Tasting = Rating

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have tasted at the feet of some of the great tasters of South Africa. Being blessed even further, I’ve had a couple of them take me under their proverbial wings and walk me through the basics all the way to the big leagues. I’ll even be the first to concede that I am still miles away from attaining their incredible talent levels; but yet I gladly welcome the lifelong unattainable journey of trying to fully understand wine.

To pay homage to their efforts, I’ve decided to take them up on their advice/challenge of being confident with my palate and making sure I taste the wine that’s in front of me. As such I shall be posting my ratings of the wines I get to try on this blog/ website!! … That declaration was SIGNIFICANTLY more dramatic in my head, just in case you were curious 😀 .

My motivation for doing this is to offer the “general public” more information with regards to the wines that are available in the market by providing a reliable and credible system of classifying their quality. I must confess though, a small part of my “kicks” will be derived from an egotistical desire to help discover unknown gems and set the public ferociously unrestrained on them; as with other wine writers. Nonetheless, being able to turn even one person on to a wine that takes them on an enthralling sensory expedition that they’d never experienced before will be a reward in itself. Wine was meant to be shared and not hoarded, in my humble opinion.

Before I even start, I would like to make it unequivocally certain that the intention shall not be to bash any wines; I am well aware of the difficulty that goes into the production as well as importation of the wine and I will not stand for any humiliation of the involved parties. Because of this I will not focus no low scoring wines; with only the occasional mention when I intend to highlight particular characteristics I believe take away from the hedonic assessment of the wine. Other than that it will be a celebration of delightful discoveries.

In the beginning I shall be using the 20 point system (rating wines out of 20 points) which I am more familiar with. The intention will however be to move to the 100 point system as soon as I get a good handle of it.

When rating wines, there is always a concern about the subjectivity that is inevitable (both wilfully and not). In addition, there is the pull to give median scores so as not to offend the industry. To that I’ve been working on a personal tasting grid, building on all that I have studied and experienced, that will ensure that I consider various objective indicators each time I taste a wine before coming to a conclusion. Furthermore I hold no allegiance to a brand, importer or distributor which should give me autonomy with regards to my ratings. My singular focus is on quality of the wine and I’ll gladly stick my neck out for wines I believe in and point out those I believe not to be up to scratch. I shall also try to taste blind as often as I can to aid with the impartiality.

The only bias that could potentially arise is where a particular shop or distributor allows me favourable wine purchasing terms like extending me credit facilities. In that case I will initially review more of their wines given the ease of acquiring them and thus potentially giving them more coverage. But I will eventually exhaust their stock and be forced to move to other retailers, thereby evening itself out.

The 20 point ratings shall have the following meaning: < 13.5 is faulty; 13.6 – 14.5 is dull; 14.6 – 15.5 is an average wine that is drinkable; 15.6 -16.5 is a good wine with some character; 16.6 – 17.5 is very good, rather intriguing to drink; 17.6 – 19 is an outstanding wine that shows incredible balance; 19.1 – 20 is an exceptional classic wine, as near perfection as is possible and that you won’t soon forget. I rarely give 18’s and even worse 19’s. It could be a mixture of not getting the chance to taste absolute stunners, and also the idea that despite a general high level of quality, high ratings should only be reserved for the truly exceptional wines so as not to have inflated ratings. Nevertheless, if the wine is good, I am not afraid to award them accordingly.

Lastly, I am aware there is no absolute in my ratings. Bottle variation is a legitimate occurrence. As well as my palate having its off days. As such if I ever taste a second bottle and have a substantially varied rating than the first time around (more than 2 points in the 20 point system and 5 in the 100 point system) I will re-post my tasting notes and scores. The more tasting, reading and practice I do the better my skills will be and the better my ratings system will be.

With that said, I trust my palate significantly and this certainly will be an interesting adventure.