mourvedre? No.]

Each chapter is resolved with some blockquoted trivia snippets and an inforgraphic that measures adventure versus expected price of the wine. Gruner Veltliner, for example, is rated eight on the advensure scale. Fun!

The big win of this book is that a good portion of it covered wine that I wasn’t familiar with or had even heard of. Oldman’s writing will get you excited to walk into your local shop and say “Do you have a good Torrontés?” or, better “I need a solid Txakoli for a party tonight.” You’ll learn a lot from this book, and it will truly get you excited to go try a bunch of new wines. Which, really, is the point here, right?

Highly recommended for yourself or as a gift to the avid wine consumer in your life.

Amazon.com link: Oldman’s Brave New World of Wine: Pleasure, Value, and Adventure Beyond Wine’s Usual Suspects

W. W. Norton & Co. provided a review copy of this book for this review.

Creative commons image from Flickr user visualpanic

I gave up on the hundred point scale. It always bugged me was that all hundred points aren’t used. Each wine gets 50 points just for showing up. No wine of note would ever score lower than 75 points. Almost everything lands somewhere in the 80′s. Some wine critics don’t even publish reviews on wines they scored below 90.

I address all this in a post from June of 2008 (2008!). I proposed, only partially in jest, that we start using a thousand-point-scale for scoring wine. In summary of my idea, I wrote

No longer must two wines be tied at 90, leaving intrepid point chasers scratching their heads while they decide which wine will impress their friends more.

When I started scoring every wine I drank, I resolved to use the entire spectrum available. I routinely awarded scores in the 70′s. I even handed out a 55 for a Deep Creek Watershed Red (see here). It just got old though and I don’t know why. What’s an 88 versus an 89? How big is the gap between the coveted 90 and the shameful 89? Tasting wines a second time always resulted in different numbers. The whole thing doesn’t make sense. Add to this that one wine scored 84 and another at 83 implies that one is better than the other. Nonsense. The scored wine may outperform a week later, tomorrow, or even in an hour from now.

Thus, starting in 2011 I will be scoring wines with stars. Stars! No mincy wincy half stars either, FULL stars. Wines will be awarded anywhere from zero stars (undrinkable swill) to five stars (godlike). Compare these statements and decide for yourself which has more impact, more… swagger if you will.

This is a 94 point wine

This is a five-star wine.

I know, right? Let’s hear it for stars!

My forthcoming Best of 2010 post will be re-calibrated for the new star system as will all of my future wine reviews. Now go forth, enjoy 2011, drink some wine, and start seeing stars.

So, my question for you today – when you read Vinotrip, what are you looking for in your local wine coverage? Are you counting on us to identify the best deals in Maryland wine? Are we putting in enough reviews? Sound off in the comments!

My personal take is that we already have enough Wine Spectators in the world, and that our local coverage here on the special interest issues is what makes us unique and valuable for Maryland wine lovers. Do you agree?

Cheers,

-Matt

Finally got out to Oregon’s Willamette Valley to do some wine tastin’, picture takin’, and relaxin’. The first thing I noticed while driving from winery to winery is all the dysentery is how they have other stuff planted besides grapes. Drive through any major wine region around the world and you’re likely to find every available square inch under vine. The Willamette Valley has a feel that Oregon has some other stuff going on besides wine, like hazelnuts.

Sidebar: hazelnuts taste nothing like you’d expect mostly because all you’ve been exposed to is hazelnut flavoring in your coffee. Like most other things, the flavor has drifted far from the source material.

We stayed in Carlton, OR at the aptly named Carlton Inn. The Carlton Inn is everything a Bed and Breakfast should be: nice, outside space, inside space, friendly, and good food. The proprietors knew just about everyone in the valley and had tons of recommendations. Downtown Carlton – a one-road stretch that is about 2000 feet long – features several tasting rooms from surrounding wineries. This is typical of small-town Willamette Valley life, the towns have tastings so that you don’t need to go driving through the hillside like a maniac. You are free to stumble through their streets like a maniac, as it were.

In order to taste a wide swath of wines, we stopped into
The Horse Radish in downtown Carlton. The staff was so friendly and so happy to see us I thought they actually knew The Wife from somewhere. We got a big cheese plate, a flight of Oregon Pinots from the tasting bar, and settled onto one of the couches to watch the afternoon to by.

