A blind tasting in San Francisco:
a startling difference in palates?.

What could be more fascinating than comparing wines- blind- from all over the world from a specific vintage with similar cepage, all of which the wine-pundits have proclaimed to be outstanding ? Just such an opportunity was provided to me some months ago.

Dennis Foley of Christie's, invited me to a tasting of forty seven different Bordeaux style wines mostly from 1995 (and few 1994 and 1996 )from around the world judged to be the best by major wine experts. It was organized under the auspices of an event named, IMAGINE !, sponsored to benefit the Headlands Foundation, which supports various charities in the San Francisco area, and the Russian National Orchestra Foundation . It was held in San Francisco on May 1, 1999 at one of the top floors of St. Francis Hotel with a beautiful view and an excellent lighting.

About sixty people, consisting of California wine makers and well-known Northern California collectors, attended.

The wines were poured and distributed with extraordinary care by Dennis Foley and, Master of Wine, Larry Stone (of Rubicon restaurant), and their colleagues. The wines which were served in different flights were chosen totally randomly to allow an impartial statistical analysis of the group's ratings. There were at least two bottles for each wine. The results were tabulated and the rankings determined by Dr. Orley Ashenfelter, the Princeton Economics Professor, and the author of newsletter " Liquid Assets".

The tasting was blind. The score sheets from each individual were picked up after each flight. But all the glasses were left at the table to allow people the opportunity to retaste.

I tasted all of the wines together at the end of the tasting to get an overall, global, view of them.

Most of my scores did not change after retasting but a few did, by at most a point up or down, as the wines sat in the glass and had some air. At the end of the tasting I made up my final top 10 list, not knowing which wines I had picked.

Naturally, I was very anxious to find out what they were.

The results were announced that evening at a live auction and dinner organized by the sponsors of the event .I was sitting at the table with Ashenfelter when he handed me the paper with the results.

I was dumb founded. "This doesn't make any sense" I told him as soon as I compared the group's results with mine (see enclosed).

For example, while 1995 Margaux was my #1 choice, it was #24 for the group; Lafite was my #4 it was group's # 41 (actually the revised numbers I received in November from Foley were #23 and #40 respectively, not much better). That's an incredibly huge difference!

In fact there wasn't a single Bordeaux wine in the group's top 10, or for that matter, even in the group's top 20!

Among the top 10 there were only two wines that overlapped between me and the group, both from California, Stag's Leap Cask 23 and Beringer Bancroft.

How does one account for the difference?

Obviously, it's a question of taste.

My tastes are strongly biased in favor of wines that show balance and length. Over the many years of tasting I have discovered that these are exactly the same qualities that help wines eventually achieve greatness. They live long and attain great complexity as they age. If they also have elegance and finesse, then I like them even more !

Those I judged highly, I felt, had those qualities to a very large degree.

On the other hand, wines with too much fruit and too much power without much backbone, which I found many of the group's top rated wines to have, do not rate very high with me. Neither do wines on the other extreme rate very high with me, those that have too much tannins or acidity without the intensity of fruit (see the discussion on 1985 vs.1986 Bordeaux). The key word for me is balance.

And if the finish is not long enough then that wine, I've discovered, seldom has a great future and, therefore, it scores low as well.

My preferences were no surprise to those who have known me. If the same tasting were held with people in my group -- those with whom I taste frequently -- I am quite confident that their verdict would not be all that much different from mine.

So the results of the San Francisco tasting reflect the nature of the "sample" (i.e. the tasters) as they always do in any statistical experiment. A different group of people, as I said already, might have given different results.

From the numbers in the top 10 it is clear that I was not prejudiced against California per se (though the group as a whole thoroughly rejected Bordeaux !). In addition to Beringer and Stag's Leap Cask 23 I mentioned earlier, I had, from California, the two astonishing wines from Ridge in the top 10 which were as powerful as a California wine can get but were impeccably balanced. And in the next 10 list, I had, from California, Grace, Caymus Special Select, Araujo and Colgin. All well balanced wines and very stylish (some made it to the group's top 10 list).

What about some of the wines that were preferred by the group, particularly, Clark-Claudon, Dalla Valle Maya, Screaming Eagle, and others ?

Well-made and attractive as they were, I found them hugely "front -loaded" with fruit, without any discernible backbone of acidity, and quite overwhelming with extract and sweetness (the word "huge" kept repeating in my notes !). It is easy to understand that these characteristics would make them the "cult" wines of today: enormously scented, almost black in color, easily recognizable and, some would say, "sensual". In their particular genre, I am sure, they would be considered extraordinary wines.

Not surprisingly, however, these wines were pretty much at their peak already, without any expectation of gaining complexity.

In terms of Bordeaux, a few seemed quite closed and impenetrable at that moment (e.g. Haut Brion, Latour, Petrus), perhaps because of their youth. Also, when served right next to very opulent, rich wines, the traditionally tannic Bordeaux often tend to taste even harder (the bottles of Le Pin-both of them-were corked, unfortunately).

Absent from this tasting were Diamond Creek, Dominus, Dunn, Chateau Montelena, Mount Eden, Vineyard 29 and a host of others who have been making great wines in California today (some for a long time). It is astonishing that the "experts" on whose opinions the selection was based ignored them. Some of these wines, I suspect, would have made it into my top 10 list.

Since California (as well as Washington) and Bordeaux made very good wines in 1995, another comprehensive tasting --with a broader group of tasters--will be called for in the future as the wines get closer to maturity. At that time the above-mentioned wines from California should also be included.

Because the 1995 Bordeaux (left bank, particularly) are relatively rapidly maturing, how they perform at this tasting will be fascinating to observe. Equally fascinating will be the performance of the "cult" wines to see if they hold up well enough until that time.

I can hardly wait for that tasting!