A wine review standard?

Wine scuttlebutt in Australia often includes the practice of wine criticism, especially around reviews, scores and what might be 'endorsements'. To me, wine journalism should follow the standards of journalism, such as sketched out in media codes of practice. But wine criticism, including the writing and publishing of reviews, tasting notes and scores, is in the main not done by journalists, nor done as journalism.

So what might a standard for wine reviews look like?

My initial thinking is that a wine review standard (something a reviewer or publication might sign up to in some fashion) could contain something like the following:

• A clear description of what the reviewer wishes to receive (if they receive samples) and what they are not interested in receiving. A general statement about how wines are obtained for review could accompany this.
• Any conditions for receipt and consideration for review. For example, does a price need to appear on the bottle? Are pre-final-label samples accepted for review? What images need to be supplied? Are there required types of information about the winery, importer, distributor or the wine?
• If samples are received but not reviewed, a commitment that they should not be on-sold at retail or by auction without the consent of the shipper.
• If scores, stars or similar rating systems are used, these should be explained clearly and obviously. For example, are scores 'within class' or universal. If there are standard conversions of your scores to other scales to hand (such as how your points convert to show medals), then this should also be clear.
• If price is part of, or excluded from, the consideration of scores or ratings, then this should be made clear.
• If there are charges for the publication of a review, or an image to accompany a published review, these are made publicly available. If charges vary depending on the type of wine, the treatment in the review publication, the size of winery or size of make of the wine, then this should also be specified clearly and publicly. If a reviewer is paid by a publication for a review, with copyright vesting in the publication, then the reviewer will not attempt to solicit additional payment from a winery for the review.
• A clear statement about conflicts of interest and how these are handled, including situations regarding accepting direct or indirect funding from wineries (indirect funding to include travel assistance, accommodation etc). This statement to also cover any practitioner involvement in the wine industry (such as if the reviewer also makes and sells their own wine, or has wine made by another winery which you may or may not review).
• If advertising appears in a reviewers own print publication or website, the conflict of interest statement should include words on the kinds of advertising accepted and the extent, if any, that this impacts review practice. 
• A publication with multiple reviewers should produce a common conflict of interest and advertising statement covering all participating reviewers, with any exceptions to be clearly specified. All advertorial or advertising content is to be clearly specified as such.
• A copyright and fair reuse statement. If small or large wineries are both free to use your notes, in part or full, with or without permission, payment or attribution, then spell this out clearly. A winery submitting you samples in the hope of getting a useful review should be able to know the conditions of review reproduction and use prior to sending samples in.
• If the reviewer tastes and reviews with the assistance of other tasters and reviewers, the specific author or authors of a particular review or tasting note should be specified directly and accurately.
• A common or default circumstance for tasting and reviewing should be described clearly and accessibly. For example, are wines tasted individually or in brackets? With or without food? Unmasked, blind or double-blind?
• If prices are published, the type of price should be clear. For example, is it recommended retail price as supplied by the winery or distributor? Is it a cellar door price or list price? Review readers and users should be able to tell which.

That is my first go, and not in any particular order, at what might make up a standard for wine reviewing. I would be interested to hear what people think about this. In the main, I think my practice with this site stacks up fairly well against that list, but there are some points I miss, including having some of these statements clear and separate from the run of posting.

Vinea Marson Sangiovese 2009 (Heathcote)

Recently, as well as getting through pruning, I have been reading Kerin O'Keefe's book on Brunello di Montalcino. Drinking the 2009 Vinea Marson Heathcote sangiovese brings to mind some of the wines O'Keefe writes about as too rich, too dark to be Brunello. To me, some difference is fine in an Australian sangiovese, as surely there are paths with this grape that do not start in Chianti and end at Montalcino.

But the wine, even stating a 13.5% alcohol, looks like Heathcote and warm weather to me, more so than varietal sangiovese. It is a good wine, will age well and sat up straight next to braised beef. The tannins say sangiovese but the heart of deeply purple, verging on black, fruits says something else.

Not $44 of value here, for mine.

Carpineto Chianti Classico 2010

Good, ripe but not stewy, food-friendly Chianti for $20 or less... that sounds like the kind of wine I want to buy, drink and recommend.

The 2010 Chianti Classico from Carpineto is brought in by International Liquor Wholesalers and is 90% sangiovese with 10% canaiolo. Six months in oak, then 4-6 months of bottle age prior to release. Alcohol is 13%. Available at Dan Murphys for a $20. Good colour. Some varietal tannin. It is a touch over-ripe and slightly stewy for my tastes, just out-of-focus, but it sounds like a good package, does it not?

There's even an Australian-market-friendly English back label with useful information.

But there is also a cork. And a cork-tainted bottle. The kind of taint is just assertive enough that many people would not return the bottle, instead choosing not to buy any more, perhaps writing off Chianti (and sangiovese) in the process.

Simply not good enough.

Vigna Cantina 2011 Trebbiano (Barossa Valley)

A sample bottle, courtesy of Mr Torzi, the man behind Torzi Matthews Vintners and the Vigna Cantina label.

