More wine marketing blather. I apologize in advance. I do have a cool vineyard tech post coming up this week though, so stay tuned.
The news that some 2 Buck Chuck Chard won a double gold at the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition raises some interesting questions about wine judging. At the top of the heap for me is the question of whether the results will elevate perception of The Chuck as a quality wine, or if the results will ultimately repudiate the work of wine judges and devalue county fair medals in general.
I think I can make a pretty good case either way. But first let’s define our terms. Oh, that’s right. We can’t.
Don’t believe me? Define, if you will, the term quality when it comes to wine.
I bet you can’t, at least not in a consistently applicable way. By his own admission Parker can’t (hat tip Dr. Vino). And Alder argues that anyone who steps foot on a fairground to judge wines sure as heck can’t do it (though Dan Berger might take exception to that blanket rebuke of all fair wine judging).
The problem is literally one of perception; both psychological and organoleptic (a fancy word for taste and smell). For instance, I could define quality as “a wine free of defects showing good fidelity to a chosen wine style”. This definition has the advantage of valuing wines that are alternately thin and tart and big and fruity on their own terms. But (and its a fat-bottomed but) this definition elevates the winemaker to the position of High Judge and Minister of Wine Quality, since we get to decide what our style actually is. And as a consequence, if my definition were to rule, Dwight K Schrute style, over 80% of the wines on the market would be deemed “quality” wines.
This does nothing to help Joe Wine Consumer sift through the clutter and figure out which wine to buy. Producers would love it, at least at first. But consumers would quickly become and remain confused and respond by buying less wine.
And that would be sad.
So instead we leave it to experts and proxy tasters to tell us which wines are good, great, perfect! Only this time instead of relying on potentially biased winemakers to define quality on their own terms, we are relying on the preferences of The Wine Judges. We get big and fruity wines getting great scores from one judge, and thin and tart wines getting big scores from another. In exchange we gain a measure of brand impartiality (but not objectivity, and that’s a key distinction). Most importantly we get selectivity and the vast field of available wine is narrowed, which makes choosing a wine to purchase less hard.
So what to make of The Chuck winning double gold? While I could argue it either way, I feel like this commenter on the original story over at the Napa Valley Register has it about right:
A wine I made just won a double gold and best Viognier in Texas. I was getting all big headed, now back to earth. Oh Well.
The bottom line is that medals will always help you sell wine to folks visiting your tasting room or online store. Like Dory and Marlin in Finding Nemo, people already predisposed to purchase your wine will always be entranced by the shiny baubles. The trick is to get them there in the first place, and for that the best medals you can receive are referrals from loyal customers, not county fair judges.
In the case of Two-Buck Chuck, the power of medals is far-reaching. I stopped by a local Trader Joe’s just one day after the State Fair results were announced, and every last bottle of Charles Shaw Chard had been cleaned out. (I was there to buy a bottle for my own blind tasting.) I tried a TJ’s in another city a couple days later and found just a few bottles left. (There was still plenty of other Charles Shaw wine to be had, but practically no Chardonnay.) The gold medal was just the validation consumers needed for TBC–just a few days earlier, the wine was fully stocked on Trader Joe’s shelves.
The funny thing is, medals work when they work, and they don’t when they don’t. Same as reviews, same as 95 point scores. It’s a funny thing - so you put your stuff out there, and you see what sticks…
El Jefe is right. I do it myself: disregard/disbelieve the wines that I consider low quality and how they somehow manage to get medals, but when my favorites win, I dance a jig.
Josh, you’re right, too. A customer raving about a wine in the tasting room (or store or restaurant) does even more good than scores and awards. It’s an issue of figurative versus literal….
I have heard quite a few people say that Charles Shaw is pretty decent, though I’ve never tried it myself. I agree that quality is somewhat subjective, but I believe the judges’ medals still help.
I enjoyed reading your blog!
I mildly disagree that wine quality can’t be defined. In my own tasting, I look for complexities in aromas and flavors first, then rate the wine based upon varietal correctness and finally deduct points for any faults. While I agree that wine tasting is totally subjective, I do think that a consistent procedure will make a given tasters ratings have some validity.
RE: Charles Shaw Chard. I’ve always thought this was thin and bland but it’s my parents house wine so I have some each year. After the metals I went to TJ’s and bought a couple bottles. In tasting the ‘05 a couple weeks back, I found it to be clean with reasonable varietal characteristics but very simple. I rated it a 78 (2.5 stars). The second bottle will go into a blind tasting against the best of the other Chards in the CA Fair this year. It should make for an interesting podcast and a few decent blog posts.
Tim,
Thanks for the comment.
Consistency is something that a good wine reviewer has to have, but there is substantial error involved in even the same palate rating a wine on two separate occasions. That doesn’t even begin to explain how Laube can rate a wine 96 and Parker 88 (Kosta Brown for example). They both taste for intensity, after all. If there is some knowable and definable characteristic out there called quality, why can’t we identify it consistently?
I’m not saying that ratings don’t have validity. Clearly people think that Parker giving a wine 95 points is something they need to take note of, if not try to buy immediately.
What I am saying is that 95 points doesn’t equal Quality, writ large. As in, “this is a universally good wine that anyone tasting it will agree is of high quality”. That just doesn’t exist in wine.
Markets are efficient, using information to make money. Scores attract my attention because the markets use them. Mathematics of scores is real. Before we can talk about why scores are real, lets consider why we sense scores are not accurate. Writers more famous that we are equally confused, See http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/jr429
Josh gives the example of Kosta Brown, measured 2-times. Laube and Parker have an Error of 8-points. So, the single wine has an error of ±4-points.
So why do markets use scores? Someone is using scores to make money, but they can only do it if they have some reliability.
Retailers like Zacchy’s are buying and selling 100 wines, not a single Kosta Brown. An accuracy of 3-4 points is better than guessing says our retailer. When you buy 100 wines there is a 70% chance that the score is accurate to within 1 or 2 points, pretty good for business purposes
I have read an article that some wine has higher ethyl cabamate level affecting human health even causing cancer. Since I have consumed the wine many years the eye popping article concerns me.
What is the ethyl cabamate contents in the wine (Charles Shaw), there is FDA safety level recommended. Thank you. BK.