Last week, I put up a post headed $7 Wines Win Big Trophies at the Latest Shows. In a nutshell, I asked how the judges could get it so wrong: how could they give the lowliest wine made by Jacobs Creek a trophy and 96 points, while they scored the same company’s flagship Riesling, the $30 Steingarten Riesling 2017, a measly 83 points?
I thought that comparison was pretty compelling, but one subscriber came to the JC Classic Riesling’s defence in a well-researched email.
Here it is:
Hello Kim,
I noted your somewhat negative comments on the 2018 Jacobs Creek Classic Riesling (which can often be bought from Dan Murphy for $5.60 or less). Various recent vintages of this wine have performed very well on the show circuit. For example, the 2016 and 2018 received golds at the Royal Adelaide Wine Show.
Not bad for a sub $6 wine!!
Adelaide 2016 Class 5 – Riesling, 2016 vintage.
- G 9 Naked Run Wines ……………………Naked Run The First Riesling 2016 18.8
- G 47 John Hughes Wines ………………Rieslingfreak No.4 Eden Valley Riesling 2016 18.7
- G 55 Jacobs Creek Wines ……………..Jacob’s Creek Classic Riesling 2016 18.7
- G 93 John Hughes Wines ……………….Rieslingfreak No.3 Clare Valley Riesling 2016 18.7
- G 6 De Bortoli Wines ………………………La Boheme Act 1 Riesling 2016 18.5 G 44
- Jim Barry Wines ………………………Lodge Hill Riesling 2016 18.5
- G 72 Tahbilk Pty Ltd …………………………Tahbilk Riesling 2016 18.5
- G 85 Kirrihill Wines …………………………Kirrihill Wines Regional Selection Clare Valley Riesling 2016 18.5
- S 81 St John’s Road ………………………Peace of Eden Riesling 2016 18.0
Adelaide 2018 Class 5 Riesling 2018 Vintage
- G 71 Thorn-Clarke Wines ………….Sandpiper Riesling 2018 18.7
- G 13 Jacobs Creek …………………..Jacob’s Creek Classic Riesling 2018 18.5
- G 17 Eden Hall Wines ……………..Springton Riesling 2018 18.5
- G 27 Rolf Binder Wines ……………..Rolf Binder Riesling 2018 18.5
- G 64 Naked Run Wines ……………..Naked Run The First Riesling 2018 18.5
- G 79 Jim Barry Wines ………………..Jim Barry Watervale Riesling 2018 18.5
- S 20 Pikes Wines ………………………Pikes Traditionale Riesling 2018 17.7
Given your view of the 2018, you might also reflect on Halliday’s comments on the 2010 version: ‘A silver medal at the Sydney Wine Show 2011 (along with other medals) is a very impressive endorsement for this still incredibly youthful wine. Its colour quartz-white, its palate folded tight and crisp, mineral and citrus zest to the fore, this wine has a bright future that will be denied to it by 99% of those who buy and drink it the same day.’
Many of those descriptors can be applied to the 2016 and 2018 as well. The Classic Riesling is typically trim and crisp in its youth. It has never failed (in recent years) to exhibit fine varietal character. It also ages very gracefully. It is a triumph of modern large scale wine production. Similar things may be said about its sister wine the Classic Pinot Grigio.
I should add that I have no connection with Orlando or Jacob’s Creek. Although many decades ago, Colin Gramp and I were members of a wine tasting group.
(Name withheld)
What do you say to that?
In my response I said: ‘The winemakers at Jacobs Creek are smart, and turn out clever concoctions that clearly succeed in fooling the judges. If you’ve been tasting wines with Colin Gramp, I suspect you know your Rieslings so I’m surprised you defend the Jacobs Creek Classic so vigorously. To rank the JC Classic alongside top Rieslings like Naked Run, Rieslingfreak No.4, Lodge Hill and St Johns Road Peace of Eden is ludicrous.’
I welcome different opinions, so I offered to publish the email, but its author declined and said: ‘There is more than a little hubris/arrogance in your response.’
Hubris is a bit far-fetched I feel, but arrogance is a fair call. I have strong opinions, and I don’t hold back on sharing them. When it comes to wine, I often find myself alone, and I often find my call was on the money. I remember one occasion where I stunned my wine friends and Peter Bourne, our host on Monday night tastings above his bottle shop in Cleveland St. Redfern, when I declared that the Rouge Homme Claret 1982 they raved about was deeply flawed. It was jammy, I argued, and the fruit had a stewed character. It was a tricked-up wine. (This became a feature of other Lindemans Coonawarra reds at the time, until they saw the error of their ways).
With one exception, my mates whose palates had seen more wines than mine laughed at me and lined up to buy cases of the Rouge Homme (which had just been released). On another occasion about a decade later, I was with the same group tasting some old wines that happened to include the 1982 Rouge Homme. It was liquid jam past its use-by date. No one was laughing this time.
We Are the Champions
A more recent example was the Dashwood Pinot Noir 2016, a $16 wine that won 3 trophies at the Air NZ Wine Awards 2017, including Champion Pinot Noir of the show. I tasted this a year ago, long before it hit the shelves. It was a decent Pinot but I couldn’t work out how it won the champion trophy, given the many great Pinots the Kiwis produce. I shared my feelings with Warren Gibson, the chairman of judges, at the NZ awards trade tasting lunch in Sydney. The people at the big table looked at me with surprise as I argued my case, and my old friend Peter Bourne who knows that I never hold back gave me hints that suggested I was out of order, disrespectful and more. Warren didn’t look too happy either.
At the end of the lunch, I talked to P.J. Charteris who was one of the judges at the show, and he agreed with me that judges often fall for the obvious wines with forward charms rather than the more complex ones. NZ wine writer Raymond Chan also gave me some support with his 17+ points out of 20 review.
Coming back to the Jacobs Creek Classic, I found some support from Huon Hooke who has scored various JC Classic Rieslings over the years, between 85 and 90 points. James Halliday gives the 2017 Steingarten 96 points, which is light years away from the 83 it scored in Canberra.
‘Wine judging is obviously subjective and difficult,’ says our subscriber. ‘Even superior palates have off days or even hours.’ I couldn’t agree more. ‘That is why the best judging systems require consensus of multiple palates,’ he adds. ‘It is the norm for many “wine writers” to make fun of wine show results. But, when a wine is recognised as being superior by multiple independent judging panels, it is wise to take note. It is not rational to merely declare/assert that the judging results are ‘ludicrous’ (as you do).’
That’s where we part company. What the email above shows, and what most wine shows prove time and time again, is that show results are only consistent in one aspect: getting it wrong. I’ve covered the reasons in more detail in several posts, but the main reason is the vast number of wines judges have to plough through in a short time. That leads to superficial judgements, in this case mistaking a lean and acid white of no distinction for a classy young Riesling that just needs more time.
Wolf Blass famously exploited our show judging system. He made reds that were seductive in their youth, reds that ‘made weak men strong and strong women weak.’ He saw that he could win trophies for the best young reds, such as the Jimmy Watson. At the time most Aussie reds were tannic youths that needed time to mellow, and Wolfie knew he would beat them in the one-year-old section.
There was just one problem: no one had ever heard of Jimmy Watson who’d established a wine bar in Lygon Street, Carlton. So Wolf did what came naturally to him: promote the Jimmy Watson as the holy grail of red wine trophies. Ask any punter out there to name a red wine trophy, and I bet you the Jimmy Watson will come first by a mile. The rest, as they say, is history.
Kim