A Blind Tasting of Kermit Lynch Wines at East Beach Wine

The local shop East Beach Wine was hosting its weekly tasting, and this week's tasting was especially compelling. Six wines, blind, from various regions in France, all imported by Kermit Lynch. Not only is that a slam dunk as far as overall quality, it's also a challenging prospect as the selections are fairly diverse.

We were not going into this double blind, though. It was essentially single blind as we were given lists of varietals and regions to pair with each wine. The varietals were Cabernet Franc, Grenache, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscat, while the regions were Bordeaux, Loire, Burgundy, Rhone and Beaumes de Venise.

• 2009 Domaine Daniel Chotard Sancerre - France, Loire Valley, Upper Loire, Sancerre
  
  Melon, citrus, high acid, minerality, medium body.
  Guess: Loire/Sauvignon Blanc. Actual: Loire/Sauvignon Blanc.


• 2008 Domaine Lucien Boillot et Fils Bourgogne - France, Burgundy, Bourgogne
  
  Floral, spice, mushroom, light/medium body, cranberry, pepper, slight cow pasture, linear flavor, mild tannin.
  Guess: Burgundy/Pinot Noir. Actual: Burgundy/Pinot Noir.
  Flavor and weight had potential as entry level Loire Cab Franc, but floral and spice aromas definitively pointed towards Burgundy. If Cru Beaujolais was a choice, though, it would have been a tougher call between Burg/Bojo.


• 2008 Kermit Lynch Selections Côtes du Rhône - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Côtes du Rhône
  
  Jammy, lavender, low-acid, bitter finish, unstructured.
  Guess: Rhone/Grenache. Actual: Rhone/Grenache.
  Commented this tasted cheap relative to other wines in tasting; indeed it was. Definite pass, very mediocre wine.


• 2008 Domaine les Pallières Gigondas Les Racines - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Gigondas
  
  Perfumed, medium/full body, medium/low acid.
  Guess: Rhone/Grenache. Actual: Rhone/Grenache.
  Very rich wine. Aromatics suggested Burg/Pinot at first, but flavors eventually pointed to a much warmer climate. Reminds me of how CA Pinot is often Grenache-like IMO--throw a full-bodied Cali Pinot in and I'm stumped!


• 2007 Château Aney - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Haut-Médoc
  
  Grass/bell pepper, dark fruit, earthy flavor, full body, medium acidity.
  Guess: Bordeaux, Cab Franc. Actual: Bordeaux, Cab Franc.
  This one was the most obvious red in the tasting. It had to be CF, and nothing else could have been Bdx. Bought it.


• 2006 Domaine de Durban Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise
  
  Floral, honeyed, sweet, full body
  Guess: Beaumes de Venise/Muscat. Actual: Beaumes de Venise/Muscat.
  Had to be Muscat given the options. Figured a dessert wine appellation would be the odd man out, so we went with Beaumes de Venise.

Success! But without the list of regions this would have been an intractable problem. Cab Franc, Pinot and Grenache can be surprisingly similar if grown in similar climates (say entry level Chinon vs. Burgundy, or California Grenache vs. Pinot), so the appellation laws in France regulating variety were a big help assigning varietal to palate character I'd expect from a given climate.

TN: Blind Chardonnay and Pinot Noir

Our local wine shop held a blind tasting of Santa Barbara and Burgundy Chardonnay and Pinot Noir last week. Six wines were tasted in pairs, with one Santa Barbaran and one Burgundian in each set. The first pair was Chardonnay, with the remaining two Pinot Noir.

Wine #1 - Tropical, citrus, almonds, some caramel & vanilla, hot finish, medium acidity, some minerality. My guess: California Chardonnay.

Wine #2 - Super toasty. Lighter, more acid, less body, dry, lean and clean. Toast oak. My guess: White Burgundy.

Results - I was right. #1 was Daniel Gehrs 2008 Unoaked Chardonnay ($12) and #2 was Olivier Leflaive 2007 Bourgogne Les Setilles ($21). Interestingly I had some sense the first wine was oaked, but clearly it was not. Still, the tropical fruit in #1 and the acidity and body of #2 helped me get this set right.