Bottled under screwcap this has a brisk, fresh profile of lively acid over trebbiano fruit. The cool and wet year shows in the acid-first, fruit-second swing of the wine through your mouth. Whereas warmer years or sites, plus deft hands in the vineyard, can deliver a characteristic waxy texture in trebbiano (as was the case in the 2010 version of this wine), the 2011 has a different feel, almost like lemon sherbert. Deft hands show here too, as it feels like a swap of textures across the vintages, rather than two unrelated wines.

From 106 year old vines at Altona and Koonunga Dunes in the Barossa. Try with grilled fish or salt and pepper squid. $22 rrp. 12.5% alcohol.

I reviewed the 2010 vintage here.

Argiano 2005 Brunello di Montalcino (Tuscany)

Seven years can be the charm for sangiovese, much as it can be for shiraz. Seven years from vintage, cork gods being kind, sangiovese based wines not explicitly built for early drinking will have often taken on some softening of tannins without hollowing out the fruit.

This bottle of the 2005 vintage Brunello from Argiano drank well at dinner last Friday. A thank-you night for the people who helped me pick the sagrantino I have planted at Quarry Hill, we had dinner at Dieci e Mezzo in Canberra. After a Campari and soda and some Prosecco, we got into the food and this bottle.

A deep colour, there are pleasant candied cherry and nutty things to smell. And oak. Oak does show in the wine, but the fruit is not totally swamped. Argiano keeps their Brunello in oak for two and half years, starting with a year in French oak small barrels, before moving the wine to Slavonian oak in larger format botti for another year and half or so. A kind of new-school-plus-old-school approach. A bet each way?

There is oak on the palate too, but also ripples of sangiovese tannin. The overall impression is of fruit ageing gracefully, with oak as a buttress more than a distinct ingredient. Worth a look if you see it on a list and have a hankering for Brunello spread across old and new styles. I suspect the 2007 vintage is the current retail.

Website. $120 (list price). Cork sealed.

Balsamico

This year the secret project has been to start up a balsamic vinegar line. The Italians call the series of progressively-smaller barrels the vinegar moves through a batteria or battery. This is a sequence of five or six, give or take, barrels, getting smaller as you move through the series & liquid evaporates. My first sequence starts with a 50 litre oak barrel. In a year, the balsamic will be moved to a 40 litre barrel, then 30, 20, 10 & 5 litres for the 6th year.

Where 'normal' wine vinegar starts with wine, which then acetifies courtesy of acetobacter converting alcohol to acetic acid, traditional balsamic is a different pathway. Instead of starting with grape juice fermented to wine, the start point with balsamic (most of the time, not counting the commercial, short-cuts processes) is unfermented grape juice that is cooked out over flame to make musto cotto. Reduced to about half of the starting volume by the slow boiling process, the cooled must is settled & transferred to barrel, along with a small amount of gluconobacter culture (a story in itself). Unless you already happen to have some balsamic & bacteria in the bottom of that barrel already.

Gluconobacter are a group of bacteria sometimes found in combination with types of acetobacter, but they operate quite differently. Where acetobacter eat alcohol to make vinegar, gluconobacter eat some kinds of sugars while they make acid. So no alcoholic fermentation needed in the traditional balsamic process.

From hand-picking sauvignon blanc grapes from Quarry Hill, to foot-crushing & basket-pressing the fruit, then settling & filtering the juice, cooking it out in my 92 litre stainless steel pot on a heavy-duty metal frame wok-burner over a couple of days to make the musto cotto... it has been a fascinating learning process. Not least about the hazards of do it yourself gas fitting.

Now the hard part. Staying hands-off that little barrel & let the gluconobacter do the work, racking & transferring down the line once a year. In six years time, perhaps something good. Though traditional balsamico from Modena takes 12 years...

The image above is a close shot of some of the 32 jets on the Mongolian wok burner, with the 92 litre stainless steel pot of must cooking out on top. Beautiful to watch at night, if a bit noisy from the air-mixing Venturi effect the system uses (sounds a little like a jet engine when it gets going).

Yarrh 2004 sangiovese (Canberra)

The Yarrh vineyard is an attractive, gum-treed site wrapped around by bush and not far from Ken Helm's Murrumbateman cellar door. Sangiovese is a strict mistress in regions marginal for it, such as Canberra. Everything has to line up: soil, water, vine health, bud counts, shoot vigour, shoot length, fruit load, season. Bryan Martin, of Ravensworth fame (and a big part of Clonakilla) has shown how sangiovese can perform in Canberra, but this wine fleshes out that story.

Maybe a sign of the Canberra roots I've put down, I've been having a bottle or two of this most years for the past seven years. Like old jackets shift smells and change their fit over years, seeing and feeling the aging path of this wine has been a satisfying thing. Tight and red-fruited, with a hint of something dried-herb & tobacco as a younger wine, this has aged well (though my bottle before this one had largely fallen over). In it's old age, this has become more local and less varietal, without losing overall appeal. The wine now shows aged red fruit, a touch of leather & mint, and something elusive, nutty & sweet, like a toffeed hazelnut. A good showing, from what I think is my last bottle. Congratulations to the winemaker, Fiona Wholohan, and the site.

A satisfying, if surprising pairing for this: bucatini in a sauce of onion, zucchini dice, black pepper and gorgonzola dolce, thinned with pasta water. The aged, nutty, toffee character of the wine made an excellent fit with the sweet yet blue cheese of the sauce and the comparative bitter of zucchini skin.