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Someone innocently suggested a dinner wrapped around a Penfold's Grange Hermitage vertical, and soon enough there were a couple of dozen players and every vintage of Grange between 1978 and 1990 but for '79 and '84. For extra fun, we brought things like Krug, '86 Climens and '86 Guiraud Sauternes, '63 Graham's Port, 82 Dunn Howell Mountain, 91 Dominus (Grange or no Grange, this was a candidate for wine of the night!), 91 Monte Bello, 91 Silver Oak Napa, 86 Muller-Catoir TBA, and, well, you get the idea. Leaving the other things for other notes (see the
Tasting Notes section), let's go straight to the main event.
Some general observations: First, Penfold's had a pretty consistent signature style
until the radically altered 89. This means a jammy wine with extremely ripe, dense,
concentrated fruit. Some vintages were jammier than others (78 vs. 80, for example) and
started to call to mind the adjective "port-like", but they all tasted like
Grange Hermitage except the 89. Second, we had two bottles of some wines, only one of
most. There were differences in comparing "a" to "b" in each instance,
although not always dramatic. Storage and handling counts, if you had any doubt. Third,
not a single wine (other than one bottle than was damaged) was past peak. These hold.
Conversely, they were pretty much all approachable until we hit the 1987. This is not to
say that they were all at peak prior to then, and most of the older vintages are better
off cellared than drunk. With the 89 and 90, especially the 89, there was a style change.
They were extremely forward. Finally, consistency was displayed not only for style but for
quality. I have SOME mild criticisms of some of these, but only compared to each other. It
would have been hard to dislike any of them if opened alone.
The '78 was a crowd pleaser. Very sweet and ripe, a little over the top in some
respects, the wine most likely to be nominated as port for the evening. I have sometimes
found that very dense, concentrated wines, when they age, will first go through a stage
where they become almost honeyed and syrupy, in various degrees depending on their type,
of course. It's most noticeable for late harvest wines as they mature and before they dry
out. I thought some of that was going on here, meaning, that this wine was showing some
age, but the degree of ripeness was so high that that it just didn't come across that way.
My view on this wine is that it will hold fine for some years, but will not get better.
The 1980 reverted to a more balanced style. After the 78 this left some people
disappointed. I thought it was a fine wine nonetheless, if a little more claret-like than
other vintages. It seemed to be drinking pretty well and evolved gradually in the glass. I
found the 1981 the least interesting of the first few pours, perhaps also because it
seemed the least approachable. It showed more acidity, more tannins, less forward fruit
and suffered a bit in comparison. I think this can benefit from more cellaring, at least
two to three years.
The 82s presented our first "double" bottle. The first bottle showed more ready
to drink, with the very ripe signature characteristic, balanced by more pure power than
the 78 and just a hint of leather. The 82a was more ready to drink and farther along. The
82b seemed in more pristine condition, tasting more tannic and younger. In the latter
incarnation, it needed still some cellaring and of the older wines was probably most
likely to improve. Still, approachable now.
The 83s again presented the basic GH style, very similar in flavor and feel to the 78
although not so much over the top. This was a double bottle too, and while the
"b" version seemed marginally younger and displayed perhaps a hint of licorice
on the finish, the differences were not all that dramatic. This wine is more approchable
than the 82b or the 81, but will continue to improve with cellaring.
The 85 presented again some of the basic "style," and was a wine along the lines of the 83 and 78 (without the 78's super ripeness). Some dry tannins came through on the finish, and this is a wine which, again, you can nibble on if you want to, will reward some patience with further improvement. The 86s presented another marked contrast, with the second bottle showing much "bigger" and more tannic, and less ready. In that incarnation it needed a lot of time and bordered on unapproachable.
The 1987 at last had sufficient tannins so that I would say unequivocally that it should
be cellared, not drunk. The tannins were creeping up on us through the 80s, and here at
last, they win unconditionally, not that some of the older wines were exactly at peak. (g)
The wine shows an gobs of sweet fruit, though, and it's going to be a beauty. The
1988--ditto and more so. Very tannic, completely unready, tightly wound, and extremely
intense. This is even less approachable than the 87. Got a cold cellar? Use it.
