There seems to be another brouhaha brewing about whether or not wine writers should accept free wine samples and what effect said samples have on the subsequent reviews. Some argue that receiving free samples biases the reviewer. In an article entitled “Why You Shouldn’t Trust Wine Writers,” Winethropology states “that anyone reviewing something they did not shell out their hard-earned shekels for is going to be less demanding and more generous.” Tom Johnson of Louisville Juice, the site that brought this topic to my eyes today, does not accept free wines for review. Still, he is less concerned about bottles of wine here and there than the whole wine country lifestyle issue where one does lunches, visits wineries, gets to know proprietors, etc. That is prudent and a more valid concern. He also contributed a lot of interesting points about the world of political reportage about which he knows a great deal.

Clearly, a reviewer of any product who is in some way biased may not write an even-handed review. Whether this bias is due to a free sample or because the winemaker’s wife is the reviewers’ childrens’ math teacher, writing a review which is not genuine is a bad thing. That is why I, and most responsible reviewers of wine, do their evaluations based on blind tastings. You cannot be biased if you don’t know which wine you’re tasting.

Those reviewers who think they are unbiased because they paid for their samples are kidding themselves. They are biased by knowing the price point of the wine, seeing the label on the bottle, having experienced the wine in the past or having read someone else’s review. And, except for a small handful of people, reviewing wines is not a well-paying gig. Very few reviewers could afford to buy the number of bottles necessary to put together blind flights of six wines on a regular basis so as to provide a usefully large compendium of reviews for their readers.

Frankly, I don’t understand why this issue keeps coming up for wine. Aside from Consumer Reports, very few reviewers of products pay for all of the items they review. Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael didn’t pay for all the movies they saw. Computer magazines typically receive their samples from manufacturers for free. Video games and CDs are sent to reviewers by the pallet. Why are wine writers more corruptible than anyone else?

I would argue that the careful wine writers’ reviews might be less biased. You can’t review a CD without figuring out who the artist is. You can’t review a car without seeing the car. But I can have someone pour five wines in a glass while I’m out of the room and then come in, taste them, write notes and score them without knowing whose wines they are.

Part of this new uprising seems to have been spurred by Winethropology having asked some questions of wine writers at a trade event. The first question was “Which of these wines do you like?” The second was “Which of these wines would you spend your own money on?” Winethropology reports that the second question got some dirty looks and uncomfortable silences. The article implies this is because writers say good things about wines just because they got them for free – or because they want to continue getting them for free.

On the contrary, I believe that the questions caused discomfort because they were personal questions and did not call on the reviewers to act as reviewers. A reviewer puts aside “what they like.” Their job is to provide an unbiased evaluation of the quality of a wine. Is it well made? What are it’s aromas, flavors and texture? Is it representative of it’s region and constituent grapes?

You don’t ask the sommelier to find you a wine he likes. You want him to characterize wines and guide you in finding something you will like. The same is true for reviewers. Furthermore, if a reviewer answers the question, he is then inviting future suggestions of bias. “Of course he gave that wine a high score, he likes wines that such and such.”

The question of what the reviewer would pay for is also inappropriate. Had the question been, “which wines here present especially good values?,” then there might have been some quick and useful answers. On the other hand, asking what they would buy is essentially asking “how much money do you make?”

The whole discussion at Winethropology may have been an exercise in getting people exercised since the writer admitted early in the article that they themselves receive about 60% of their wine samples for free. I do agree with their assertion that “casual bloggers are undervalued.” However, I don’t think that value lies in them being less biased because they paid for their wine. I think it’s because of the unique and refreshing perspectives they may offer, the energy of their blogs,  and the personal experiences they share.

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This article is original to NorCalWine.com. Copyright 2010 NorCal Wine. All rights reserved.

Back in April, I wrote an article after having received some 50ml bottles of wine as tasting samples from Trefethen Family Vineyards. Trefethen is one of many wineries trying out Lilliputian bottles as samplers in order to increase the number of people they send samples to while keeping costs in check.

At the time I received the samples, I didn’t have any of the same wine in standard bottles. Since the small bottles said “Best Enjoyed before September 2010,” I elected to leave them unopened until I could compare them head to head against 750ml samples. Happily, I recently received some full-sized bottles from Trefethen.

For this test, my intent was not to evaluate the Trefethen Double T Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon against other similar wines as I normally would. (I’ll do that as well, but for subsequent articles.) Rather, I simply wanted to determine how similar the wine in the small bottles was to that in the standard bottles. That is really the key factor in determining whether or not the small bottles can succeed as samplers.

