Getting As Much Out As You Can

Last night I cracked open a bottle of Pinot from a respected producer from a prominent appellation in the Central Coast. It was nice, and I enjoyed it. But at the same time there were too many sips where I picked up a heavy amount of extraction. Not overbearing, but also just enough to make me mumble. It’s Pinot, I should never pick up even a single trace of plum or dried fruit (quick disclaimer: I am a total geek and tend to do the draw-air-through-your-mouth-over-the-wine on almost every sip).

Extraction is a pretty hot topic. It certainly can make for some lovely wines when working with the right grapes. Clio, a mid-range Spanish wine that routinely scores in the mid-to-upper nineties in The Wine Advocate tastes absolutely delicious and is based solely on heavy fruit extraction and massive oak. But more often than not I don’t want massive extraction.

There is also no denying that heavy levels of extraction are becoming more and more prominent. The simple reason for this is only wines with massive levels of extraction stand a chance of getting the highest scores. That is partially the critics’ palettes but also the nature of blind tasting massive quantities of wines. When sixty or so wines are placed in front of you balance, finesse, elegance, and restraint by their very nature will slide into the background when placed next to a wine that is screaming and massive. The best way to make your wine stand out at a tasting is to suck out as much extraction as possible.

Such is life, and the limitations of reviewers. However, I think one of my jobs as a wine retailer is to help expose people to multiple elements of wine, especially the ones they might otherwise miss. It’s easy to enjoy heavy extraction (especially in Cab, Syrah, and Zin), and it is very easy to identify. That doesn’t mean it has to be the only way to enjoy wine.

The wine was enjoyable. I have no complaints about it at all. But if there is one grape that should be protected in our current movement towards more extraction, it should be Pinot. The real allure of Pinot is that each time you sniff the wine there should be enchanting, flowing aromas. With Pinot you should get hints of things and aromas you have to think about, not deep, brooding, heavy aromas. The mystery is the quality that really separates Pinot from all of other grapes.

Moving on, this week Wine Spectator released its annual California Cab review issue. This is probably the most influential issue the magazine releases each year (although the annual Top 100 generates more excitement). Anyway, given my recent entry criticizing the major publications I guess I should acknowledge some of the positives. To put it mildly, reviewer James Laube didn’t just hand out scores. In fact the 95-point or higher scores were pretty much reserved for the huge heavy hitters like Screaming Eagle and Scarecrow. I’m not sold on everything yet, but I this type of scoring keeps up and makes people realize that 87 isn’t a score to be ashamed of but is instead the indication of a pretty damn good wine then I’m all for it. We’ll see if that actually happens (personally I doubt it will, but that is hardly something even Wine Spectator can control now).