Every year, the CIVL (The Conseil Interprofessionel des Vins du Languedoc) organizes the Languedoc Ambassador Wine Tour, a trade and media tasting designed to promote the great diversity and superb quality of AOC wines found in the Languedoc wine region. This year is no exception, with fantastic wines announced today as the official CIVL Ambassador Wines of 2011.

It’s fantastic exposure for an oft-overlooked region. The wines will be served at organized events throughout the country, including Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco. In addition, several owners and winemakers  attend the events, providing additional information and insight into the area and its beautiful wine bounty to attendees as their products are sampled. It’s an experience that’s second only to actually visiting the wineries in France.

This year excites me more than previous years, as the newly established hierarchy of appellations will truly be put to the test as we see how people respond to the new organization of classifications. For a recap of the changes, check out my article on it. Will the Cru system resonate with consumers? Will it help buyers to sort through the numerous regions and sub-appellations, finally bringing some clarity to the labels and what people should expect from the wines?

I hope so. I’ve been reviewing the wines of the region for the magazine for four years now, and although I’ve seen overall interest in the wines rise, it has not yet soared to the peaks that I believe the wines merit and have the potential for. In a wine culture currently hot on interesting varieties and rising star regions, Languedoc has potential to grab the spotlight; the wines are unique, high quality and frequently available at ridiculously reasonable prices.

This concept is the Languedoc in a nutshell. Of course, there are exceptions and outliers, as there always will be, and let’s keep in mind that I’m not talking about the Vin de Pays/IGP offerings. But the Languedoc AOC options – be it just AOC Languedoc, Grand Vins du Languedoc or Grand Crus du Languedoc – are largely excellent wines at extremely reasonable retail.

So here’s to the hope that the 2011 Ambassadors will open the eyes of consumers to their region. Based on the list of winners (many of which are reviewed in our Buying Guide), I’d be shocked if they didn’t.

The 2011 Ambassadors are:

AOC Languedoc:
Château des Karantes – Blanc – Languedoc –2009
Plan de L’Homme – Sapiens – Blanc – Languedoc – 2009
Vignobles Gilles Louvet – Rouge – Languedoc –2009
Jeanjean en Languedoc – Devois des Agneaux – Rouge – Languedoc – 2008

Grands Vins du Languedoc:
Vignobles Gilles Louvet – Esprit du Sud – Blanquette de Limoux NV
Bernard Delmas – Blanquette de Limoux – 2007
Domaine de Félines Jourdan – Blanc – Picpoul de Pinet – 2009
Mont Tauch – L’Ancien Comté – Blanc – Corbières – 2009
Castelmaure – Col des Vents – Rouge – Corbières – 2008
Château Ollieux Romanis – Classique – Rouge – Corbières – 2009
Domaine de Fenouillet – Réserve – Rouge – Faugères – 2006
Château du Donjon – Rosé – Minervois – 2009
Château Sainte Eulalie – Printemps d’Eulalie – Rosé – Minervois – 2010
Château de Paraza – Cuvée Speciale – Rouge – Minervois – 2007
Vignoble du Loup Blanc – Mère Grand – Rouge – Minervois – 2007
Château La Dournie – Cuvée Elise – Rouge – Saint Chinian – 2008
Domaine la Madura – Grand Vin – Rouge – Saint Chinian – 2007
Château Saint Bauléry – Rouge – Saint Chinian – 2009
Clos du Gravillas – Douce Providence – Muscat de Saint Jean de Minervois – 2007
Les Vignerons de la Méditerranée – Les Petits Grains – Muscat de Saint Jean de Minervois NV

Grands Crus du Languedoc:
Château Rives Blanques – Dédicace – Blanc – Limoux – 2008
Château Rives Blanques – Odyssée – Blanc – Limoux – 2009
Château Sainte Eulalie – La Cantilène – Rouge – Minervois la Livinière – 2008
Gérard Bertrand – Le Viala – Rouge – Minervois la Livinière – 2007
Gérard Bertrand – La Forge – Rouge – Corbières Boutenac – 2007
Château Ollieux Romanis – Atal Sia – Rouge – Corbières Boutenac – 2008
Château des Karantes – Diamant – Rouge – La Clape – 2006
Mas du Soleilla – Les Bartelles – Rouge – La Clape – 2008
Château de Lancyre – Coste d’Aleyrac – Rouge – Pic Saint Loup – 2008
Château du Lancyre – Vielles Vignes – Rouge – Pic Saint Loup – 2008
Domaine la Croix Chaptal – Les Terrasses – Rouge – Terrasses du Larzac – 2007

What do you think about the list? If you’ve had any of these, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Or what other producer or appellation you would have liked to see included?

