Pinotblogger: the Capozzi Winery blog

Surprising day.

I got to the CIA in St. Helena just before noon and walked around the campus. I’ve driven by dozens of times but never actually stopped to have a look around. Gorgeous place.

After a quick stroll I headed over to the Rudd Center to look for the evaluation room. Just inside I passed by an open door and took a look in. There were a bunch of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot placed around a three-tiered room. Beside each group of glasses were placards displaying names that were quite familiar; almost all of them were wine critics. This puzzled me a little since I was under the impression that the tasting was for a pretty mundane research project (if not mundane then certainly not something that would attract a bunch of professional critics). I figured that I was most likely in the wrong room and took the stairs down to another lower evaluation room.

I was greeted by MJ, the grad student doing the research. She told me to sample and score 20 wines on whatever scale I felt comfortable with. I went with the default 100 point scale, took a seat in the back, filled out a form and started swirling and spitting. Soon after I noticed John Buechsenstein come in and sit down. He wasn’t tasting, just plugging away on a laptop. John is the winemaker for Sauvignon Republic and an instructor at UCD. He came up with the A-O method for determining free SO2 in wines and also has his name on a bunch of important papers that came out of UCD in the 80’s including Ann Noble’s aroma wheel paper. He appeared to be part of the research end of the project.

I finished tasting in just under an hour. Since we weren’t being asked for anything but a flat score I took my own notes on the back of a piece of paper. None of the wines I tasted were great ( rated a 90 or higher). I think the highest score I gave was 88 or 89. I noticed a menthol note in quite a few of the wines, which is not something I generally consider appealing. Basically a couple good pinots, a few OK pinots, and a bunch of mediocre pinots. One was undrinkable. Surprising.

I took my results down to MJ and she gave me a decoded list of the wines I’d tasted and a sheet explaining the research objectives. I was blown away.

There wasn’t a single Russian River pinot in the bunch, none from Oregon and only one from France (Maison Champy Bourgogne). Three were declassified Sonoma County, six were from Carneros, and a couple each were from Santa Barbara, Mendocino, Monterey and the Central Coast.

I scanned the research objectives sheet and was surprised again. This was an ambitious project!

Specific objectives of this research are:

1. To determine whether quality ratings by wine experts and by members of the wine industry are related.
2. To examine whether quality ratings by wine experts and by members of industry are related to hedonic ratings by consumers (do consumers like those wines experts say are quality products).
3. To determine the validity of quality ratings (can consistency and reproducibility be achieved by those who rate wine quality?).
4. To asses the efficacy and validity of the various instruments used to measure wine sensory quality and degree of liking (e.g., 100 point scale, 9-point hedonic scale).
5. To examine market segmentation for wine preferences among consumers (do consumers have the same likes and dislikes, or can a number of market segments be identified and if so, can they be characterized?).
6. For each market segment, to determine which sensory attributes drive preferences for Sauvignon blanc and Pinot noir wines (e.g., identify so-called ‘drivers of liking’ for these varieties).”

The final two objectives are of special curiosity to me as a producer, but all the objectives are interesting. And the results of the study will be of value not only to producers but also to consumers and even wine critics.

The final paragraph of the sheet sums it all up:

“This study will show whether there is good agreement between what grape growers and winemakers intend to produce as high-quality wines, and what wine critics and writers view as high-quality wines. It will also identify which sensory attributes drive quality ratings by these groups, or the segments within them. In turn, using their knowledge of how viticultural and winemaking practices affect wine sensory properties, grape growers and winemakers will be able to adjust these practices to produce wines with desired sensory qualities. Finally, this study will determine where consumer preferences stand in comparison to where wine experts or members of the wine industry place quality. That information should prove invaluable to wine marketers. It is important for the reader to realize, however, that this is not a market research proposal, but rather a comprehensive study of the dynamics behind the determination of wine sensory quality…”

All in all this is very exciting research and I’m delighted that UCD is taking the time to conduct it, but I can’t help but be a little skeptical of the results when places like the Russian River Valley and Oregon are not represented in the wines being rated and analyzed.

MJ let me know that an email would be sent out comparing my scores with the rest of the participants’ - all referenced anonymously. She didn’t mention if the wine critics scores would be included, but the sheet mentions that their data will be used for comparisons with wine producers, so I’m guessing they will. If I’m allowed, I’ll post my scores and the results of the tasting up here when I receive them.

UPDATE: MJ emailed to say that she will be emailing preliminary results in about a month.