The Tasting Room, Inc. "T.A.S.T.E. technology" sample packaging process for Trefethen involves opening 3 liter bottles supplied by the winery and moving the wine from those bottles into the tiny ones which are then sealed. All of this is done in an environment which is intended to be anaerobic. There is always some oxygen in the neck of a regular wine bottle, but the T.A.S.T.E. process is supposed to prevent any additional oxygen from affecting the wine.

Still, there are variables that could lead to differences between the samples. First, there is the process itself. Does it work as advertised? Second, there is the difference in closures. The standard bottles I tested have been sealed with cork since their initial bottling whereas the small sampler wine started under cork but have been sealed with screwcap since February. Next is the size of the bottles themselves. It has been proved scientifically that wine ages more slowly in larger bottles. This is primarily because the ratio of air to wine within the bottles increases as bottle size decreases. Therefore, the affect of that captured air on the wine is greater in small bottles. The effect is more pronounced if the small bottles are sealed with something that is not entirely air-tight, such as cork. The T.A.S.T.E. samples from Trefethen use screwcap. They are also glass bottles, so there’s no concern about the premature aging that would occur with plastic bottles.

The final variable is that the sampler wine came from 3 liter bottles, rather than 750ml. The 2008 Trefethen Double T Chardonnay was bottled in August 2009 and the samplers were made in February 2010. So, the sampler wine spent roughly 7 months in double magnum then about 4 months in the small bottle. The 2007 Trefethen Cabernet Sauvignon Double T was bottled in April, 2009 and the samplers created in February 2010.

For my test, I had the wines poured for me so that I could taste them blind. The entire contents of the small bottles were poured into glasses. Then, an equal amount of the wine from regular bottles was poured, ensuring that the fill level looked identical in all of the glasses. I took standard tasting notes for each glass and then revisited each wine as needed to review any differences I might have perceived. I also had a second taster on hand to take some quick sniffs and tastes. And, since I had two T.A.S.T.E. samplers of each wine, I was able to conduct the whole test twice.

Trefethen refers to their 2008 Double T Chardonnay as “casual and lively.” It is 100% Chardonnay with all of the fruit taken from the estate vineyard. It spent four months in French oak and sells for $17. When initially opened, the color of the wines was virtually the same, though the small bottle sample was a tiny bit more pale. I found a bigger difference on the nose though.

The small bottle sample was both more intensely aromatic and much more tropical. Pineapple was particularly prominent. As the wine sat in the glass over a period of ten to fifteen minutes, the pineapple receded and the fruit flavors became lighter and rounder. Eventually it’s aromas of fresh and canned stone fruit matched those of the wine from the standard bottle. Both wines showed moderate amounts of oak influence with aromas and flavors of vanilla, spice and oak. The oak-derived flavors were identical in both wines from the outset, though the early pineapple in the T.A.S.T.E. sample dominated the oak rather than sharing the limelight as did the stonefruit. My findings on this wine were consistent when I re-tested with the second small bottle.

To me, the differences I experienced between the small samplers and the 750ml bottle say more about the rate of development of white wine when exposed to small amounts of oxygen than it does about the T.A.S.T.E. process specifically. White wines sealed with screw cap have consistently been found to retain the youthful fruitiness longer than those under cork. The time the sampler Chardonnay spent in double magnum could be considered to have been closer to screwcap storage than 750ml with cork storage, since the air to wine ratio was so low. The rapid effect of oxygen on the wine was also demonstrated by how quickly the fresh tropical aromas disappeared once the wine was in the glass. [In the same vein, I recorked the 750ml bottle, without vacuum or gas, and let it sit on the counter overnight. The next morning, it was very obviously darker due to oxidation.] Personally, I found the fresh tropical version of the wine engaging and would love to see the Double T Chardonnay bottled under screwcap.

The 2007 Trefethen Cabernet Sauvignon Double T is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot all from the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley. The wine spent fourteen months in a combination of French and American oak barrels. The retail price is $25. The wine from the two different bottles looked identical in my glass. The were bright ruby leaning toward violet purple with a dark core that faded gradually to the rim.

The nose, flavors and texture of the two wines were virtually identical. Berries, black cherry and plum fruit were complimented by vanilla, chocolate, spice and oak. The first T.A.S.T.E. sample exhibited a trace of spiced deli meat and smoke on the nose that was not present in the 750ml sample. However, the second T.A.S.T.E. sample did not and was identical to the 750.

