The Wine Knows

Tom Wark over on Fermentation does an occasional post interviewing various wine bloggers. He asks the same questions to each blogger, so it's interesting to see their answers ("Prius or BMW?" "Chablis or California Chardonnay?").

One question whose answer interests me is, "Do you accept samples for review?" Many bloggers do not, it appears, but that's because they might have special interests and do not review wines.

At Wine Press Northwest - just like nearly every wine magazine - we gladly accept samples. It's about the only way we could taste and review wines. We receive perhaps 2,000 samples annually from wineries in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Idaho. All wines reviewed in the magazine are tasted single- or double-blind. Single-blind means we know the wine variety or general style, while double-blind means we know only the wine's color. Under no circumstances do we know the producer. We cannot see the label or even the bottle shape, as the wines are poured before we begin to taste. We are very strict about this, as we don't want anything influencing us other than what is in the glass.

Here's a downside to tasting only wines submitted by wineries: We do not generally taste everything from everyone. Here's an example we were discussing yesterday: In our judging of Northwest Pinot Noirs, we did not get samples from many of Oregon's most famous wineries. No Ken Wright, Patricia Green, Archery Summit, Domaine Serene, Penner-Ash or Beaux Freres.

We see the same thing in Washington. We've tasted Quilceda Creek only at the winery in Snohomish (I wrote up those notes to go with a feature, but I made it clear they were tasted open, and I assigned no rating). Several other top producers also do not submit.

And why should they? These producers sell their wines far in advance through their mailing lists. They have nothing to gain by putting their wines in a competition. Quite the opposite, in fact. Finishing below a wine of lower reputation and price would be a blow to the ego and, potentially, business.

There are many notable exceptions. For years, Leonetti Cellar has sent samples. Interestingly, the wines almost always show really well, which helps us answer the oft-asked question, "Is Leonetti really that good?" Under blind conditions, definitely. We also get samples from L'Ecole No. 41 and Woodward Canyon, two of the Walla Walla Valley's most famous producers.

Thus, our tastings are not always complete because many "benchmark" wineries choose not to submit. Still, 133 Pinot Noirs (what we tasted Friday and Saturday for our Spring issue report) is a pretty broad sampling of the industry. And there are plenty of wineries looking to make their mark who are more than happy to send us their efforts.