Wine judging scrutinized after study finds inconsistent results(2)
Judging isn't particularly remunerative. If an honorarium is paid, it will cover meals not provided by the sponsoring organization, and such incidentals as newspapers or Internet access at the hotel, or both. In some instances it also is intended to cover transportation and lodging costs. Judges won't say it publicly, but many would give up three days or so to judge even if they weren't paid, even if the competition were on a weekend, as most are.
A gold medal wine
Ultimately, what do these competitions mean? Well, gold medals sell wine, vintners almost invariably tell you. They must have some impact, given that the number of entries at several competitions is rising.
Years ago, I heard the director of one enduring competition say that such comparative roundups are good because they "help improve the breed" by highlighting superior wines.
I'm skeptical. I'm more convinced that the wines to win high honors tend to be wines that have the most profound impact on palates stained, wrinkled and just plain exhausted by round after round of withering acids, raspy tannins and subversive alcohol.
What tastes really good after all that, other than a frosty mug of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale? A wine fairly blooming with oak, fruit, sugar and alcohol, not necessarily in any kind of balance. I'd rather not have a hand – or a taste bud – in encouraging that style of wine.
For consumers, a gold medal means that on one given day a group of wine enthusiasts whose palates may or may not be much different than their own found a wine of unusual merit. The next month the same wine may not even medal in another competition. That could be because the wine changed in the meantime – or a number of other reasons.
Questioning the system
This inconsistency is what prompted Hodgson in part to undertake the State Fair study. A professor emeritus in the department of oceanography at Humboldt State University in Arcata, he's also the owner and winemaker of Fieldbrook Winery just north of Eureka.
He got to pondering why some of his wines would do well in one competition but finish out of the running in another. He also began to question his own acuity as an occasional wine judge. Thus, he structured the study to try to understand both the variabilities of the wine circuit and the variability of wine judges. So far, only the State Fair competition has signed on to his research.
Hodgson is now pretty much convinced that judges just can't accurately judge 120 or so wines a day, a total fairly common on the competition circuit.
Pucilowski has taken notice. At this year's State Fair wine competition in June, he hopes to reduce the total number of wines that judges evaluate each day to between 75 and 85, thereby lightening their workload while raising confidence in the results.
"I don't believe it's the judges as much as the system used to judge the wines," he says in interpreting the early returns from the study, which he and Hodgson expect to continue.
A gold or silver medal or other high honor from a competition does mean something: that three to five people customarily with long experience and enthusiasm in wine matters have reached a consensus on the quality and expressiveness of an entry.
But that's no substitute for the best way for consumers to find which wines most please their palates. That way is simply to taste wines while visiting winery tasting rooms, attending charitable pourings or staging an exploratory flight at home.
That's what I see myself continuing to do, regardless of whether I'm retained or eliminated as a judge.