Wine #3 - Volatile acidity, mild funk, light body, earthy/toasty flavor, rough finish, some tannin and minerality. My guess: $10-$15 (cheap) Red Burgundy.

Wine #4 - Cali Pinot 'perfume', full body, little structure, chemical finish. My guess: $20-ish California Pinot Noir.

Results - Again, I got them right. This one was fairly straight forward. #3 was Laboure-Roi 2006 Maximum Bourgogne ($16) and #4 was Babcock 2008 Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills ($20). The body, funky and earthy qualities in #3 and the aroma and missing structure in #4 made the differentiation easy. Neither was very good, though.

Wine #5 - Favorite of the tasting. Metal, flowers, high acid, good tannins, toasty/earthy, fresh plums, light. My Guess: Red Burgundy.

Wine #6 - Volatile acidity/glue, pepper, dusty rocks, floral, earthy, tannic, My guess: California Pinot Noir.

Results - I missed this one completely. #5 was Rusack 2007 Pinot Noir Santa Barbara County ($29) and #6 was Bouchard Pere & Fils 2007 Bourgogne Reserve ($26). I was convinced the alluring, high-toned aromas and elegant, structured profile of #5 had to be French. And #6 was simply some poorly made example from California. In retrospect, I probably should have associated plummy fruit with California. In my defense, the lab numbers on the Rusack Pinot (Alcohol: 13.7%, pH: 3.49, TA: 0.672 g/100ml) are atypically restrained and acidic for a California Pinot Noir.

The bottom line is out of these six wines, only #5 is something I'd buy. If these two Red Burgundies are representative of what one can find in the $15 to $30 range, I'd simply avoid this region if looking for mid-priced wines. Both wines had mild flaws and off flavors, though perhaps they'd be better food wines than the California Pinot Noirs. But I doubt it. The bottom line for me is that for an expensive varietal like Pinot Noir, buying lighter styled domestic wines is probably the way to go. Any Burgundy has to be imported, which knocks the price up significantly. That means you're probably paying $20 for a wine that would cost $10 in France. $10 domestic Pinots are similarly mediocre in my experience. Buying domestic is greener, and more of what you pay is actually for the quality of fruit and wine making.

Blind Tasting, Fun with Numbers and Some Cab Franc

A recent news article about the inconsistency of wine competition results that Jamie Goode commented upon in his blog has put me in a bit of an analytic mindset. In short, a rigorous study found that not only were judges wildly inconsistent from year to year, but also tasting the same wine from the same bottle at different times in the same competition. I've been to a couple of blind tastings recently with a large quantity of inexpensive wines tasted back to back. This strikes me as not all that dissimilar to the sort of situation a judge at a wine competition encounters. Without doing any serious statistical analysis, I figured it would be worth looking at how my own ratings stacked up plotted against price.

The plot on the left shows the results of two separate tastings of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz/Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. There were about six examples of each wine ranging from $2 to $20 in price with the exception of Cabernet Franc, which was only sampled twice. I've included a trend line that averages the score of multiple wines sampled at a single price point. The most interesting and obvious feature in this plot occurs at the $2 price point consisting of Charles Shaw (aka Two Buck Chuck) Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. Although my written notes include a few qualitatively negative descriptions such as "wet dog" for the Shiraz, "sweetish, mold/funk" for the Cabernet and "flabby" for the Sauvignon Blanc, the average score was 82.75 with a standard deviation of 3.59. A score in the low 80s from my perspective means more or less that a wine is simple, easy to drink and has no really obnoxious flaws. It seems that the Two Buck Chuck is consistently mediocre based on these tastings, which is a pretty good accomplishment for $2. Although I wouldn't buy Charles Shaw even as a cheap daily drinking wine because it's essentially boring, its light body, low alcohol and minimal to non-existent oaking seem to endow it with a mysteriously consistent innocuous quality that allows it to outperform wines with more serious imbalances like excessive alcohol heat and over-oaking.

