Judging Competitions More Than a Matter of Taste

When folks hear I’ll be a judge at a wine competition, their reaction is almost always the same: What fun. What a blast. Great fun. Don’t fall over. Etc. Ha, ha.

Fact is, evaluating wine is no fun at all. It’s hard work and far different from enjoying wine in its most sybaritic location, at the dinner table. Oh, sure, there’s occasional enjoyment when a wine judge does find a wine that is so exciting that it stands out and entices him or her to actually sip it and not spit.

But otherwise, for some 95% of the wines made today, the routine is so routine that it’s exhausting not to mention painful. And it starts with the first flight of wines on the first day of a wine competition.

A server brings a flight of something like White Zinfandel. The colors are amusing. Mostly they are pale pink, but some have a curious iridescent pink/violet hue, others are flat out orange, and still others have a bronze color that indicates the wine is old and dull.

A whiff of a few confirms that what we have here is more than anything a lesson in chemical discovery. Among the aromas I got recently from a flight of such wines were medicine, onion, bubble gum, earthy-dirty, overripe bananas, sulfur, tomato juice, wet cardboard, cooked beans and nothing.

Less Than Pristine

This last aroma--none--is the most puzzling because the “wine,” such as it is, has zilch that tips you off that grapes were used. The other aromas listed here indicate that wine making procedures were less than pristine.

Then there are the aromas that are wine-like and pleasant, but which confuse the issue just the same. There was a “White Zinfandel” I had recently that smelled just like an excellent Chenin Blanc. Nice wine, but what does a judge do? Award it a gold medal because it tastes good, even if it doesn’t have a passing resemblance to White Zinfandel?

A major problem exists with White Zinfandel. Demand for it has risen so fast it has exceeded the supply of available grapes, and thus many wine makers are making it from 75% Zinfandel and 25% something else.

Occasionally, that something else is of poor quality, but a lot of wine makers figure, what the heck, most people who drink White Zinfandel do so because it’s “chic” not to mention sweet, and that it’s typically served at arctic temperatures, and this all but covers up aromas as charming as medicine, bananas, tomato soup, etc.

(The state of California has recently cracked down on some growers who have sold cheaper grapes and passed them off as scarce Zinfandel so more of this exciting gurgitation can occur.)

Back to our wine competition regimen. Often you have a flight of 12 such mystical wines followed by another flight of 12, then another, and so forth. After a while, the lack of acidity, the flabby nature of the oxen, bores you and angers you. Then, after a time, the strange aromas become so off-putting that you don’t even want to sip the wine.

Code System

Bob Thompson, the Napa Valley-based wine author and columnist, came up with a code system for his tasting note book: DNPIM. It applies to wine whose aroma is so atypical of the category, so strange, that Thompson jots down the fact that he Did Not Put In Mouth this foul and fetid fluid.

But what of those wines that you deem to taste? They may have an aroma at least warranting consideration for a medal, but they can still offer pain and suffering to an unwitting judge.

I use, as an example, my experience with the 1983 Cabernet Sauvignons of California’s North Coast, which I was asked to judge two years ago at the San Francisco Fair and Exposition. The aromas were not the problem. It was the tannin, that astringent element (also found in tea) that dries the mouth.

Following the first flight of these 1983 Cabernets, one fellow judge said, “This isn’t going to be any fun.” His teeth, 12 wines into a grouping of more than 90, were already stained purple.

Couldn’t See the Bottom

Thompson, as good and assiduous a judge as he is, admits that he’s been tempted on occasion to eschew tasting a wine that has a nice aroma but such a deep, dark, broodingly opaque color that Thompson is prompted to note in his tasting book the letters CSB --that he Couldn’t See the Bottom of the glass.

Still, in the interest of science, we persevere and sip, cautiously, such behemoths in the faint, fleeting hope that there may be something redeeming lurking within.

Then come the other pitfalls of judging.

The wine judge must contend with a variety of styles of wine. Should a Chardonnay be as lean and gaunt as a Foreign Legion rescuee? Should it contain enough oak to fool a woodcarver? Should it have the aroma of butter or the smell of an overripe pineapple?

And what about Sauvignon Blanc: stony and anvil-like or herbaceous to the point of weediness? Or Zinfandel: quaffable frivolity or a substitute for port? Wine judges who are on the same panel and who disagree on style questions often get into some monumental arguments on just these points.

More than mere style, however, is the question of technical flaws. You’d think that judges can agree about flaws. Truth be known, they usually can’t.