Disclosure—no, not the Demi Moore-Michael Douglas 1994 movie that made Pahlmeyer Chardonnay a star—is one of the buzzwords of the Internet age. Everyone wants it, and everyone seems to feel like they’re not always getting enough of it.

Today, rather than rattling on about what levels of disclosure I feel are appropriate in wine criticism/journalism, I want to know what levels of disclosure you, our readers, expect.

Here are several common instances that I hope might inspire you to comment.

• A critic attends a media/trade tasting.
• A critic receives free samples of wine from a producer/importer.
• A critic is hosted for a dinner/tasting by a producer/importer.
• A critic is hosted for a trip to a wine region.

Are there distinctions to be drawn depending on the market value? Does it matter what content the writer generates as a result, or should it all be reported to the public regardless? May a distinction be drawn between the critic and the publication? Finally, whatever expectations you might have, are those expectations realistic?

Let me explain. Wines that are typical of a variety/region exhibit “the traits or characteristics peculiar to its kind, class or group.” The quote is from Webster’s II New College Dictionary, the one that happens to be in my office, and note that the definition specifically doesn’t have anything to do with quality, which is what our 100-point scale purports to measure.

Perhaps a few examples will serve to point up the flaws behind the idea of conflating typicity with quality:

• Back in the 1970s, several major companies rushed to plant Cabernet Sauvignon in Monterey County. The resulting wines were generally vegetal. Wine critics panned the wines—should they have praised them for being typical, since that is what the majority of them tasted like? Imagine buying a wine based on this 93-point review: “Shows the exaggerated asparagus and green bean notes of Monterey Cabernet…great stuff that epitomizes the combination of grape variety and terroir.”
• The vast majority of Maconnais Chardonnays are light and crisp, combining apple and citrus notes but lacking richness and depth. Does that mean the ripe, sometimes oak-aged wines of producers such as Jean Thévenet, Olivier Merlin or Domaine Guillemot-Michel should be penalized for being “atypical”? Thévenet, in particular, has had difficulties with the local authorities, who argue against his wines being labeled as Macon because they lack typicity.
• Wines that are particularly innovative—new or recently revived grape varieties, new ways of making existing ones—leave reviewers no basis for making a typicity comparison. Should we assume they are typical and reward them, or penalize them for not being typical?

At Wine Enthusiast, we base our quality assessments largely on evaluating wines’ balance, length, intensity and complexity, not how closely they hew to some hypothetical standard of typicity. Readers should refer to the texts of the reviews if they want to read about the wines’ traits or characteristics. When it comes to points, we want to reward excellence, not typicitymediocrity.

One of the things the editors talked about at our just-completed editorial conference was rating wines. We even tasted a few pairs of wines to help illuminate (lubricate) the discussion. In the first pairing, we blind-tasted two wines from the same producer–one the estate wine, one the second wine. Essentially, this was a test of whether we could pick out the “better” wine.

Perhaps a more precise way of phrasing the question would be whether our critics agreed with the winery’s judgement of which was the better wine. In the end, we almost unanimously did. Why? Because even though wine rating is undeniably subjective, most critics–and winemakers–are examining the same traits of each wine.

Although each of our reviewers is free to use their own rubric, we stress the importance of evaluating balance, length, intensity and complexity as the basis for our ratings. For myself, I tend to model my scoring approach after that of Robert Parker, Jr., whose writings played a major role in my early wine education.

Appearance is not a major factor, unless it is somehow suspect (hazy) or atypical (browning in a young white) for the type and age of wine being judged; most wines receive 4 or 5 points for appropriate appearance.

Aroma is the next facet of the wine that I judge, based on balance, intensity and complexity. Balance suggests a harmony of scents, with no single overbearing component. Intensity can be a double-edged sword: superintense but unpleasurable aromas rate lower than low-intensity unpleasurable ones. Complexity mostly refers to the number of different scents detected, subject to the requirement of balance, and on rare occasions refers to the indescribability of the overall bouquet. Aromas typically account for up to 10 points of a wine’s score.