Then, the tidy little world changed. In 1989, Penfold's produced a bizarre Grange that
tasted like someone added gallons of framboise into the vat. It's a very good Chambord
imitator and you may like that sort of thing, but it's hard to reconcile with the Grange
signature. Very, very approachable, layers of extremely sweet, atypical fruit. Good candy,
but do I want this in my Grange? In 1990, again in double bottles, some of the framboise
was there in the "A" bottle but it appears they backed off that a lot. The
"B" bottle was more tannic and fresher. Again, one would think somewhere along
the line one bottle was a little warmer somewhere and is thus further along. The
"A" is almost approachable, the "B" not there yet. The 1990 has hints
of the 1989, but also of past Granges. Maybe someone compromised different stylistic
ideas.
It's hard to pick. I'd say my least favorite in many respects was the 1989. I'm sorry. I
know a lot of people like its flamboyance. I thought it was just too sweet, too bizarre.
Not really a Grange. When I want a shot of Chambord in my Grange, I'll let you know. (g)
The 78 was a sentimental favorite, but perhaps a bit overripe. I'll take it anyway. I
liked the 82 a lot. It gave some definition to the fruit that the 78 had, added balance
and structure. The 83 tried to do the same thing, but I thought the 82 did it better. Some
of the others are more in the line of judging potential not what's happening today. I
think the 88 will blossom into a great wine, as will the 85 and 86, probably in that
order, although I could listen to arguments. (g)
The real conclusion here was that it was hard to find a reason to kvetch much because
these were SO consistent and SO good. If you'd taken anything here close to being ready to
dinner, you'd have been a happy camper. If you hold the others, you'll be smiling one day.
A virtuoso performance by a great wine.
Modified and updated, September, 1996
Ok boys and girls. Here's your question for the day concerning Steve Tanzer's recent reviews (from his publication, the International Wine Cellar, Issue #65) of Beaux Freres and a related pop quiz on the usefulness of a 100 point scoring system.
"1994... Unbelievably saturated ruby color. ... Thick and sweet in the mouth
but tightly wound; a massive, multilayered wine of great volume and palate staining
concentration....A sumo wrestler...Very long, ripe aftertaste. ...This wine could serve as
a meal substitute, but could it accompany food without overwhelming it?"
REVIEW # 2:
"1993... Very deep red-ruby. Cooler black fruit nose with a gamey nuance.
Intensely flavored kirsch and framboise fruit is fat, juicy and very concentrated; a real
fruit bomb. Has enough backbone to improve in bottle. Long, very strong finishing flavor.
Really outstanding purity of fruit. Seems significantly less alcoholic and perhaps less
tiring to drink, than the 94."
Ok. Have you read carefully? (I abbreviated the reviews a little for brevity.) The
question of the day:
WHICH WINE DID TANZER PREFER?
A. The 1994, which he rates at 92 over 91 points for the 1993.
Could you tell that from his comments? Both wines get good reviews, but there are subtle
digs, it seems to me, at the '94 as being a little too big and out of balance. The '93
comes in for no critique, just compliments. If the '94 is preferred because it's more
concentrated and bigger, then why the dig at it for showing that way? Or maybe it isn't a
dig. How seriously should we take this criticism...or comment?
Here's a perfect example of how the numbers can often give you a quicker and more accurate
view of what the writer is thinking as opposed to prose. Let's face it; a writer can't
spend hours for each twenty word review. Imprecision in pure prose is perhaps inevitable.
Tanzer's "too big" implications on the 94 in this context (that is, after having
seen the scores) can be chalked up to simple descriptives rather than sharp criticism.
Considering the relative scores, he was obviously impressed by the wine and in fact didn't
seem to mark it down for being un-pinot like, or whatever, in favor of a more restrained
93 that he could find no fault with at all, at least judging from his comments.
Or perhaps he did mark down the '94 but still preferred it. (If in
fact he preferred the 1993, he needs to rethink his scoring system....)
Those who get most excited about the numbers argue that the scoring system isn't
mathematically precise to the nth. Who thought it was? This "straw man" argument
ignores the point. The scores are a message, a way of conveying information. As
Parker explains, for his own publication, which has created a norm widely followed, they
approximate one's school gradepoint averages (you know, 90 and up is an "A").
Those who obsess on the scores ignore the self contained qualifications and explanations
in the system, and then fault it for not meeting a standard they ---but not it---create.
They invest it with a mysticism that it doesn't really have and never sought to acquire,
then complain that it's sorcery.
What's the difference between an 86 vs. 87 point wine? Not much. First, it helps to read
the notes in evaluating such closely ranked wines. I don't say otherwise; nor does Parker.