Out in the valley, stops of note included Anne Amie and Argyle. Anne Amie sits a few miles outside of Carlton. The Wife and I tasted while the tasting room staff allowed The Daughter to crawl around the room unfettered. Anne Amie’s Pinot Gris was rated best in Oregon by the New York Honkin’ Times. After tasting it, I agreed. Their Pinot Gris is blended with grapes from several different sites to give it a rounder, softer feel than one often finds in a Pinot Gris. This one has it all: fruit, acid, floral, and there is some wine in there too…

Notice no Maryland on the list.

Besides being home to the Argyle Winery tasting room, the Town of Dundee also lays claim to the biggest traffic bottleneck in the valley. Oregon Route 99W goes from four lanes to two and the traffic frustrates both locals and tourists alike. Fortunately we watched all this unfold form the safety of the Argyle Winery front porch. Argyle’s flight took you through three levels of their Pinot Noir and tossed in some of their fantastic sparkling wines. Theirs was the most sophisticated and Napa-like of the tasting rooms we visited. Nice, polished operation.

In total, we were floored by the quality we found in and around the Willamette Valley. Oregon and go wine for wine with almost any region in the world and when considered on a price-to-quality ratio, the region is a treasure of good wine and good times. It’s not just Pinot Noir either. Syrah and Cabernet (what Oregonian’s call “warm weather grapes”) thrive around Southern Oregon and the wineries pour a range of everything. Willamette Valley is a must visit for wine lovers.

The Carlton Inn
648 West Main Street
Carlton, OR 97111
(503) 852-7506

The Horse Radish
211 West Main Street
Carlton, OR 97111
(503) 852-6656

Anne Amie
6580 NE Mineral Springs Road
Carlton, OR 97111

Argyle Winery
691 Highway 99W
Dundee, Oregon 97115

Special offer from our sponsors at WineChateau.com: Get 50% off shipping when you buy 6 or more bottles of Italian wine with coupon code “vino08″

The theme was Syrah/Shiraz. Guests were asked to bring a wine where Syrah was the principal grape. Price limit was set at $20. No regional bounds were set, so of course I went with a Maryland wine. I knew I was bringing a bottle of Maryland’s Finest from Black Ankle Vineyards. My target was their Passeggiata, but Wells Liquors was out of it that day. Rather than drive around town looking for the wine I wanted, I swallowed my pride and paid up $44 for the Black Ankle Leaf Stone Syrah.

Wine were evaluated blind with the tasters knowing only that the wine was Syrah. Wines were bagged and capsules stripped prior to tastings.

As I tallied up the scores at the end of the night, I realized something really cool: two people had brought the same wine. The 2006 Colonial Estate Explorateur came out of both bag 3 and bag 4. The people who brought the wine did so independently. It’s the sort of thing that got me really geeked. Here we had evaluated the exact same wine without knowing it was the same wine.

So, two interesting factors in play. One, two of the wines were the same. Two, Maryland was in there tangling blindly with Australia, California, and Chile.

The contenders:

1) 2007 Miguel Torres Santa Dinga Shiraz, Chile
2) 2005 Zaca Mesa Syrah
3) 2006 Colonial Estate Explorateur Old Vine Shiraz, Barossa Valley Australia
4) 2006 Colonial Estate Explorateur Old Vine Shiraz, Barossa Valley Australia
5) 2007 Black Ankle Leaf Stone Syrah, Frederick County, Maryland
6) 2008 Raw Power Shiraz, South Australia

Onto the scores…

Wines were scored out of fifty possible points. Scores were Parkerized by adding fifty more points.

And the analysis…

The Leaf Store Syrah finished third by average score at 80.7 and medaled four times. It was my Wine of the Night (WOTN) receiving an 86. An 86! From me! And, Maryland! I was pleasantly surprised as it was the only wine that wasn’t barreling me over with alcohol and oak. Good balance, good fruit, some floral aromas. It’s not worth $44 (let’s not get ahead of ourselves) but it is a well-made wine.

