About Jane's
Monthly Dozen©
Jane Garvey's wine reviews have been published on a weekly
basis since 1992. In 2005 she began providing this service
exclusively for the Atlanta Wine School, an organization
that utilizes her speaking & teaching talents as well.
Both the school and Jane decided a "higher quality"
of wine selection could be employed by changing the review
schedule from six wines weekly to twelve wines monthly.
Hence January 2007 saw the inception of the Monthly Dozen©.
What Makes
this Review Unique?
In an ocean of wine reviews, Jane Garvey not only scores/rates
the wines which are published, but she ensures a wine that
does NOT attain the score of 85 is left out of the review.
Why? Who has time to read about bad wines--no one is going
to buy a wine less than 85 anyway.
Moreover, the reviews
provide detailed tasting notes, wholesale supplier (for
ease of ordering), retail price, and suggested food pairings.
Wine reviews simply don't address the culinary opportunities
in general--Jane's column nails them.
How are the
Wines Scored/Rated? Or What Jane Really Thinks of Wine Scores
and How She Uses Them!
Rating wines--indeed rating anything from films to books--is
a process fraught with turmoil. Many readers will disagree
with the system one devises. I've used everything from letter
grades to stars to popped corks in rating wines, and I find
the business of ratings dissatisfying and wish I didn't
have to do it.
While I recognize that it makes assessing information quicker,
it can also lead to lazy readership. For instance, I once
did an article on sweet wines, which I feel don't get the
understanding they deserve. It's an intellectual pose, in
my view, to discredit all sweet wines, when, in fact, the
issues of balance with acidity and other components is just
as important as with dry wines. But as sweet wines work
wonders with spicy and Asian fare, I did this article and
rated wines using a letter score. I then had an e-mail from
a couple who had gone out and bought the wines, tasted one,
and wrote me in disapproval: "But they're SWEET."
Obviously, they had not read the column; only the ratings.
So I told them that if they really disliked the wines, they
could exchange them for something else, but that before
doing so they should get some Asian food or Mexican food,
and try one again. This they dutifully did, and wrote back
to say they were STUNNED at the pairing, and couldn't believe
how good it was. They kept the wines.
Sometimes it pays to read the entire wine column. Not just
the ratings.
Or then there's the story about the fellow up in D.C. who
ordered a bunch of 90 and above rated wines, and when they
arrived, called his retailer in dismay to protest: But they're
all WHITE!!!!! Obviously, he, too, had not read the prose;
just the ratings.
That's just ONE reason why I dislike ratings. Another is
my quarrel with some raters' process. I simply don't think
one can rate several hundred wines at a sitting. Even the
deities would have trouble with this assignment, never mind
a mere mortal.
Then, there's the issue of which bottle rated when? Wine
is a living thing. Like other living things, it evolves.
And like other living things, wine can hit a "dumb
phase." Anybody who's been around an adolescent more
than a few days knows about the "dumb phase" us
human beings can get into. Wine is no different. Australian
Semillons are a classic example of this, often lying dormant
for as much as five years, before emerging with all motors
running and sporting a vibrant neon-backed lemon jello color.
So when, along the wine's life, was it rated? During a "dumb
phase?" Obviously, then, the score is not likely to
be very high.
I recall a Merlot that, when first opened for an Easter
dinner, appeared to be DOA. "Wait a minute," I
counseled. "Let's give it a second." In a mere
20 minutes, the wine was a-bloom with flavors. The reviewer
who's got to get through several hundred wines in a day's
work might well miss its true character, as in 20 minutes,
he or she is on to several more wines.
Think that's only about reds? Well, it's not.
Colleagues gathered to evaluate Champagnes for a tasting
panel all found that, as they were concluding their work,
the wines had both warmed up and opened up. But those evaluations
could not be changed as they had been turned in, and nearly
everyone agreed they might have been higher had they waited
awhile.
Other matters than can skew a rater's evaluation include
glass quality, glass volume & shape (think Riedel),
a presence of dish washing liquid, or just plain stinky
glasses.
So what do I, as a reviewer, operating most
of the time solo, and not tasting blind do?
1. I taste no more than two or three wines at a time. Three
max.
2. I taste each wine individually,
and before tasting each with any food.
3. I look for flaws that would let a wine out of the running
altogether, and if the wine passes muster at that point,
I start to take notes on what aromas and flavors I see.
These can change over the course of the evaluation, as the
wine opens.
4. I look for characters that are out of balance. For example:
Is the acidity too high? (That can be offset with rich foods,
but will lower the score.). Or too low? Is the oak out of
hand? (I especially dislike oak-governed wines, or those
that show obvious and excessive American oak with too much
coconut, caramel and vanilla.) Is the varietal expression
correct to type? Is the wine seamless or disjointed? (It
might come together over the course of the evaluation, or
not--and a not will lower the score.) What happens in mid
palate? How does it finish? What is the sense of alcohol?
5. I taste wines in either Riedel or Spiegelau stemware,
and I try to select a glass that will favor the wine type.
If there is no specific glass, I'll use the Riedel Zinfandel
glass, which often is used in competitions when one glass
type must serve all purposes. Too many times, I've seen
shape of glass radically affect how a wine tastes.
6. Next, if the wine has passed the first taste muster,
comes its ability to pair with food. I will have several
dishes reflecting a variety of seasonings, flavors, textures
and, often, temperatures to pair with each wine. How does
the wine affect the food and vice versa? In an ideal moment,
the wine and the food will both taste better in each other's
presence. I may make other estimates of food pairings based
on what I see in the dishes I have assembled, but most of
the time, what you read worked in my palate, or it's not
there.
7. Finally, I often taste wines the next day, having corked
them and placed them in the refrigerator or on ice. (I use
neither gas nor any other preservation method, and don't
recommend them.) I then taste the wines, especially reds,
the next day before finalizing my rating, to see how much
they have evolved. My epiphany in this department came while
tasting a D'Arenberg "Darry's Original,' a Grenache/Syrah
blend from Australia. I had opened the bottle at my brother's
house to go with some barbecue. We both felt the wine was
indifferent, and I corked it to set it aside--un-refrigerated
in that case. Two whole days later, I had acquired some
lamb rogan josh, and decided to re-taste the wine with the
dish. OHMYWORD!!!! What had seemed utterly characterless
had acquired spice and depth of flavor that were unimaginable
just two days earlier.
8. Does price factor into the equation? Yes, it does, but
keeping in mind the quantities produced. Wines that status-seeking
consumers chase because their names appear on exclusive
lists aren't reviewed here, but wines that may be scarce
or hard to find sometimes are if they are worth the search.
You'll see terms like "great value," and they
may occur on wines that are priced in the $20s or $30s,
if at the end of the day, it seems appropriate relative
to other wines in the genre.
With all that said, the ratings for each wine reflect the
following:
100-96:
Classic, outstanding wines that one can't envision being
improved in any way, shape or form.
91-95:
Exceptional wines that surprise and delight at every sip,
that exceptionally express the varietal character of the
grapes from which they were made.
88-90:
Very good wines that are soundly made prove very worthy
with food, and offer a measure of excitement.
85-87:
Good wines, soundly made, varietally correct, that do well
with food and offer solid pleasure and a good price/quality
ratio.
