What's the score ?

No, not the euphemism. Rather, the points score.

A friend; a widely engaged wine retailer, was bemoaning the way his business has changed in recent years. 'There are no journalists anymore, no educators. Just score-driven, self appointed critics. They have a set of stereotyped adjectives for wine which they repeat 'ad nauseum.' They have changed they way wine is written about, and purchased. To me, these comments resonated, having been an educator to 8,803 students through fifteen years in three USA cities.

My retailer friend continued. 'Nobody asks what a wine tastes like anymore. Just how many points it has.' He poured us each a dram of his flavor of the month, and then asked; 'what makes a great wine, anyway?'

Well, that is one question I love, because I love to answer it, as I have countless times to my students.

'In a word,' I said; "soul." Great wine has soul, or, alma, anima, ame, dusa, if you are Spanish, Italian, French or Croatian. It must have exceptional color, nose, body and flavor, all harmoniously balanced. Balance is the bottom line.

We hear of soul music, and soul food. When do we hear of soul wine ?! It matters not to the score-driven critics. They are happy with their stock descriptives that make wine sound more like a fruit or vegetable salad rather than a product of grapes. Consider the following, taken from an international wine magazine:

brimming with cherries and complex layers of almonds and hazelnuts

shaded by herb, bayleaf and chocolate notes

dill and eucalyptus nuances with olives

muscular currant with nutmeg overtones.

Spare me ! What happened to the grapes ?!

Thankfully, there is the Union Internationale des Oenologues. I had the honor of first judging for the Union in 1995. The judging sheet shown is just that; a judging sheet. The score total is arrived at from thirteen individual areas of each wine. Not a bayleaf, banana or coconut comes into play.

What's in a score ? You be the judge.

Thanks for tuning in.