Points or Passion

By Sylvia Jansen, DipWSET, CSW, Sommelier

Have you ever tasted a wine that stopped you in your tracks, or transported your evening into something beautiful? If you have, did you know its “score”? Was it 100?

In almost every wine lover’s life is a wine that changes the game. This wine will be something special, from a producer who understands the soul of their place, vineyard, and art. The wine is opened at an especially superb time in its evolution, just when all the little aromas the grapes gathered in the summer sunshine mingle together to create something like magic, and the liquid shape is nuanced and balanced on the head of a pin. Like a piece of music that catches us at the right moment, or a painting that arrests our attention in a crowded gallery, the encounter is a surprise. It can capture our whole sensibility, beguiling us into a dimension we did not know existed. The occasions I have been surprised and touched have been enough to lure me into wine study and the industry.

At a recent tasting, I poured Domaine Rollin’s 2020 Les Cloux Pernand-Vergelesses white, a wine both intense and delicate, with a structured palate and a finish that seemed to expand beyond its own proportions. During the tasting, more than one guest was also moved, surprised, and delighted by this wine. It was by no means the most expensive wine of the evening. Its score? Not even ranked. A previous vintage had been favourably reviewed in a French publication, but no one ever mentioned surprise or magic. Yet there it was, as real as the glass that held it.

Beautiful wine moments are just that, though: moments in our own personal history. Yet occasion and moment are explicitly beyond the purview of a professional review. Critics work hard to review wines fairly and assess matters of quality, complexity, flavour characteristics, and balance. They often work in rather uninteresting lab-like conditions, not swallowing and not talking to their friends about the wine. Then they write a short note (something we often skim) and assign a number (getting our attention). Scores over 90 attract a lot of attention, and a score of 100 is itself the stuff of legend.

For a wine to be magical, though, it must also be within the tasting wheelhouse of the taster. Effectively, it needs to fit and be great for the occasion and the people. Like high fashion, high scores are about the art of textures, lines, colours, and what is currently hot (according to reviewers). A wine—akin to fashion design—can be well made, style-driven, bold, and interesting, but that does not mean it will be perfect for everyone and be beautiful on every occasion. By checking wine scores, we are adding information to our research, but it is important to remember that fit, occasion, and our own palates are deeply personal and not part of the review parameters.

To return to those 100 points: surely there is something magical about that wine. Or is the magic in the number? The brain is a powerful tool. For many of us, tasting a high-scoring or 100-point wine from a well-known reviewer can either raise our expectations beyond what our own moment of tasting gives or can sufficiently impress us to become a factor in creating that moment. However, in neither case does surprise come into play. The rare, magical wine moments have a lot less to do with numbers and more to do with good planning, good company, and good personal choices.

So here’s to you, always open to surprise.