A noteable point made by a noteable individual. Taken from the bonus material in Mondovino:
“There’s something infinitely depressing about turning a source of joy into the subject of analysis, and while you gain certain kinds of appreciation…certain kinds of pleasure from submitting that source of joy to analysis, you really have to fight to not eviscerate its soul in the
process.”
process.”
Tom Matthews
Executive Editor, Wine Spectator
He goes on to say he’d like to make a case for subjectivity somehow – to make ‘I like it, and here’s why’ more prominent in discussing quality of wines. It parallels a previous piece from the owner of Daumas Gassac in the Languedoc who talks about taste being personal. How one person likes blue eyes. No logic. No scoring. They just prefer blue eyes. That’s what makes them individual, and that nobody can take their preferences away from them. It’s who they are. He therefore thinks that scoring great wines is ridiculous, as a ’95’ is strictly a matter of taste.
I’ve been scoring wine recently, based on the Parker system, and have noticed a couple things. First is that my preferences ARE different. I lean towards leaner wines than WS seems to like. And second, as I taste better and better wines, my numbers would have to change, as my palate and brain become aware of what ‘truly remarkable’ is. I still feel the text descriptors are fairly accurate though. They really do get you to first give a feeling about whether a wine is average, good, or great – which I think intuition will tell you. Parker makes the point in one of his books that I’m reading that greatness tends to get recognized by the masses – referring to Mozart and Monet as examples. Making the tough ones to score the ones in between. Anyway…have to run for dinner..