The second most obvious feature is that there really is no strong trending of the data towards higher scores at higher price points. If you exclude the Charles Shaw data as an outlier, you might argue that there's a slight positive correlation between scores and price. The $12 to $14 range does appear to do better than the lower price range, but the scores at $15 and above simply have wildly large deviations from wine to wine. Part of the explanation might be traced to my qualitative notes on these wines. Those that I rated especially poorly typically had too much obvious alcohol content. Over-oaking and flabbiness were also common complaints, though these flaws tend to make me indifferent to a wine whereas high alcohol and the sinus burn that follows induce outright hate regardless of other merits. I suspect that the $10 to $20 range is where producers start to have grapes that are ripe enough to reach high alcohol levels and where producers start putting money into oak treatment. In most cases, though, I'd rather have a simple, light wine than an overdone wine. Less ripe grapes with less oak tend to work well for me in a cheap wine. Nonetheless, hypothesizing aside, there just isn't much of a price to enjoyment correlation among the wines I tried in these two blind tastings.

Maybe the only really telling result is that the mean score over all 26 wines was 80.12 with a standard deviation of 6.64. In fact, only 5 wines scored better than 85 points and one of those was the only wine that I selected. In my personal ratings 86 points is the threshold where I tend to consider a wine worth buying if the price is reasonable. I simply was not excited by many of these wines, though the majority were serviceable.

Wines that I tasted outside of these two blind tastings tell an entirely different story. The plot on the right shows score versus price on a quasi 100 point scale (a non-100 point scale has been tweaked to look like a 100 point scale) with the price plotted logarithmically. There's good reason to plot the price on a logarithmic scale. Robin Goldstein, author of The Wine Trials, and his collaborators assumed that price grows exponentially with quality in a fairly rigorous study of how tasters rate wine in comparison to price. This is a very reasonable model since a $100 wine is not ten times better than a $10 wine or even twice as good as a $50 bottle. (Incidentally, Goldstein found that there was actually a slight anti-correlation between price and scores assigned in blind tastings by non-professionals, particularly in the under $20 per bottle price range where most of the data was collected, which seems eerily similar to the results I saw in my scores.) If you assume this sort of exponential price model, then ratings plotted against the logarithm of price should result in a straight line. Indeed, the data trends to nearly a perfect straight line except at the lowest price points.

Of course, it is important to point out that these were all wines that I selected to taste one way or another, and particularly above a certain price threshold (say $10) I tend to be selective in terms of buying wines produced in styles that suit my taste. Additionally, these wines were not tasted blind. If anything, this data suggests I'm willing to pay more for wines that I like or at least expect to like. It may also be true, though, that if I pay more for a wine, I'm more willing to be forgiving towards a small flaw. I also tend to taste wines at home over several hours and use a decanter, which is vastly different from tasting blind where a taster typically gets one taste right after the bottle is opened. A wine that improves with air time simply will not perform its best under these conditions.

Regardless of the potential methodological flaws in my "study," what suggests the results are not complete bunk is the realistic variance of scores in the dozens of data points. Some of the more expensive wines around $20 performed quite poorly, while some inexpensive $10 wines scored quite well. While I suspect price does influence my non-blind scores, clearly other factors such as style and quality more strongly influence my personal ratings, especially when I can sample a wine over an extended time period.

Before wrapping up this post, I'll add a couple of Cab Franc reviews from the last blind tasting I attended. I haven't had any Franc content on this blog in a while and am quite overdue. In the interest of disclosure, I knew which wine was the Buttonwood 2004 Cabernet Franc because I brought the bottle and immediately recognized it based on the characteristic bouquet and style of the wine.

