I've always been wary of relying too much on recommendations by 'wine gurus'. It's useful to have some pointers, but when all is said and done, we are all individuals with different tastes and so no one really knows what you like except you.
I wrote a blog post about this last year
and it seems that I was not the only one thinking the same thing.
That's why I was excited to read an article in the Wall Street Journal explaining about a new type of wine tasting competition.
The project is the brain child of a gentleman called Tim Hanni a Master of Wine who wants to change the way things are done.
No more 'gurus' doing the tasting, just regular wine drinkers. After all they are the ones who are going to be buying and drinking the wine.
No more taking notes and confering afterwards. In fact the whole thing will be a lot simpler and the results may well reflect more accurately what most amateur wine drinkers enjoy.
Says Mr. Hanni:
"experts 'do things no normal human being would ever do' in a social setting, including slurping, gurgling and 'creating metaphors about place, fruit and vegetables' while writing tasting notes."
Unfortunately that's all too true and the result is that most amateur wine drinkers find the gurus' comments confusing and that can make the amateurs feel inferior or inadequate. Of course this applies to champagne just as much as to any other wine.
So a change is long overdue and it looks as though the time has finally come thanks to Tim Hanni and no doubt to a few others involved in the project.
You can read the whole article here http://bit.ly/5TEcuc
and it really is a breath of fresh air
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