Blind Terror...
..and Itchy Echindas.
Last week I took part in a blind panel tasting for Decanter, which will see my own personal scores (and lots of notes) published for around ninety wines. This, for a wine reviewer, is a mildly nerve-wracking experience. Nowhere to hide.
Fortunately, the Big Reveal didn’t cause me to throw in the towel and head off to the school careers advisor (who probably didn’t have ‘Champagne Correspondent’ in their computer). I just love blind tasting, truth be told - it’s a great opportunity to analyse your own process and look at both the surprises and the consistencies.
The real fun in these types of tastings, though, is to listen to the other panelists and get a window into their processes; there were wines we agreed on almost down to a word, and there were wines about which we clearly had quite different feelings. Competitions only publish the consensus; the fun here is that readers get to see that even we, the pros, can’t always agree on whether something is great, good or otherwise.
It all made me think of something I wrote for fun a while back, but never published:
Itchy Echindas
Do you need training to be able to tell if a wine is good?
In the spirit of the classical dialogue, we examine this essential question in the form of a discussion between a fully trained, pin-wearing sommelier and a demystifying-wine social media influencer.
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Communicator: If you like it, it’s good! That’s what I say.
Somm: I saw you promoting Itchy Echidna Merlot last week. That stuff is unconscionable.
Communicator: OK, I posted about it, but I never actually said it was good. Maybe the journey to Staatsweingut Assmanhausen Holleberg Spatburgunder starts with an Itchy Echinda. It’s about discovery.
Somm: The Discovery Channel doesn’t run whole documentaries on woodlice though, does it? They actually Discovered the stuff, already. Then they just tell you about the good animals.
Communicator: I don’t think there are good animals. I think if you like an animal then….
Somm: don’t even say it
Communicator: This is just wine snobbery! The whole reason people are afraid of wine is because of people like you, telling them what is and isn’t OK to drink.
Somm: The whole reason people are scared of wine is they get told to buy bad wine by commercial mouthpieces masquerading as communicators and feel stupid for not understanding why ‘experts’ are making a fuss over it.
Communicator: So people can tell if wine is bad, but need to train to be able to tell them if it’s good?
Somm: They need to train in order to know WHY it's good. Different thing.
Communicator: Ah, so they can bore everyone. Riveting stuff. It’s a party trick. You’re a trainspotter with a little medal.
Somm: It’s a pin. Not a medal. And you’re right. I’m the timetable, the conductor, the stationmaster…and the scrawny little guy in the green shorts with the foldy-up chair sitting by the tracks making notes. When you go and take a tour at a gallery, you don’t see a sign saying ‘Did you enjoy the gallery? Give a tour to the next entrants! We’ll pay you!”. When that smartass asks what kind of brush Caravaggio used, you want someone who can name the horse whose rear end it was plucked off.
Communicator: I think brush hair comes from the mane, not the tail.
Somm: Whatever. I’m sure your pony club wine circle or whatever it is will know.
Communicator: That’s a crude generalisation. All wine influencers are not pony types. In fact the Equestrian Club of Great Britain’s code of good practice explicitly recommends against consuming…
Somm: Right, right. Whatever. Look, if I came and poured some real wine for the pony club most of them wouldn’t get it. Maybe a few would. And that’s ok.
Communicator: That’s so arrogant. I’m just trying to attract a younger audience. You’re living in some kind of Harry Potter/’Somm’ mashup, laughing at muggles.
Somm: I’ll take that actually
Communicator: (conciliatory tone) Don’t you think we’re both sort of doing the same job…but different parts of it?
Somm: (pause) No.
Communicator: Actually, yeah, you’re right. We’re not. Why are we arguing about this?
Somm: Some wine writer who’s scared to talk to influencers and can’t afford to go to restaurants with sommeliers probably put us here. That’d be why we’re such shabbily-drawn caricatures.
Communicator: Wine writers. Jeez. The lowest of the low.
Somm. Fancy a drink?
Communicator: Sure. What’s good here?
Somm. I know the guy. We don’t need the list.
FIN