The Blank Plate

This Thanksgiving marks the 100th wine that I review on corkd.com. Please cue the confetti falling! I'm excited and proud that I have been diligent enough to have reviewed enough wines so I can look back and remember all the great wines I've had and the fun I had drinking them. 


Harsh Grader
One thing I've noticed about my reviews is that I am very stingy when it comes to points.  In fact, only one wine received the coveted 90 point score, and that was because my Dad gave it that score. 


Navaran Non Vintage Cava


Despite my reluctance to give high scores this wine was indeed memorable.  We had it at a tapas restaurant in Sacramento when I had just landed from flying over from the east coast.  I also only gave four wines an 89 score.  In that group is a Reisling, Tempranillo and a Malbec.  This is no surprise as these are my favorite varietals.  The surprise is a Gros Manseng I had at Satoshi's wine party, which is the only Gros Manseng I've ever had.


2008 Domain de Cassagnoles Gros Manseng

Varietal Love
I expected my scores to reflect the conclusions that I've come to about varietals that I like and don't like. I expected all Malbecs to score high and all Sauvignon Blancs to score low.  But looking over my reviews reveals that it is never good to stereotype wine.  In fact, I've only scored two Malbecs and the other one scored a pitiful 84 points. And one of my Reislings scored a measly 82 points!



2007 La Flor Malbec
2008 Leasingham Magnus Reisling


And while I think I love reds and whites equally, 14 out of 19 wines that scored 88 points were white, but 14 out of 25 wines scored at 87 where red. Overall whites fared slightly better.  I was also surprised to find I did not rate a single Shiraz above 86.


Tag your it!

 I was hoping that a glance at the tags would reveal flavors that I gravitated towards.  I certainly had some interesting ones.  One wine was tagged with chicken, another cat pee. Other surprising tags included, ocean, sunflower seeds, oregano and marshmallows.  


However in the top wines, pears popped up frequently.  This isn't too surprising, I love pears (definitely over apples and other fruit).  Grapefruit, zest and words related to bread, like grainy or yeasty also came up a lot. (Remember there is a white wine bias).  And while one would think a tag like chocolate would guarantee a high rating wine, both wines with chocolate tags only received 86 points.  Also low on the totem pole of tags are cherry and chapstick. 


Review of Reviews
I don't think professional wine raters have reviews that look like mine, but that's part of the fun.  I may not have had as much experience with wine as a pro, but I have my own palette and reviewing wines is part of discovering it.  I think I've learned some important lessons.  Don't ever be closed minded, just because you don't think you like that type of wine doesn't mean you won't like the wine you are about to try.  Also try new varietals, you never know when they will blow you away.  So even if you don't write down all your reviews, my reviews should demonstrate that these lessons are true tenets of wine tasting. Happy Holiday drinking everyone!