Flavors are up next, and for obvious reasons are very closely associated with a wine’s aromas. Generally, I evaluate flavors along the same lines (balance, intensity, complexity) as aromas, and wines that score well for their aromas often perform well in flavor as well. That said, certain wines are more or less intensely flavored than aromatically endowed, and some wines’ flavors don’t gracefully reflect their aromas. Length of finish is an important quality indicator, although with the same caveat as intensity: No one wants a long finish if it tastes of paint remover. Overall, flavor accounts for up to 15 points of a wine’s rating.

While the wine is on the palate, I also examine the wine’s weight and texture, or what we call mouthfeel. Although this is primarily a function of the wine’s alcohol, sugar, tannin and acid levels, it may also reflect the wine’s concentration and other components. It should be appropriately balanced with the rest of the wine’s elements; I award up to 10 points for mouthfeel.

That leaves up to 10 points I assign based on a wine’s perceived overall quality and ability to improve over time. And this–in addition to the other areas where they may not receive full marks–is where most of the world’s rosés come up short on my scorecard, as virtually none are capable of improving with age (maybe Lopez de Heredia‘s Rioja Rosado, if you like the style). For similar reasons, I will probably not find many Beaujolais nearing that mystical 100-point barrier, nor several other styles of wine.

That doesn’t mean that these wines aren’t capable of excellence; many are, and make for wonderful drinking. It just means that they are subject to certain limitations imposed on them by my scoring rubric. Should they be?

How we taste Wine Enthusiast is a hot topic with many angles. One healthy debate I’ve had with numerous friends and acquaintances is whether we, tasting blind and essentially in a void (well, stark, controlled tasting room environment anyway), are really doing a service to consumers. Most wine drinkers enjoy wine in a completely different way, namely with food, in varied settings, with wafting restaurant smells surrounding them and outside stimulus galore coloring–and they believe–enhancing, their wine experience. They ask me whether I’m missing out on the true spirit of certain wines by tasting them at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning in a room as quiet as the grave. People crinkle their noses at me and make a face when I tell them that on tasting days here it’s normal for me to taste 10 or 15 red wines before lunch.  “Do you eat any food with them? Doesn’t it kill your stomach? Aren’t you honestly a little grossed out by tasting Cabernet at 10 a.m.?”

Is there a disconnect between the clinical deconstruction of wine in a controlled chamber and the real-world way in which our readers drink those same wines? Are perfectly enjoyable, social wines dismissed when stripped of their atmospheric finery in our tasting room? Do we suck the life and joy out of a wine by deconstructing it the way we do?

 I agree that a wine’s true expression goes beyond clinical steps, stats and notes. Much of what contributes to what we love in a wine has to do with, in my own case, what it does with food, and also where we are when we drink it, who we’re drinking it with, even when or what time of the day we drink it (the image of a nice, beefy Cabernet at dinner with a succulent filet has more mojo than with a glass of water on a weekday morning).

My response is usually this: without the controlled procedure of clinical deconstruction, we’d have no consistent base on which to build our own analysis. Our ratings would be inconsistent, whimsical, and of no service to the reader. But while most of my own ratings are the result of my formal tasting procedures, I leave room for the kind of creative analysis that I think will bring me more in line with the real wine drinker.

What can I imagine drinking this wine with? Where would I like to be drinking this? First I build the case for or against the wine on clinical grounds, and the same elements I analyze in every wine I taste. Then I switch hats and think like my friends and family, and try to imagine how this wine will do in a real-world setting. Sometimes I find that when I step back from the table, some of the layers I’ve stripped back from a wine will be laid on again when I give it a real world once-over.

The proliferation of peer reviews online has given wine readers a new outlet for wine opinions, and while not always the most studied, these novice notes can offer the kind of living, emotional take on wines that everyday wine drinkers often seek. There might not be talk of tannic structure, mouthfeel or any mention of gooseberries, but it’s hard not to be enticed when an energetic peer says “This wine blew my mind. With a bucket of oysters on a hot summer day next to the ocean, it’s an experience I won’t forget.”

Do the words and procedures of formal critics speak to your own approach and understanding of the wines you love, or are we disconnected vampires sucking the life out of a living experience with our clinical ways?

After “What’s your favorite wine?” the next most commonly asked questions I receive center around tasting wine: “How do you do it?” being the most popular. I suppose with all of the recent furor on the blogs over the disclosure that reviewers for Robert M. Parker’s The Wine Advocate rarely taste blind, this level of interest is understandable.

Although we regularly publish a box that covers “About the Buying Guide,” provide submitters with an FAQ and have done a video interview with The Wall Street Journal that covers the most salient points, questions still persist. So, in the spirit of full disclosure, here’s “How we do it.”

Virtually all wines (99+%) reviewed at our Mount Kisco offices are tasted blind, meaning the identities of the producers are hidden. Because our reviewers cover specific beats and taste for specific deadlines, they generally know the country from which the wines come, and sometimes the grape varieties, but that’s it.

Wines are tasted in flights of five wines, grouped as closely as possible according to grape variety/region and vintage. The glasses used are always the same type, the temperatures of the wines are closely controlled and tasters are free to take as much time as they require. Notes are taken and scores recorded prior to the wines being revealed. After the wines are known, the ratings and reviews are entered into our database. This allows our contributors to make mention of salient facts or impressions about the producers in their text, giving greater depth to the reviews.

Generally, wines are reviewed by a single person responsible for a given region, but on some occasions wines are reviewed by several individuals, as seen in the WSJ video. We sometimes invite qualified outside tasters to participate in these sessions. This allows our tasters to compare their impressions and debate the quality levels of certain wines, helping to keep our panelists open-minded and fresh. On rare occasions, we request additional samples and retaste wines that have already been rated to confirm our initial impressions.

The tiny fraction of wines we review in our Mount Kisco offices under nonblind conditions are tasted in the presence of importers or producers who have been invited to present their wines. Such tastings are clearly indicated in the printed magazine, where they appear against a shaded background.

Outside of our offices, we do sometimes review wines in situ during visits to wine-producing regions and cellars, where it would it would be impossible or impractical to taste blind. When practical, we reconfirm those impressions by following up with blind tastings at our offices.

Once wines have been reviewed, they’re scheduled for publication—generally about two months later. So wines that have been reviewed prior to July 2 are eligible for inclusion in the October issue of the magazine (available in early September). This lead time allows time for our editorial team to make any necessary edits to the reviews—not the scores—and for our sales team to convince wineries and importers to support their products through advertising.

Finally, now that the number of reviews has grown to average about 1,000 per issue, we often have to make the tough decisions about which reviews will appear in the printed magazine (the others appear only in our online Buying Guide). In some cases, we elect to feature only the highest scoring wines, while in others we feature entire regions or wine types exclusively online.

If you have any more questions about our tasting and review process, please feel free to post them in the comments field and I’ll try to respond in a timely manner.

Around two years ago, when I first traveled to Australia, I was struck by the number of winemakers asking my opinions regarding Robert Parker. Not the famous mystery writer–whose books never seem long enough to last me through an entire trip–the other one, who has made a 30-year career out of dispensing vinous advice to consumers.

On the one hand, I was a little taken aback. Although most folks brought up the topic diplomatically enough (“We’re not trying to make a huge, Parkerized style…” followed later by “So what do you think of his tastes, anyway?”), it was still somewhat disconcerting, being asked to comment on another critic’s critiques and preferences.

For the most part, folks Down Under seemed to think that Parker favored only the biggest, boldest, most dramatic and opulent wines–wines possessing the darkest color, ripest fruit, highest extract and elevated levels of alcohol. Even though Jay Miller is now reviewing Australian wines for Parker’s The Wine Advocate, little has changed in that public’s perception.

That appears true in this country, as well. Witness the latest item on Tyler Colman’s Dr. Vino blog, in which he and his illustrious dining/tasting companions taste a series of Argentine wines reviewed previously by Miller and conclude that “there was general agreement that the first wine tasted the best and that the last wine tasted different, more extracted, more dense, and bigger. ‘The wine that Miller would have liked the most,’ as one taster put it.” And yet that wine was a wine that Miller had dropped a 62-point bombshell on.

Predicting critics’ likes and dislikes–and especially making or marketing wines based on such suppositions–is fraught with peril. Yes, if one follows certain critics you can find common themes, but there are always exceptions. Haut Brion is one of Parker’s favorite Bordeaux, but it doesn’t have the power, size or muscle of Latour. In my own tastings, some rich, powerful and alcoholic wines come out on top, while others seem overripe, overblown and out of balance. More is not always more, sometimes it is too much.

You think cooking is a cute job, eh? Like Mommy in the kitchen? Well, Mommy never had to face the dinner rush while the orders come flooding in . . . every second counts and you cannot be mommy. –Colette, Ratatouille (2007)

A lot has been written about sexism in the wine and food (specifically restaurant) industry; we tackled the topic ourselves in our October 2008 “Bottle of the Sexes” issue. It came up again for me last November in Philadelphia as I sat on a “Breaking Through the Cork Ceiling” panel discussion with influential women of the wine industry like Martine Saunier and Cristina Mariani-May.  The good news in the wine world at least? Most of us agreed that if you’re smart, hardworking, and take what you do seriously, you’ll get ahead, regardless of the occasional old-boy boneheads who scowl at you when you crash their Victorian frat parties. We all felt that some of our most supportive mentors along the way had in fact been men and that no one was happier to see new perspectives and voices in these traditional dude fests than the forward-thinking men we worked alongside.

But do you have to act like a man to get ahead in the wine and food business? Last night I sat with three accomplished women in the culinary and wine world over a table of exquisitely arrayed sustainable seafood dishes at Harbour and as we talked about the talented (all-male) kitchen line-up at the restaurant, one of the group recalled her days in culinary school and the rolling pin-swinging that went on behind the kitchen door. Screaming chefs, cursing cohorts, flying utensils, indulgent details about life between the sheets….the cultural dictate was, she said, all male, all the time. She was pushed and prodded, teased and picked apart in a way she said she hadn’t experienced since grade school. She decided the head-butting wasn’t for her and left the kitchen for other food-related pursuits. It’s a story I’ve heard many times about life on the firing line of a restaurant—no chicks allowed. Grow a big set or make pastries, end of story.

I think the wine world is a little less abrasive, but male behaviors dominate, certainly among tasters. I’ve seen this at formal tastings (and one wonders why as bottle price goes up at tastings, so do the ratio of men to women invited), where me and maybe 2-3 other women are lost in a sea of suits and often (with no disrespect to the valuable experience this conveys), white hair. There’s backslapping, posturing, and certainly one-up-manship, whether it’s spouting out more stats, coming up with the newest “find” that outdoes the last guy’s, or simply talking loud enough to drown out the other people talking. Again, there are always those who light up to see a new face and hear a new take on the wines. But one gets the sense that many of these men are not so much discussing the wine as they are scrambling to be alpha dog. I’m no wallflower, but I’m also not impelled to jump into the fray. Should I have to in order to be respected, or even be heard?

The icons of worldwide wine expertise—people like Parker, Johnson, Tanzer—are all men who employ mostly men under them as tasters. But women like Jancis Robinson, Andrea Immer, Karen MacNeil, and Monica Larner, Wine Enthusiast’s Italian editor in Rome, are all respected greatly in the wine industry and continue to pave the way for women who think and approach tasting and rating in their own way and not as prescribed by tradition. None of these experts feel the need to be anything but thorough and knowledgeable, and all are accessible, eons away from the kind of wine snobbery that prevailed in the past.

Are things changing in the wine and restaurant world for women? Or do we need to impersonate our male cohorts to make our mark?

When you’re sitting back after a long day, trying to relax and unwind with a nice glass of wine or a cold brew, do you ever stop and wonder how amazing the beverage in your hand is?  I mean, what a wonder that someone eons and eons ago actually thought of a way to combine water with other solid materials (grapes, wheat, barley, etc) to make a sublime libation that tasted so good as well as held various mystical and magical properties (as in make me stop thinking so much and take a deep breath for a change).  I often stop and mentally say thank you to that person, and more importantly the winemaker or brewer of the specific drink I am enjoying at that exact moment.

While I’ve studied wine (and with that winemaking) for some years now, I’ve only recently begun to dive into the science of brewing.  Sure, I knew how beer was made, but I didn’t really grasp the full concept and all of the variables that influence the outcome until I decided to start homebrewing.  Actually, this epiphany came at the suggestion of the wonderful folks at Sam Adams who hold an annual homebrew competition called Longshot and encourage employees, consumers and the media to give it a go and gain a better understanding of just what it takes to make that frothy goodness in your glass.

It is quite difficult and laborious to create a delicious wine at home (or at least I’ve found other people’s attempts to be less than great upon tasting), but the more I looked into brewing beer at home the more I realized that I could actually create something exciting… and drinkable!

I started with a basic Pale Ale kit and Charlie Papazian’s The Complete Joy of Homebrewing (Third Edition).  I thought the kit would be fairly simple and straightforward, especially since I was using a liquid malt extract recipe as opposed to all grain (basically a huge shortcut in homebrewing, cutting out a good amount of time and work).  It turned out that it was pretty easy to follow, and very convenient to have all of the ingredients in pre-measured bags. 

This first attempt gave me a solid foundation of the brewing process, including sanitizing (you have to sanitize EVERYTHING), ingredients, use of equipment, timing and the all-important patience that is required.  Depending on the style you’re brewing, between making the brew, fermentation and aging, the amount of time from the very start when you begin sanitizing your bucket to the very end when you finally crack open that first bottle of homespun brew can be anywhere from a month to three or four or more (again, depends on style and aging requirements).

The pale ale came out decent enough; certainly good enough for beer pong use.  But the experience started something within me, a little fire under a little kiln that screamed out to me to make something different, make something new, make more homebrew.  So I read articles, browsed forums and blogs, visited my local homebrew shop (Maltose Express, a wonderful shop with a fantastic, friendly and immensely informative and helpful staff) and read Mr. Papazian’s book from front to back.  By the time I had finished, based on numerous pieces of authoritative information and peer advice, I had concocted a recipe all my own… a Mexican Chocolate Stout.

I am moving my stout to secondary fermentation this weekend, and I can’t really tell you when it will be completely ready for consumption.  All I know is it tasted amazing before primary, and I can’t wait to see how it evolves.  And I’m already dreaming up new ideas and recipes for my next homebrewing adventure. 

You know that saying, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime”… wouldn’t you like to learn how to drink for a lifetime?  It only makes you appreciate those times when it’s handed to you more, and gives you the satisfaction to know that you can do it on your own too.

Can you “feel” a wine? 

I have often tried to explain my own approach to professional tasting—I’m clinical, I’m systematic—I have to be. Imagine the overwhelming task of categorizing so many sensations without some type of consistent process. So I first deconstruct what’s in the glass without emotion—striving to create a sober map of its parts. But a skeleton needs blood and flesh to become human.  I know that a really good wine is about more than just facts. It evokes more in a person than just the thought of “this tastes good.” It, as Feiring says, makes us laugh, smile, feel sexy. And so then it’s time to read between the lines.

What’s the bigger picture appeal of this wine? How does it make me feel? Where do I want to be when I drink it? And what’s the real soul of this wine? When I’m asked to recommend wines to my friends, I don’t just choose them based on the raw facts of what’s in the bottle. It’s not just about the fact that she/he likes crisp whites or full-bodied reds.  There’s something more than systematic descriptors to a wine; there’s an essence.  How does this wine match the essence of the person? I know that my soulful but edgy musician friend is going to love Nero d’Avola every time. She can’t describe exactly why, but she just feels that wine. Like her, it’s larger than life,  it has its eccentricities, it has an opulent flair.

Incidentally, the concept of essence applies to people too: what about the buttoned-up computer programmer who, upon further investigation, reveals that he moonlights in a punk band? Or the shy nursery school teacher with a penchant for cave spelunking? Often the facts are only part of the story. The unfolding spirit of a person—what doesn’t show up on paper—is what makes getting to know them so interesting. It’s true, too, of wine.

I don’t think there’s any wine devotee who would deny that emotion, or that stuff between the lines, plays some part in the wines they choose and love.  The spirit and soul of wine is part of what makes it so attractive and so alluring. It’s what makes us connect to it beyond just “I like the flavor of gooseberry.”

Do you believe in feeling a wine? Can a wine really have soul?