While my tests were not exhaustive, they do give me a good degree of confidence that the T.A.S.T.E. samplers can provide wine that is very nearly identical to the red wines sold in regular bottles.. For whites, that isn’t necessarily the case upon initial opening. In my view, consumers (or reviewers) need to determine whether or not the retail wine is under cork or screwcap and how long the wine is aged in bottle at the winery. If the wine is sold under screwcap, open the sampler and taste right away. If under cork, pour the wine and pay close attention to how it changes over time. Unfortunately, it will be difficult for consumers to know the size of the bottle from which the samplers were filled and that can be a considerable source of variation. I would encourage wineries to fill samplers of white wine from 750ml bottle to eliminate this issue.

The wines reviewed in this article were provided by the winery at no cost to me.

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This article is original to NorCalWine.com. Copyright 2010 NorCal Wine. The vineyard panorama photograph was provided by Trefethen Family Vineyards. All rights reserved.

I recently wrote about the interesting Ring of Fire wine from Phillips Hlil Estates in Mendocino. It's a Pinot Noir that was intentionally allowed to retain some flavors caused by the devastating forest fires. Shortly after I met with him, Toby Hill went to New Jersey to sit in with Gary Vaynerchuk for an episode of Wine Library TV.

Phillips-Hill has been producing some excellent Pinot Noir over the past couple of years and it was interesting to hear Toby talk about the winery. In the video, they discuss how he got into the business, his goals in winemaking and the business climate these days. Three of the latest releases are tasted and Gary shared my enthusiasm for the Ring of Fire. Check out Phillips-Hill on the “Thunder Show” here.

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This article is original to NorCalWine.com. Copyright 2010 NorCal Wine. Banner image edited from photo by Olivier Vanpé. All rights reserved.

We went cellar diving before dinner last night. I emerged with two bottles that I suspected should have been enjoyed (at least) a few years ago. Certainly, further aging wasn’t required so we opened them up for our meal.

The 2004 Alban Viognier was full-bodied when young, much of that resulting from it’s 16% alcohol, though balance was maintained by virtue of a good amount of acidity. Wine Advocate gave the wine 90 points and suggested it would best be consumed within one year of release. Oops.

My wine was a medium plus gold in the glass. Aromatically, it maintained much of it’s youthful honeysuckle. Over time in the glass, light aromas of stone fruit emerged as well. The body is, of course, still full and the acidity still sufficient. At first sip, there is minerality and some nuttiness that developed with age. As the wine opened up, the flavor of slightly dried apricot came to the fore.

The wine is still perfectly drinkable and enjoyable but is no longer at that pinnacle of freshness which earned it’s WA score. If you have one, I would drink it soon. I would also decant it for two reasons. First, I think the wine showed much better with some air. Second, there were more tartrate crystals than I’ve ever seen in a single bottle of wine.

Everybody knows that everybody said, before the grapes had even been picked, that nobody would make Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon in 1998 that anybody would like. Of course, that did not turn out to be true. 1998 was a sub-par year but many good wineries turned out tasty wine. They weren’t necessarily built for long-term aging though.

In 1998, Chateau Montelena picked their Cabernet from October 7 through October 30, which gave the grapes every chance to get fully ripe. They also changed the style of their Napa Valley Cabernet that year. The previous vintages had large amounts of Merlot and Cabernet Franc and had been designed for early drinking. Starting in 1998, they moved to a much more Cabernet Sauvignon-centric and age-worthy style. This particular bottle of 1998 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley gave off a fair amount of bottle funk immediately after opening. We poured a little bit into our glasses and then decanted the rest. The bottle nose disappeared after about 20 minutes.

Initially, the wine was a bit thin in the mouth and the flavors were all on the earthy, tarry, dusty side. However, after an hour in the decanter, it came around fairly nicely. There were additional flavors of dried red fruit and dark chocolate. The body also took on greater richness. It was a good pairing for my rare Filet Mignon.

Like the 2004 Alban Viognier, the 1998 Chateau Montelena Cabernet is a “drink soon” wine that will benefit from an hour of decanting. I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy either wine now. But, if you have some in your cellar and they’ve been well stored, you should still find them enjoyable.

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Follow NorCalWine on Twitter for breaking wine news, information on events and more. Become a fan and join the NorCal Wine community on Facebook. Also check outour comprehensive Northern California winery listings. They are very useful for planning a tasting trip or just getting in touch with a winery.

This article is original to NorCalWine.com. Copyright 2010 NorCal Wine. Banner photo from Chateau Latour by Fred Swan. All rights reserved.