How did the duplicate bottle of 2006 Colonial Estate Explorateur Old Vine Shiraz fare? It was the clear winner by score with an average of 82.6 and three medals. It also finished fourth at 78.8 with a gold and a bronze to show for the effort. Jon was the only one that scored the wine the same, but it should be noted that his component scores (for nose, palette, etc…) were different. For more, here’s one of those wine tasting videos where the taster stares at you while he drinks wine link.

The 2007 Miguel Torres Santa Dinga showed well, barely being edged out by the Explorateur. It averaged 81.6 and picked up one gold, two silvers, and a bronze. Dead last was the 2005 Zaca Mesa Syrah averaging 72.58 and turning up as the least liked wine on three ballots. Mike brought that one, and he says “you’re welcome.” No wine scored over 90. The Explorateur was the only one to come close pulling down scores of 88 and 89.

Nobody left impressed with any of the wines unfortunately. Perhaps tasting blind leaves you with some sense of anticipation, leading on the hope that you’ll uncover something really good. Not so in this case.

Wine critics are not immune. The conditions under which they taste and evaluate wines has come under fire recently, such as when Dr. Vino traded jabs with Robert Parker over a Wine Advocate employee getting a tasting trip paid for. I am sure that most critics are as objective as possible; it’s just so difficult to separate the wine from the experience of wine. Wouldn’t the best, most objective, evaluation of a wine be done without any outside influence, including the the name on the label? This is called tasting blind, and it produces the best wine tasting results.

Thus, I’m a blind tasting guy, and so are Alexis Herschkowitsch & Robin Goldstein. You can read all about it in their updated edition of The Wine Trials 2010. Goldstein picked up a bit of notoriety last year when he threw Wine Spectator a curveball by entering their Award of Excellence program with a fake restaurant and was placed on their excellent list.

When I first flipped through The Wine Trials, I thought it was going to be useless. The heart of the book is page after page of cheap wines. They note the price, the label, the notes, and call some “winners” and others “values.” In short, at first glance it looked like a glorified wine blog that someone had bothered to print out. The substance of these reviews, though, comes out when you read the six chapter introduction and the short statistical nerd-fest at the end. The opening chapters of The Wine Trials 2010 is almost a manifesto for why Goldstein would pull a stunt like make up a restaurant and pay $250 to get it on the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence list. The entrenched elite wine critic establishment is not as reputable as they claim and this, he argues, must not stand.

The thesis of the book is this: price and pleasure do not correlate when it comes to wine and non-expert wine drinkers actually prefer inexpensive wine to expensive wine. The authors make a very strong case for it. Using the results of hundreds of blind tasters, they ranked inexpensive wines and set out to prove that the cheap wines can stand up to the wallet-busters.

The back part of the book… well, it’s a good time. is just jammed with stuff out of my 4000 level stat classes.

In a linear regression, this allows both the intercept and the slope coefficient to differ for both experts and non-experts.

You like that, do you? Yeah. You love it. Read it again. Go ahead… I’ll wait.

If you’re not into this sort of thing I can summarize for you. They’re proving that their results are statistically significant. This means that they’ve asked enough people to make your stat professor stroke his mustache and nod in stoic approval.

So you put all that together and you find out how they came to all the reviews and notes in the middle of the book. The book no longer looks like compendium of paragraphs posted by some wingnut on the Internet (see also: Blog (n.)). It is an awards program, if you will, for cheap wines. The judges were a long array of blind tasters and their cumulative blind tasting experience comes together to pick some winners.

I agree with most of the winners. Chateau St. Michelle (highlighted in the book) in particular is one of my favorite US producers, especially their Riesling. Other winners included Bogle, Fetzer, and Black Box wine. The book is a good piece of work and it would be nice to have in your back pocket next time you’re browsing through the sea of $15 wines at your local mega-shop.

This book was provided to me as a press sample. It feels so good to say that.

If there’s one thing Maryland wineries can learn from Virginia, it’s signage. The very first sign we saw for Black Ankle Vineyards was the one directing us to turn left into the driveway. Virginia, on the other hand, has seemingly thousands of generic “winery ahead” signs, and numerous arrows when you get close. Perhaps Virgina spends more time and tax dollars promoting its wineries than Maryland does. With the ridiculous wine shipping laws in Maryland, it’s clear that the state government doesn’t want to help its wineries.