I have had Zinfandels that had enough volatile acidity (vinegariness) to make me think I was in a nail polish factory. Other judges said they felt the same wine was a “classic.” (Vocal arguments but few fisticuffs followed.)

One of the worst cases of flaw-blindness comes with a component found occasionally in red wine called Brettanomyces.

Bret, as it’s abbreviated by the intelligentsia, is yeast spoilage and it produces a smell akin to a wet horse blanket. A friend prefers the term “wet dog in a phone booth in Savannah in August.” When found in red Burgundy wine, it’s sometimes referred to, quaintly, as offering a slight barnyardy character.

Note of Complexity

Wine judges divide right down the middle on Bret. Some prefer a trace of it, saying it adds “a note of complexity.” Others say it’s foul and any wine containing it, in any amount, should be taken into an alley and beaten.

Interestingly, a lot of otherwise well-qualified wine judges don’t detect Bret at all, even when it’s fairly obvious. And then there are those who say they detect Bret in any wine they don’t like, even if it’s not there. (Some folks, pedants, argue that all red wine has some Bret, and your ability to detect it is a test of your skill.)

If that’s not enough to make wine judgings seem like imprecise target shoots, add in the age-old question: should a wine be judged as it tastes today or as it will taste after bottle age? This is especially important with young red wines. Even some of the best palates around often disagree on this.

(For the record, I believe red wines that are made to be aged should be judged for their ageworthiness, and red wines clearly made to be consumed young should be judged for their immediate enjoyment, if any.)

Then, toss in this unspoken point of controversy: should wine be judged as it tastes all by itself or should it be evaluated as it would be in its most natural setting, with food?

This is probably the most germane point to be raised, yet rarely if ever does such a point get raised. That is, judges almost never get to a steely Chardonnay and say, “This should get a gold medal because it’d be great with oysters on the half shell.” Instead, steely Chardonnays usually get a fast pass into oblivion as far as most judges are concerned.

Ideally, all table wine should be judged in relation to food, but practical considerations enter. It would be nice to try each Chardonnay with an oyster and lobster in butter sauce, to see which food went better with each wine, but then most judges would be finished judging after 10 or 20 wines, gorged.

Then there are side issues that are just as important as the others, to wit: Shouldn’t all white wines, especially Champagnes, be served cold? (Many competitions have no place to chill more than a few bottles of wine.) Isn’t most red wine served too warm? Doesn’t the size of the wine glass and the position of each wine in the tasting affect its medal? (This last item asks the question: Is the first wine in a tasting likely to be favored for a medal or handicapped by being first?)

More Questions

Do sweeter wines have an advantage because they are attractive to the weary palate? And does this play a part in judging Chardonnay? Are wine makers thus encouraged to make sweeter Chardonnays to win medals?

Also, what is the impact of the weather on the palate? Do red wines score better on cooler days?

By this time, you must be getting the picture. The complex of issues facing the wine judge is not merely one of the amount of alcohol that will pass over the lips and around the gums before hitting the spit bucket (and maybe a shirt pocket or tie if one’s not careful).

True, it’s tiring to the tongue and gums to take this abuse for hours at a time, but the worst pitfall of all, more than anything else, I feel, is not palate fatigue but mental fatigue.

When the mind wanders because of extraneous considerations, and when there’s the added confusion of structural composition, of style, of technical perfection and temperature and appropriateness to the category, etc., the judge’s concentration simply breaks down.

I contend great judges can evaluate wine for six or eight hours in a day if the guidelines are set with care by the coordinator of the event and if outside distractions are minimal.

So when you see that a $50 wine got “only” a bronze medal and a $5 wine got a gold, remember the above arguments. These points have been outlined before in technical books on wine evaluation, including some of the most precise by Maynard Amerine, professor emeritus at UC Davis.

A wine receiving a sole gold medal verifies it was liked by one panel of four or six judges on one day. A wine getting a slew of bronzes in many competitions impressed many different judges in different settings and under different conditions.

So when buying wine, your own taste should be your guide. But if wine competition results are your cheat sheet, look carefully at the multiple bronze medal winners and approach with caution the wine that got a single gold.

Wine scoring high with one evaluator offers a comfort zone, but you get more insurance from wine rated high by many folks in many settings.

Wine of the Week: 1988 Fisher Chardonnay Napa-Sonoma ($11)--Lovely lemon spice and hint of fresh apple/pineapple give this wine nuances rarely found in wines of this moderate price. It will be better after some bottle age, but the freshness of the wine is now extremely attractive.