Quite to the contrary, it is the notes in conjunction with the scores that makes the most
sense of everything. Second, since these are scores that are close in the same
gradepoint area ("B"), the wines are more or less comparable and at the time
ranked there was simply a slight preference for one. A score difference of 89 vs. 90 is
more significant--certainly in my scoring--because of the gradepoint overlay. The latter
wine breaks into the "A" grouping. Although small differences are often a
starting point for trashing this type of scoring system, even small differences in scores
can sometimes mean something in the context of a gradepoint analogy. If you accept that
"85" is a mid-level "B" and "89" is a "B+," a wine
that gets an 86 vs. an 88 does have a bit of a different nuance, especially if they were
tasted together. There's not a radical difference, but the critic is telling you that one
wine is heading toward the next gradepoint class and the other is heading down to the next
lowest. Again, not a radical difference, but a message. Just a message. That's
the key: a message.
Ironically, those who criticize the system most ferociously don't want to listen to
what Parker says about what the scores MEAN and what impact should be assessed from them,
i.e., the gradepoint analogy, read together with the notes (which Parker says are more
important). They, ironically, just want to look at the numbers! Read Parker's
explanation of what he means by the numbers, and they can provide a quick, easy
clarification of sometimes ambiguous words and comparable sounding reviews. What do you
think about this? "Pretty floral nose, attractive peach and pear flavors, medium
bodied, a great summer wine." Put "82" at the end of it,
and you've quickly made a different point than if you put 92 at the end, haven't you?
Sure, if the words go on long enough they can probably be as precise in making
clear the writer's opinions of the wine's relative place in the universe, it's hierarchial
ranking. But writers reviewing hundreds of wines a year aren't able to devote that much
space to each wine. Few readers, I would say, would bother to read such wordy reviews,
either. Eventually, the similarity of the words blurs meaning, not imparts it. The scoring
system itself was a much needed rebellion against the wordy, often vague descriptions of a
wine that left a reader confused as to whether the reviewer really liked it, and was
recommending it.
And by the way...everyone ranks hierarchially. Whether they say so or not. Whether they're
intellectually honest about it or not. Whether they moan endlessly about how it is not a
question of "better," just "different," or not.
Whether they blather on about Van Gogh v. Monet, or not. Otherwise nothing that's
said has any focus or meaning. If you put, in the grand scheme of things, both 1990
Lafon Rochet and 1990 Latour in the same category because you don't want to make too fine a
distinction, have you done the reader a service? I think not. In fact, let us just call
such a system more or less useless even if accompanied by tedious, endless prose
descriptions. We do, by the way, come to hierarchial conclusions in other areas,
too. Taking music as an example, let me ask this: if you polled 100
musicologists as to who was better, Salieri or Mozart, would Salieri get even a single
vote? One way or the other, we find ways to rank things. Scoring with a
gradepoint analogy is simply clearer and more honest.
Then, there are those who are willing to score, but they just want broader categories,
such as was alluded to above in the Lafon Rochet versus Latour analogy. Those
who adopt point systems, like the 20 point scale (UC Davis, maintaining the perversity of
giving points for each component of a wine, when it is really the whole that matters), or
the 5 star scale (Broadbent), immediately begin to cheat. These systems obviously break
down and either do not provide sufficient flexibility or are
about as clear as mud. Why else do you begin to see things like
"three and a half stars to four." By the time such writers
begin adding nuances, to the time one realizes that Parker, say, gives virtually nothing
that will not poison you less than a 70 or so, the difference in number of gradations are
not as great as it first appears. The 20 point scale is more
nuanced than the star system, and not far off the 100 point
scale as used by Parker in that respect--but does any consumer
actually understand what a 17.5 means? Really? Parker's system (which Tanzer and the Wine Spectator
basically use, too) simply has more visceral impact because of the gradepoint analogy and
a little more flexibility. What's important to remember is that it's a message, not a
mathematical calculation.
Context is everything. It seems to me the scores provide an important subtext that was
missing from the notes in the Tanzer analogy above. Equally true, the scores would not
mean anything without the notes describing two very different wines. But both elements
were important here in understanding his thought process. In flipping through his latest
issue, I could cite other examples. Tanzer, it seems to me, makes effusive comments on '93
Burgs that aren't always matched by the scores, for example. But that's another story.
I think this BF excerpt makes a good point in our eternal scoring debate.
The best evaluation system for wines is plainly a combination of scores and notes. Neither alone works well. Alone, in fact, neither often works at all. Together, you get a full picture, context and explanation.
Copyright © 1995 - 1996, all rights reserved, Mark Squires
