What makes a wine great?

Post your comments from my article.

There must be something in our nature as human beings that drives us to a fascination with greatness. Whether it is athletics, business, politics, science, music or art, we seem to be preoccupied with the best of human endeavor. This certainly is true with wine connoisseurs. Witness The Wine Spectator's April 30, 2005 issue that features a cover story on wines the magazine has given perfect 100-point scores. Last fall, Wine & Spirits magazine devoted a complete special issue to the subject of "What Makes a Wine Great?"

So how do we know someone or something is the best of its kind or otherwise qualifies as great? I think we all, consciously or subconsciously, employ both subjective and objective criteria. Both magazines acknowledge the same is true with wine. The subjective aspect recognizes that different people have different sensitivities and preferences and may experience a wine in different circumstances. The objective component asserts that there also are basic criteria with which to judge the quality of a wine. As for objective criteria, there seems to be consensus that a great wine begins with a great vineyard. James Suckling, writing in The Wine Spectator, says a great wine communicates something about its terroir (basically the vineyard). Taylor Antrim, writing in Wine & Spirits, adds that the vineyard is what gives a great wine its unique personality.

Well-know wine critics Matt Kramer, in "Making Sense of Wine," and Robert M. Parker, Jr., in "Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide," agree emphatically. I also remember a seminar Parker gave at the Food & Wine Magazine Classic at Aspen a few years ago call "What Makes Wine Great?" He emphasized the importance of well-placed vineyards (ideally south facing, with not too much heat or cold) and conservative viticultural practices (pruning in the winter, dropping fruit in the summer to keep yields low and achieve very ripe fruit).

The vintage is the next critical component. Even a great vineyard will produce less than perfect grapes if the weather does not cooperate at key points during the growing season. When nature cooperates to produce perfect raw materials, the role of winemaker is to make sure the true character of the grapes and the vineyard where they originated and the characteristics of the vintage are translated in the final wine. In other words, to not screw it up. According to Parker and others, minimal intervention is the watchword here. That means little or no clarification (fining) or filtering. Winemakers should intervene only when something goes wrong. Great wine is not the result of a manufacturing process.

As for the characteristics of a great wine, Matt Kramer identifies complexity, balance, proportion and finesse. Suckling also names complexity and balance and adds concentration and a flawless structure in general. For reds, he recognizes extraordinary richness of fruit and superb tannin structure, while pointing to layers of fruit and balancing acidity for whites. Most agree the wine ought to taste not only like the grape variety from which it is made and that it should taste like the place from which it comes. One way to judge this is to rely on benchmarks or, as Parker would say, reference points. For instance, judging a Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon relative to red Bordeaux or an Oregon pinot noir relative to red Burgundy. Most experts assert, though, that the point is not necessarily to imitate these standard bearers. One can compare and contrast such wines but a wine's greatness should be judged in terms of its own origins. Parker declares a great wine has the ability to please both the palate and the intellect, hold a tasters interest (think complexity), offer intense aromas and flavors without heaviness (balance), taste better with each sip, improve with age (requires adequate fruit and acid structure), and offer a singular personality. Some go so far as to assert that a truly great wine is an expression of a single vineyard, as contrasted with a regional blend or reserve style.

Despite highlighting these objective standards, each of the above authors acknowledges the role of subjectivity in classifying a wine as great. Suckling notes early in his article that it is difficult to describe what it takes to be a 100-point wine, except to say it has "a little extra, everything and even more." Antrim writes of a near supernatural quality that is hard to measure. Antrim adds that people he interviewed for his article also spoke in metaphysical terms of a "bolt from the blue" experience. Kramer identifies such surprise as a critical element of great wine. And Suckling describes a "wow factor, that spellbinding quality that makes your jaw drop in amazement."

What makes even more sense to me is to think in terms of a great or even perfect wine drinking experience. Relying on ratings (i.e., receiving 95-100 points from a wine critic) is too authoritarian for me. I prefer a more egalitarian approach. Antrim, for instance, writes "a great wine is often the result of a singular context, a happy coincidence of people and place (and usually a meal) in which a wine becomes something grand and memorable." Here memory is the key in deciding if a wine is great to you. It may or not be objectively remarkable, let alone monumental, but the whole experience and your memory of it is what make the wine great. Certainly the 1966 Chateau Cheval Blanc I drank with college friends in 1979 was a great wine. It was such a revelation at the time, I still remember how delicious it was. So was the 1990 Dom Perignon that accompanied a banquet at the Moet & Chandon estate in Champagne. That wine is objectively great but talk about an amazing wine drinking experience.

Best of all, though, was probably the humble red wine served in a carafe at a restaurant in the small Piemontese town of Nizza Monferrato drunk with a wonderful lunch, my wife and a dear friend. That wine is to this day more memorable than the single vineyard Barolo we tasted while visiting wineries later that afternoon. So, I have concluded that ultimately, while there are certain qualities that make a great wine great, what makes wine great is the pleasure it delivers in the context of a social experience.