It Was The Best Of Wines. It Was The Worst Of Wines.

Chapter Eleven. Parts One & Two.
The November 1997 issue of the Wine Spectator rated the Louis Latour 1990 Corton-Charlemagne 98 points … and 88 points.

98 LOUIS LATOUR Corton-Charlemagne 1990
Exotic, wild and savage. A deep, “gonzo-crazy” terroir wine, full-bodied and packed with dried herbs, honey and spicy oak. Almost tannic in structure, it explodes like a small volcano on the palate for an unbelievable experience. Not for the faint of heart though.

88 LOUIS LATOUR Corton-Charlemagne 1990
Mature, with an herbal, slightly leathery accent to the pear and oak flavors. Shows its age via dryness and coarseness on the finish.

In the same issue the 1995 Arrowood Réserve Spéciale received 95 points … and 82 points, and the Rochioli 1995 Allen Vineyard Reserve was awarded 96 points … and 85 points. These dyslexic point spreads were not the result of ADD (Alcohol Drinking Disorder); these Dickensian observations were simply a tale of two critics.

Forget The Oscars, Emmys & Grammys. It’s The Yeasties!

Chapter Five, Part Two.
Humans are a competitive lot. We’ve created entire industries that do nothing more than grade, score, award, and rate everything from our kids to our eggs. Does it bother you that your kids go off to school and the best they can rate is an A, but your eggs are graded AAA before they’ve even crossed the road?

Speaking of eggs, if you feel the need to put wines into a pecking order, evaluation systems have been developed to help objectively rate and record your observations. There are systems based on pure science (one short-lived magazine based their ratings on chemical analysis without ever tasting any wine) and systems cloaked in pretense (for just $499 you can own The Connoisseurs Master 60 Aromas Kit in a beautiful wooden display box!).

The Best Of WineSnark 2014.

One Day You’ll Look Back At This And It Will All Seem Funny – I Hope.

January marks the official start of the “BEST OF” season. Wine publications have already released their TOP 100 WINES OF THE YEAR, strategically unveiled just before the drinking playoffs (also known as the holidays). Soon newsstands will be overflowing with trendy magazines flaunting the SEXIEST MEN & WOMEN OF 2014, the TOP 100 SELFIES OF 2014, or THE TOP 100 STUPIDEST TOP 100 LISTS OF 2014.

In an effort to remain trendy, sexy and stupid, WineSnark has created its own BEST OF 2014 list. I tried to create a TOP 100 list but I dozed off at 30 so that’s where I left it. So here are 30 of the snarkiest comments culled from the pages of this august institution and very precisely presented in absolutely no particular order.

New Jersey Wineries Are Bringing Home The Bling.

Alba Vineyard in Milford New Jersey.

I recently picked up a brochure about all the great things happening in New Jersey. It was a very thin brochure. As I perused the pamphlet I was beginning to think there’s not much to do here once you’ve seen Lucy the Elephant (six stories tall in Margate) or visited the world’s largest light bulb (14 feet tall, 8 tons in Edison). But then a section about New Jersey wineries caught my eye.

I was shocked to learn my beloved state is now host to approximately fifty wineries. As recently as the year 2000 there were only a dozen New Jersey wineries and after visiting one a few decades ago I didn’t see any reason to build more. Fifty New Jersey wineries reminded me of that old joke about bad diner food; “This food is horrible, but at least there’s lots of it.”

Intro To The Obligatory Chapter On Wine Tasting Techniques.

Chapter Three, Part One.
I know what you’re thinking. I said this wasn’t going to be like every other wine blog on the internet and I’m already writing about how to taste wine. Every magazine and book ever written about wine has a chapter about ‘Tasting Techniques’. I know it. You know it. Even your preschooler knows it because she read about it on her i-phone.

Before you skip to the next chapter or surf off in search of cute kitty videos you should know the ‘Tasting Techniques’ chapter is a pillar of wine journalism, an institution steeped in class and tradition, much like NASCAR and hOOters.