Happy Canyon 2007 Chukker: This is a blend of 70% Cab Franc with 15% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon. The nose is suggestive of Cab Franc with candied raspberries and some forest floor. But the taste of this wine was almost comically bad. Miles described a particular Cab Franc in Sideways as "hollow, flabby and overripe" and he might as well have been describing this wine. It was sweet and utterly lacked any tannic or acidic structure. I've tasted this wine before and that time there was some spritz when I opened the bottle suggesting there was some in-bottle fermentation. It certainly tasted like it was loaded with residual sugar, so this seems plausible. Regardless, this wine drank like cough syrup and had only the slightest resemblance to Cabernet Franc. I rated this 77 at the tasting probably because the bouquet was decent, but I suspect drinking more of this wine would have caused the score to plummet out of sheer exasperation. Not good at $15 or any price for that matter.

Buttonwood 2004 Cabernet Franc: This wine was dark and tannic. There were the typical floral, leathery, earthy and mushroomy qualities, but the fruit was dark as night. There is much more black currant than red fruit in this vintage than others I've tasted from Buttonwood. The body is not particularly heavy, but the acidity and tannins are both relatively high, which again seems specific to the vintage. This actually drank more like a serious Cabernet Sauvignon than any of the actual Cabernet Sauvignons, most of which were too jammy or oaked to express the varietal. Rated 88 at the time which I think is a fair score. This wasn't the purest Cabernet Franc expression, but it was one of the few honest, well-made wines in the entire blind tasting. Recommended, especially if you like a little rustic edginess to your wine.

Blind Tasting: How Two Buck Chuck Won Its Flight

I'm part of a group of about 20 or 25 people who get together regularly to taste wine and the occasional beer. Our latest tasting was an ambitious one. We had a blind tasting with one flight of six Chardonnays and one flight of six Syrahs ranging in price from $2 to $20. As a control of sorts, Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck or 2BC) Chardonnay and Shiraz were included in their respective flights.

Charles Shaw is the big wild card in blind tastings of wines at the lower tier of the price spectrum. First, the variation from bottle to bottle (or bottling to bottling) is significant. One week you may find a $2 bottle that drinks like it cost triple the price. The next week you may find one that tastes overpriced. Charles Shaw is produced on large scales and undoubtedly there are also leftover lots purchased from other winemakers. Multiple bottlings from a mixture of lots will not usually yield consistent results.

Regardless, Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay and Shiraz have both fared well at times in wine competitions like the California State Fair and the International Eastern Wine Competition. I observed this phenomena on a smaller scale recently when tasting a 2BC Shiraz and McWilliams Shiraz blind. Both were unimpressive mass-produced wines, but the 2BC edged the McWilliams based on not having an overt chemical smell. The one thing 2BC has going for it is reasonable balance. The wines do tend to be a little sweet, but also don't have high alcohol levels or unpleasant flavors. They're generally innocuous, albeit unexciting.

So, how did Two Buck Chuck fare on this night? Pretty well. I had the 2BC Chardonnay ranked 1st out of 6 and actually thought it was a $16 wine. I correctly identified the 2BC Shiraz as costing $2, but I still had it ranked 3rd out of 6. To put this in perspective, though, none of the wines were exciting enough that I'd buy them to drink again. More importantly, the Charles Shaw wines were among the few wines that were reasonably balanced.

Out of the six Chardonnays, one was extremely hot and basically undrinkable. Four other Chards were in the fashionable California style with a buttery, viscous mouthfeel, a hint of residual sugar, and a subdued apple and vanilla sort of bouquet. I prefer my white wines to have more crisp acidity and citrus or floral aromatics (i.e. Sauvignon Blanc), and only one of these four, the Edna Valley 2007 Chardonnay, struck a good balance between freshness and the California style. The Two Buck Chuck was the one wine that stood out as different, and in a good way. There was no heat and the wine had a good level of acidity. The nose was citrusy and floral, and there were no overpowering "off" smells. It's now not so surprising that Charles Shaw Chardonnay could win a major wine competition. In an ocean of self-immitating bland mediocrity, Two Buck Chuck's pleasant simplicity and balance stand out.

