RICHARD WHO?

Edited in 2012, sort of re-edited in 2021 although still out of date...

What on earth is a 'wine writer' or 'wine blogger' anyway, or indeed why, you might well ask? Oh, with a hint of sumptuous wine travel and eating thrown in too… 'writing' that is. Funny thing to do I suppose but somebody's got to do it, especially as there are more and more of you 'wine enthusiasts' out there... Previously, I lived in deepest south of France, and Spain for eight years followed by the north of Ireland, as you do. The time I spent in wild Mediterranean country was largely devoted to slowly exploring the diverse wine regions of Roussillon, Languedoc, Provence and Catalonia (with occasional stints on the beach of course). Hence the in-depth bulk of material you'll find here focusing on wine people and other stuff in those areas.

Apart from thinking up, composing, publishing and trying to make WineWriting.com suitably famous, a stimulating although time-consuming and very unprofitable (potential advertisers please see blurb on the righthand column) venture originally kick-started in 2002, with a few facelifts along the way in 2005, 2009 and more recently, I used to write freelance for a variety of publications and media (among others):

www.winetravelguides.com, Decanter, Time Out South of France guide (2004-2009 editions), www.winetourisminfrance.com, Off Licence News (UK drinks retailing fortnightly 1998-2007), Harpers (wine business and on-trade title 2002-2007), Wine Business Monthly (USA 2006), Redhot (in-flight magazine Virgin Express 2005), French Property News (2004), City Life Manchester (1998-2003), Wine magazine (UK 2002-04), Refresh magazine (2003), Class magazine (2002), Restaurant magazine and sister website therestaurantgame.com (2000-01), Virgin.net (2000-01), everywine.co.uk (2001), ICE magazine (2001), Home magazine (1999-00), Attitude magazine (1999) and Wine & Spirit International (1998-99).

I was a member of the Circle of Wine Writers and the Society of Authors for a while. I did also venture 'sideways' some years ago into fiction, 'RED' which went out of print but a 'new' e-book and paperback later miraculously resurfaced on Amazon. Perhaps a European-set, Hollywood-esque wine film noir style story with surreal twists may be on the cards in the near future too... And in 2020, I finally self-published a book on the Roussillon region, 'French Catalonia wild wine country', available as an e-book, paperback and hardcover.

Wearing my Wine Education Service hat when I lived in Manchester (England), I ran popular wine courses from 1998-2002 and have been doing (or rather did) the same in Belfast in more recent times, pre-Covid pandemic at least. Before this, I worked as a specialist translator (mostly wine, tourism and food, French to English); and years before that, used to do tutored tastings, consumer shows and market research for generic bodies such as Wines of South Africa and German Wines as well. Delving further into the past before becoming self-employed, I worked for a wine importer and producer for ten years latterly as marketing manager.

As concerns 'professional' qualifications, I bagged the WSET Diploma back in the mists of time in 1990. I also passed the Master of Wine exams, tasting & theory papers only, between 2002-2004; but lost interest in doing yet another boring formulaic dissertation about 'methodology' (long story, high emotion etc. but probably something to do with sour grapes and lack of funds)! What else might be vaguely of interest: I spent a few eventful years at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and escaped with a Master of Arts in French and German, a long time ago now. The rest is, as they say, history and probably a touch dull. Oh, I seem to work part-time in a library nowadays too...

Thought for the moment: with good wine, less is more. Might be nice to be able to afford it...

Richard Mark James

Wine jargon: "terroir"

Terroir (tair with guttural rr + woir)

Earth, wind and fire or terroir?

When visiting French wine growers in particular, you’re likely to be suffocated by the T word: terroir (although I've recently noticed lots of discussion about terroir-ism in the US too - see below). This word is often bandied about ad nauseum, sometimes for the wrong reasons or without real meaning. So here's an attempt to summarise all the arguments on the subject that have come my way.
Terroir is basically untranslatable into English, in one word, but has physical, cultural and philosophical connotations. The concept combines specific site – its soil and structure, topography (slope/flat, altitude, exposure etc.), water holding/drainage, local climate, suitability to the variety planted and hence how it grows & ripens – with the way the grower thinks, works and thus interacts with the land (nuances of the English words terrain and territory) to maximise grape quality. All of this should be enhanced, rather than dominated by the winemaker (who may or may not be the same person) to convey a unique ‘sense of place’ or typicité to the actual flavour and consistent character of the wine.
Traditionally, terroir is at the root of appellation or geographical origin. In reality, there's perhaps some truth to this but scale is very important in my opinion. There can not be one distinct terroir for a wine region the size of Margaux, Napa Valley or Coonawarra, just as there isn't one soil type or microclimate or grape variety. Sometimes you'll even hear a grower talking about different terroirs within their vineyard. It’s also worth adding that there’s a lack of scientific proof conclusively linking soil types and how a wine actually tastes, e.g. 'chalky' or 'mineral' (a tasting term I often use!).
However, there's no doubt soil properties influence vine growth and ripening of grapes, and thus quality and flavour profile.
Unfortunately, the term terroir is often used unhelpfully to mean just soil: read the average back-label, if there is one, of an AOC wine sold in France. "Clay limestone schist pebbles blah blah," as if we're all geologists. Or terroir can be abused by those dismissing faults in their wine, from poor vineyard or cellar practices, as typical characteristics. Then again, taking 'brett' as an example (brettanomyces), a wild yeast that can cause funky farmyard aromas: you could argue it's part of the natural terroir! On the other hand, it's no excuse for dirty barrels where it thrives and knackered wine...
At the end of the day, it's a terrific marketing device too: earth, wind & fire, man and all that jazz. While all of this is important to the minority of wine folk interested in this kind of hand-crafted, 'taste-of-place' wine (or the ones who can afford it); we shouldn't forget that many people understandably just think it's gibberish and switch off. Instead they'll buy the uncomplicated usual: and there's nothing wrong with big brands (well, not all of them) that taste nice and are fuelling a wine drinking revolution. There's a time and place for both of them.
Richard M James

Quoting from a newsletter published by Appellation America:

"It is only April and there is a vibrant bud break of verbiage about you-know-what.  Already it is clear that this year will produce a bumper crop of terroir talk.

What is terroir?  Have we got it?  How to describe it?  How to protect it? How should we promote it?  Several of the Appellation America crew braved their way through the four day terroir talk survival course up at UC Davis last week. Even for a committed terroirist like Alan Goldfarb, the terroir talk got pretty tedious. Alan’s frazzled nerves are palpable in the story he filed…perhaps too much talk, not enough wine. Well, maybe the boys had a little wine too… just to sharpen their talking skills.

Dan Berger, our Sonoma regional editor, also made a major contribution to the terroir chronicles with his piece in the current issue of California Grapevine. Dan’s rendering of the “why we need to find and protect terroir” question hits the nail right on the head: Terroir is (one of the) key defining elements of regionality in wine; Regionality is the map of diversity. Diversity generates interest and enriches the wine culture. Enriching the wine culture grows the market. Finding terroir is a process, and in the case of most North American winegrowing venues it will necessarily be a protracted process. But Talking Terroir is only one side of the coin; the other, more important, side is Tasting Terroir. Tasting Terroir is what our Appellation Discovery Program is all about. Identifying the taste-of-place is our way of “grounding” all that terroir talk.  Whether you are a wine writer or winemaker, there’s a place for you in our Appellation Discovery process.  Discovery panels of winemakers and wine writers are being formed right across the country. To participate in a Discovery session, contact one of our regional editors or me, