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Last month, a regular reader of this column came up to me at the wine festival and demanded to know whether the wine scores that appear with the notes in this column are based on the six wines in the tasting, or whether they stem from a wider picture, as in how the wines might stack up against the rest of the world.
The answer is most emphatically the latter. Scoring wines out of 100 is difficult at any time but I find that by using a knowledge base of 25 years and tens of thousands of wines, it is relatively easy to give a wine a meaningful score -- especially if the grapes or the blend are the same or similar. The problem with scoring wines out of anything is usually the winery or its distributor, who can't believe their wine doesn't deserve a better score.
I would be happy to do away with the 100-point system but I won't replace it with stars, or wine glasses, or any other series of markers so often described by their employers as being easier to understand and more meaningful. Personally I do not care what system people use to score wines as long as they stick to it and they can produce a body of work over time that is consistent.
For the record, I wouldn't bother with wines that score below 80 points if only because there is so much more out there. It's usually suffering from one or more defects and best left alone. I use the 85-point level to signal that a wine is worth buying and move up from there. If you factor in the price, something I don't do when I taste, you begin to see where the great values lie. A wine that gets 85 points and costs $10 is almost always a better buy than a wine that gets 86 points and sells for $17.
Although we all dream of finding the world's greatest wine for $10, the odds are overwhelmingly against that happening. Making fine wine takes a great deal of personal commitment and money and it never comes cheap.
Many wine buyers are fixated on wines that achieve 90-plus points, which surprises me because I see so few. At gismondionwine.com, barely 20 per cent of the nearly 11,000 wines we have reviewed online have achieved a score of 90 points or higher, and I'm fine with that because I think it represents what's going on in the real world of wine.
Now on to today's picks, an eclectic selection of wines that make their own points in the glass, and I will leave it up to you to decide whether they represent good value or not.
Telmo Rodriguez is the current darling of Spanish producers, and the man searching for the original wines of Spain has hit a home run with his Basa Rueda Blanco 2006. The verdejo-viura-sauvignon blanc blend is packed with passion fruit, grapefruit, floral, mineral, butter and lemon aromas. Fresh, crisp and elegant, its lemon-lime, passion fruit, green melon favours finish with a touch of butter and quince. Fine intensity and balance in what is a lively white wine made for seafood.
Still in Spain, this time for red wine, check out the Juan Gil Monastrell 2004 from Jumilla. The entry is round and ripe with lovely mocha chocolate-black cherry notes and chalky, easy to assimilate tannins. The fruit is clean and intense under the peppery, cherry jam, coffee, liquorice spicy, floral, meaty flavours. Should be perfect with grilled meats.
One of the best wines in the tasting room at last month's Playhouse wine festival was the Frescobaldi Giramonte 2004. Rich, ripe, fat and round with good acidity and smooth, grainy tannins, this mostly merlot blend with a touch of sangiovese has an enticing tobacco, black olive, black cherry, barnyard, licorice, plum flavours with a vanilla mocha finish. One of the best yet from Frescobaldi, and easily among a short list of the very best merlot made in the world.
Vina Casa Silva is hoping to grab the Chilean carmenère crown with research, fastidious viticulture and careful winemaking, and they are heading in the right direction with Casa Silva Los Lingues Gran Reserva Carmenère 2005. It's super-soft and slippery thanks to four separate sorting of the grapes and about 70 per cent of those are basket-pressed. Look for a dense, sweet, plush, fruit style with vanilla, black fruits and earthy, minty undertones. Warm but well-balanced. A fine jump in quality over the 2003.
La Posta Malbec Pizella Family Vineyard 2006 from Mendoza, Argentina is a property that has been supplying Catena with great fruit for years. Look for a meaty, peppery, spicy, black cherry aromas with plummy fruit streaked with coffee, black olive, savoury, smoky flavours with a touch of orange peel. There is fine finesse here with balanced acidity for food.
Rosemount GSM Show Reserve 2004 smells like a raspberry chocolate bar. The palate is supple with spicy, dense, sweet, raspberry fruit flavours with meaty undertones representing its grenache-syrah-mourvèdre mix. The finish is dry with a savoury chocolate aftertaste. Try it with lamb or roast beef.
TELMO RODRIGUEZ BASA RUEDA BLANCO 2006, Spain
Price: $17
UPC: 08420759900017
Score: 88/100
Remarks: Lemon lime, passion fruit green melon, butter and quince flavours.
JUAN GIL MONASTRELL 2004, Spain
Price: $25
UPC: 08437005068070
Score: 88/100
Remarks: Peppery, cherry jam, coffee, licorice, floral, meaty flavours. Perfect with grilled meats.
FRESCOBALDI GIRAMONTE 2004, Italy
Price: $80
UPC: 8007425990376
Score: 94/100
Remarks: One of the world's best merlots.
CASA SILVA LOS LINGUES GRAN RESERVA CARMENÈRE 2005, Chile
Price: $25
UPC: 00688438000252
Score: 90/100
Remarks: Look for a dense, sweet plush fruit style with vanilla black fruits and earthy undertones.
LA POSTA MALBEC PIZELLA FAMILY VINEYARD 2006, Argentina
Price: $20
UPC: 835603001310
Score: 88/100
Remarks: Plum, smoky, coffee, black olive, tea leaf, savoury flavours.