Once we arrived, however, everything changed. The grounds are immaculate and picturesque. A long stone walkway, flanked by gravel spotted with tables and chairs, leads up to the tasting room. They have indoor seating and covered porch seating in addition to the the open tables.

Our timing, however, was poor. The tasting room was nearly empty, just a group of two couples, when we arrived. By the time we had finished tasting the whites, the room was full, and we’d been shoved into a corner.

We started with the 2006 Bedlam, followed by the 2008 Winner of the Maryland Winemaster’s Choice Award, the 2007 Bedlam. The 2007 has a very sweet smell, though not taste. I preferred the 2006, which had a stronger flavor, while the wife liked the 2007.

The 2008 Chardonnay was pleasant, as was the 2008 Viognier. “Crisp”, the wife said. The Passegiata and the Syrah were both pleasant, if not memorable.

And finally, the flagship 2006 Crumbling Rock, winner of the 2008 Maryland Governor’s Cup (which, frankly, should be the name of a boat race, but I won’t quibble). I had high hopes for this wine. It’s “so elegant”, the woman giving us our tasting said.

And here I wish I were better at identifying the tastes and smells of a wine. Black Ankle says it has hints of vanilla, usually a sure winner in my book, but I couldn’t taste it. They also speak of “intense black fruits, crushed rocks, graphite, dried mushrooms . . .”.  Now, I don’t even know what graphite tastes like, so maybe I did taste it in the wine. But what I can tell you is that the flavor was not as full as I had expected. The wife called it, “smooth”. I call it disappointing. Not a bad wine, but I wouldn’t have rated it the best wine in Maryland.

Our trip continued to Loew Vineyards. You can’t go wrong with a $2 tasting (8 wines, $5 if you keep the souvenier glass), but if I were you I’d skip their reds. The whites were nice, and if you like sweet berry wines, the blueberry and strawberry were surprisngly good – I’m not usually one for sweet wine, but I liked these.

Our favorite of the day was Elk Run. We stayed there for a bit, buying a glass each of their pinot noir, and sitting outside in the sun. I have no notes, however, from the second two wineries – I blame this on an increasingly fidgety ten-month-old, who made it difficult to write anything down. I wish I had written down the text of the snippy, “what’s so wrong about shipping wine, Maryland?” sign Elk Run had in their tasting room.

So, if you’re in the area, I’d recommend all three, though for different reasons.  Black Ankle is the most impressive.  Loew is a great deal, and the friendliest staff.  And our only complaint about Elk Run was the parking lot.

Winesdays, five wines featured on each Wednesday, are still around but the price has gone from $10 to $15 for five tastes. Our bartender remarked that the wines are of better quality, though, so that may offset the price increase. The tastes are always generous anyway, so you’re getting your money’s worth. This is coming from a guy who usually thinks he paid too much for tastings, remember.

Food is good, nice fresh Italian selections. I had a panini, and The Wife had spaghetti in Bolognese sauce. Everything was seriously fresh: the cheese, the pasta, the bread. Great, authentic flavors.

But let’s get down to business:

The wines aren’t prices at standard restaurant markup. They are priced at retail.

I couldn’t believe it. Glancing at the wine list, I saw prices in the teens and I started internally grumbling about by-the-glass prices in the double digits. I scanned and scanned and decided I would just have a beer.

But, the prices were bottle prices, not prices by-the-glass.

The glass prices are all $7 or $8, but you can get a whole bottle of real wine for $12 with your dinner. Guys, no longer do you have to shop around for fixed-rate financing on your wine with dinner. You can dine with dignity, have a bottle of Chianti, and pay with cash. I recommend the $16 Kermit Lynch imported Cotes du Rhone.

This was enough to push Taverna Corvino onto my “happy” list of local restaurants. Good food, friendly and helpful staff, a TV in the bar area to watch the Orioles get crushed, and cheap wine prices. I hope this place sticks.

Taverna Corvino
1117 South Charles St
Baltimore, MD 21230
(410) 727-1212
http://www.tavernacorvino.com/