Informed amateurs can sometimes be better tasters than their professional counterparts. They may have naturally better palates honed to greater sensitivity in respect of their preferred varieties. This is most evident when it comes to discerning wine faults. You might imagine that someone whose job it is to work with wine would be able to identify most, if not all, of the things that go wrong with wine. This is not always the case. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of a blind spot. I knew a UK-trained Master of Wine (MW) who admitted he could not pick up cork taint.
Sometimes the “fault” is invisible because it appears to add complexity to the wine. The two most obvious examples are bacterial spoilage and reduction. The former — usually caused by a yeast called brettanomyces — gives a not unattractive gamey aroma to some reds. (Occasionally it’s more of a medicinal whiff — usually identified as “Elastoplast” — which is a lot less enjoyable). The latter — caused by a little too much sulphur at bottling and increasingly evident on wines closed with screw-caps and agglomerate corks — produces a slightly pongy, struck match or gunpowder note.
A friend of mine who was writing his MW thesis discovered that many of the older members of the UK wine trade were simply unable to find fault in wines that had been spiked with brettanomyces. They thought they were “more interesting”. I’ve noticed the same blind spot among wine judges when it comes to reduction. Many think that the hint of cordite adds complexity — especially to white wines.
But the one taint — now increasingly widespread — of which there appears to be general ignorance is the issue of “light-strike”. It’s becoming more prevalent as the rosé market grows and more wines are bottled in clear glass. It’s also evident in white wines packaged in fully translucent bottles. Recent research in Europe shows that wines in clear glass exposed to light — on wine store shelves, in restaurants’ wine fridges — deteriorate within a week.
They lose character and aroma. At first they become bland, before degrading further into increasingly sulphury, cabbagey notes. Unless the bottles are wrapped in a special Cellophane to filter out the UV light, deterioration is inevitable.
Likewise, unless you have tasted the wine straight from the case, and then compared it with a bottle that has been exposed to light for some time, you won’t notice the flavour loss. Until it starts smelling like cabbage, of course.
This column originally appeared in Business Day.
MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Informed amateurs can be better tasters than professionals
Wine drinkers may be better at discerning some faults than masters of wine
There’s something of a chasm separating the expectations of wine consumers from those of wine professionals. Wine drinkers expect most bottles to yield a degree of pleasure. They probably (and mainly subconsciously) quantify that pleasure based on their stylistic preferences and the reputation of the brand. So if you would rather drink chardonnay than chenin, you’re more likely to enjoy an average chardonnay than a good chenin. By the same token, if you would rather drink a Paul Cluver than a Du Toitskloof, the knowledge that you are drinking your preferred brand will induce a greater sense of contentment.
Wine professionals, on the other hand, are trained to find fault: they look at wine the way publishers read manuscripts — not for the enjoyment, but to assess the commercial or aesthetic merit of the text. This doesn’t mean that they don’t also have a consumer mindset: publishers can get pleasure from pulp fiction; wine professionals can suspend (some of) their critical sensibilities when they are at a dinner party.
Not all wine drinkers fit into this generalisation, just as not all wine professionals are equally analytical. Serious wine enthusiasts sign up for wine courses such as those offered by the Cape Wine Academy. They believe that in-depth knowledge will enhance the enjoyment they derive from their wine drinking. Some become wine bores, wallowing in the arcane information available on wineries’ websites. There’s always someone who really does want to know the exact date the grapes were harvested and how much rainfall descended on the vineyard during the growing season.
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Informed amateurs can sometimes be better tasters than their professional counterparts. They may have naturally better palates honed to greater sensitivity in respect of their preferred varieties. This is most evident when it comes to discerning wine faults. You might imagine that someone whose job it is to work with wine would be able to identify most, if not all, of the things that go wrong with wine. This is not always the case. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of a blind spot. I knew a UK-trained Master of Wine (MW) who admitted he could not pick up cork taint.
Sometimes the “fault” is invisible because it appears to add complexity to the wine. The two most obvious examples are bacterial spoilage and reduction. The former — usually caused by a yeast called brettanomyces — gives a not unattractive gamey aroma to some reds. (Occasionally it’s more of a medicinal whiff — usually identified as “Elastoplast” — which is a lot less enjoyable). The latter — caused by a little too much sulphur at bottling and increasingly evident on wines closed with screw-caps and agglomerate corks — produces a slightly pongy, struck match or gunpowder note.
A friend of mine who was writing his MW thesis discovered that many of the older members of the UK wine trade were simply unable to find fault in wines that had been spiked with brettanomyces. They thought they were “more interesting”. I’ve noticed the same blind spot among wine judges when it comes to reduction. Many think that the hint of cordite adds complexity — especially to white wines.
But the one taint — now increasingly widespread — of which there appears to be general ignorance is the issue of “light-strike”. It’s becoming more prevalent as the rosé market grows and more wines are bottled in clear glass. It’s also evident in white wines packaged in fully translucent bottles. Recent research in Europe shows that wines in clear glass exposed to light — on wine store shelves, in restaurants’ wine fridges — deteriorate within a week.
They lose character and aroma. At first they become bland, before degrading further into increasingly sulphury, cabbagey notes. Unless the bottles are wrapped in a special Cellophane to filter out the UV light, deterioration is inevitable.
Likewise, unless you have tasted the wine straight from the case, and then compared it with a bottle that has been exposed to light for some time, you won’t notice the flavour loss. Until it starts smelling like cabbage, of course.
This column originally appeared in Business Day.
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