From theory to practice: an MW critiques his own tasting prowess…
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Great article. Your notes say a lot about the difficulty of blind tasting! In a world where the wines of Burgundy are getting sweeter and a lot of new world winemakers work hard to minimise the “taste of sunshine” in their Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, it’s more difficult than ever!
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Richard, I know I’m exactly the target audience so it might not mean as much, but I thought this was excellent!
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Thanks Andrew! Blind tasting certainly gets harder and harder as wines improve and vineyards expand around the world. But it will always remain a popular sport for wine lovers. Nobody can resist the thrill you get when identifying a wine spot on!
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Sending best vibes to you for the exams next week!
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I very much enjoyed reading this article! Great that you shared the results of this tasting, despite the relatively high number of ‘unforgivable’ identifications. Thanks, Richard.
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Richard this is all disarmingly honest, thoughtful and thought-provoking. I hope it gives encouragement to all the MW candidates taking the exam next week!
Your detailed notes seem to be entirely accurate, based on how one might guess the wines would have shown. So, there’s nothing wrong with your tasting, only the conclusions. But you were facing 30 wines from 2 varieties, having to come up with definitive answers in every case. I am fully confident that if you were back in that MW exam room, looking at 12 wines in 2.25 hours, you would have come up with the logical arguments and options that would have earned you another pass.
Maybe all MWs should be given a re-test every 10 years - what do you think?!
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Ahh, you flatter me John! Not that I’m objecting.
As for re-examining MWs every ten years, it might just prove a rather good revenue stream for the IMW, you know …
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I passed MW exams in 1997, a long time ago when there was reasonable distinction between Old World and New World wines. A factor in the recent crossover is global warming and some regions such as Chablis and Burgundy are experiencing earlier harvests and riper grapes. The resulting taste, dare I say it, is juicier, fruitier and more New Worldish. Not all regions are affected. A possible explanation for regions that are affected is that the region is located in a macro-regon cold climate but the micro-climate is the warmest sub-region. If long standing viticultural and vinification practices evolved to suit and then suddenly climate warming tips the micro sub-region over the edge of its practice, the wines change too. Responses are to change grape varieties and relocate further from the equator. I’d find it very difficult now to do the part of the MW exam in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Andrew Corrigan MW
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Thank you Richard for a thought provoking and honest article. The big question the tasting raises, “is terroir undependable”. I think “yes”, and thank goodness for that. Every vintage of my 57 has been different. Differentiation has been driven by the vastly varying seasonal weather patterns across single vineyards where the other elements of terroir remain the same. (geology, soils, slope etc.) Heat and rainfall received vary by as much as 50% across those vintages. The climate induced nuances decorate the underlying terroir thumbprint, easily deceiving the most astute of tasters except if they have recently tasted the wine and have reasonable palate memory. Who wants cooky cutter terroir. Not me! BJC. 31/5/2026.
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Love all these posts! (And that last one, in case anyone is in any doubt, was written by Brian Croser of Tapanappa, possibly the Australian with the longest winemaking record?
As I often point out, when I took the exam in 1984 it was possible to identify Australian Chardonnay simply by looking at one. They all had a distinctive greenish-yellow tinge. Identifying the origins of a barrel fermented Chardonnay today is nearly impossible.
Look out for my forthcoming account of a blind tasting of ‘Chardonnay icons’ from around the world.
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Like everyone, very grateful for your honesty, Richard, and your humble but realistic assessment of things. I don’t know these wines for the most part, but where I did, the Alain Burguet Veilles Vignes Gevrey Chambertin (albeit a different vintage), the tasting note you’ve got, where you’re umming and aahing between reading the New World into the fruit, but Burgundy into the vegetal notes, seems totally apt, even if you didn’t plump the right side of the fence.
Two notes and a question.
First, it seems entirely reasonable that terroir has changed, given climate change i.e. in Burgundy, Hautes Cotes de Beaune in shadier spots used to be disadvantaged, but given global warming, they could start hitting a sweet spot for ripening pinot (but not too much); the corrolary, of course, that previously prized spots e.g. in Puligny Montrachet, might have lost their ethereal balance-giving properties and should therefore be cheaper is not much discussed by owners of those parcels, at least not in public.
Second, in general, it confirms to me that in the terroir-cellar debate, the influence of terroir is less big than the influence of what people are doing in the cellar (as you put it, “Winemaking techniques such as oak maturation, lees stirring and level of malolactic conversion are also relevant…”). In fact, slightly more subtle, it seems to me that half of what we tend to term as driven by terroir is driven by tradition i.e. makers of Volnay make thinner/ more ethereal/ less sturdy wines because they know that’s what Volnay is expected to be, and do their winemaking accordingly. So differences between villages are perhaps more about culture than about the soil itself.
As people explore their possibility, they feel less constrained and it makes things much harder to identify.
Finally, a question, do you think your score is driven by your expectation of a wine’s origin? e.g. if you’ve concluded that it comes from Meursault, you, subconsciously or consciously, give it a higher score than a wine that you’ve concluded comes from the Chalonnaise.
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Hi Robert, good to be in touch with you again! I hope all is well in the parish.
I agree with both of your points, and the second one – that producers make the wine they think is expected/typical for a given appellation – is intriguing. They might argue that they adapt the winemaking to what the fruit demands, therefore deferring to terroir; but I wonder if, subconsciously or otherwise, there is still bias in the cellar.
Your question about scores raises a similar issue. You could be right that if I think it’s Meursault, I would score it higher. But I actually think the opposite is true: that if I score a wine highly, I am more likely to put it in Meursault than a supposedly lesser appellation.
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