Wine Rating, what do you know about it?

Personally I know very little about wine rating. So I, like always, jumped on the internet and did a little research.

Well after my brief research I'm still mystified. The bottom line...it's personal. From personal it's easy to picture all kinds of issues and one common thought is that how impartial are the ratings that are given. There was even one suggestion that the rating can be or might be influenced by the amount of advertising you take out in the rater's magazine.

I have a suggestion, to get away from personal, personal needs to be diluted. How do you dilute "personal"? By use of the greater numbers. Put together a group of tasters (50) who are willing to taste a given wine. All tasters are to score the wine using the same approach and rating system. You then take the average of those tasters' scores to come up with the given rating. This approach would give little impact to those ratings (in your group of raters) on the outskirts. The problem with this approach is that it would be hard to find many people who would like to participate.

One way around that problem might be to assemble a pool of as many wine tasters as possible and each month send out a list of wines for that pool to taste. Have them submit their scores as to each wine they were able to taste. Rate only those wines for which you have at least 50 results and then publish those results. Under this approach you would constantly have to be recruiting your pool of wine tasters but people just getting into it might enjoy being part of a larger body of wine tasters.

What are your thoughts?

Lindeman's 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon

Tonight, the 11th of December 2009, Ana and I eat at a small restaurant in Noe Valley on 24th in San Francisco. We had Bernie's Special Burger. Ana ordered from the small wine list and she picked a Lindeman's Cabernet. The list didn't mention a year, just the name. Ana was very pleased when she tasted it and eagerly shared it with me. We found it very pleasant, so much so I asked the attendant to bring me the bottle.

It turned out to be an Australian wine; a 2008 Cabernet from Lindeman's Vineyards and it was the bin series. We found it had a pleasant fruity nose with a deep regal ruby color. we picked up a deep smooth blackberry taste, after a short while I took another taste and I was able to pick up a slight hint of mint. Ana was the first to pick this up and she related it to a roast her mom makes in which she uses spearmint leaves. All in all it was a very good wine that went well with our hamburgers and the cost per glass was very reasonable at $5.50.

When I got home I looked up Lindeman Wines and their Cabernet Bin series from Australia. I was surprised not to find the 2008 for sale. The youngest one they have for sale on their site was a 2006.

Let me know what wines you've been trying, so that I might expand my horizons.

Wine Books, Sheridan Warrick's "The Way to Make Wine"

I've just started reading Warrick's book on Wine Making entitled, "The Way to Make Wine: How to Craft Superb Table Wines at Home".

As an amateur home wine maker I am always looking for material that can give me a greater understanding and appreciation for the art of wine making. Well, though I am not yet finished reading Warrick's book, I have to say that this is a good one to get for your wine library. Why? Well, it just gave me a good look at how I've been approaching home wine making and I feel that some one has given me a pat on the back for a job well done. And that all came just from the introduction.

I feel like I've been following his footsteps and didn't know it. Truth be told, I've most likely been following in the footsteps of thousands of home wine makers that have all gone down this amateur's path of learning about wine making.

Egelhoff Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Last night Ana and I had a bottle of Bob Egelhoff's 2004 Cab. It was a good cab that was smooth for only being four years old.

The color was a clear deep amber. It had a fine fruity aroma as well as a hint of soft smoke. Upon tasting the wine I immediately picked up a robust black berry flavor and it was very prominent which I liked. The after taste was subtle yet lasting.

It went well with our skirt steak. I believe this wine will become even better in two or three years.

Bob is a good friend of my brother Cio. Bob's been making wine for himself and others for many years now and this was the first time that I tried one of his wines. I'm certainly going to be consuming more if the one last night was an example of what he can accomplish.