The Syrah/Shiraz situation was pretty dire as well. Three of the wines were extremely hot, albeit drinkable. One of these, which turned out to be the Yellow Tail, also was noticably sweet. The Two Buck Chuck, despite what I noted as a "wet dog" smell, still beat these three by being relatively balanced and pleasantly fruit forward. The top two wines were nothing spectacular with the 2nd place wine being highly-oaked, yet tasty for this style and the 1st place wine being a fruit bomb without high heat. Other than the Yellow Tail and the 2BC, the Syrahs came from a local retailer who regularly pushes high alcohol fruit bombs in his newsletters. Given my preference for balance and elegance, the lack of a really enjoyable wine from this source is not too surprising.

Perhaps the most amusing result of the tasting was my 5th rated Chardonnay, which I predicted cost $2, turned out to be a $19 Chardonnay from Blackjack Ranch. I've tasted at their winery in Santa Ynez and thought the wines seemed overpriced. It turns out tasting blind backed up this impression! Rather interestingly, the most expensive Syrah, also from Santa Barbara County, came in 5th in its flight. Santa Barbara County may not be the best place to look for good value.

All in all, I think this tasting confirmed what I already suspected. I don't like California-style Chardonnay and I don't like Aussie-style Syrah. Low acidity, a buttery moutfeel and a vanilla nose just don't work for me in a white wine. Noticable alcohol (or worse, the kind that hits you in the sinuses), to my palate, is a major flaw. Clearly, I'd rather have a simple wine like a Two Buck Chuck than a more intense, extracted one if it has a ton of alcohol fumes.

Tasting notes with points assigned at the time are below. I usually assign a score after two glasses, so the "calibration" is probably a little off. In other words, wines that would have pissed me off over a longer time period by being bland or sweet weren't in front of me long enough to draw my ire. In terms of ranking amongst the flights, though, the scoring is OK.

Butterfield Station 2006 Chardonnay: Prediction, $5. Actual, $6. Hot! Nose of alcohol, apple and paint thinner. Viscous with no finish. 70 points (note: this might have been a generous score)

Thomas Fogarty 2006 Skyline: Prediction, $12. Actual, $16. Malolactic characteristics, vanilla, pear, buttery. Some smoke/tar aromas. 83 points (note: this was unoaked but did undergo malolactic fermentation)

Charles Shaw 2007 Chardonnay: Prediction, $16. Actual, $2. Tropical fruit, spice, honeysuckle. Crisp acidity. 86 points. (note: this is probably a generous score as well)

Calina Reserva 2008 Chardonnay: Prediction, $7. Actual, $7. Toejam and spice bouquet. Sweet, buttery and flabby. 79 points. (note: not sure why I didn't hate this one)

Blackjack Ranch 2006 Chardonnay: Prediction, $2. Actual, $19. Blah. Hot, sweet and grassy. 76 points.

Edna Valley 2007 Chardonnay: Prediction, $18. Actual, $12. Good funk on nose. Vanilla and spice. Balanced. 85 points. (note: probably the class of the bunch as it's nicely perched between the simple 2BC style and the buttery California style)

Yellow Tail 2008 Shiraz: Prediction, $9. Actual, $8. Alcohol. Cotton candy and metallic bouquet. Sweet. 78 points.

Laforge Estate 2006 Syrah: Prediction, $18. Actual, $11. Herb, caramel and vanilla. Lots of oak tannins. 84 points. (note: I though this was most expensive based on the amount of oak and suspect this one needs a decant or some age to let the oak settle down. Probably the best value, and typical good stuff from Southern France)

Qupe 2006 Syrah: Prediction, $4. Actual, $15. Alcohol and tar. HOT! Less oak. 71 points. (note: definitely overpriced)

Strong Arms 2006 Shiraz: Prediction, $4. Actual, $11. Hot!!! Caramel. 67 points.

Charles Shaw 2007 Shiraz: Prediction, $2. Actual, $2. Raspberry, tar and wet dog nose. Moderate tannin, good acidity and good mid-palate. 82 points. (note: definite funk on the nose, but was still refreshing compared to the previous two wines)

Woop Woop 2007 Shiraz: Prediction, $15. Actual, $12. Blackberry, clove, spice and a little alcohol. A likeable fruit-bomb. Pretty tannic. 86 points. (note: pure fruit, but pretty one-dimensional Aussie style)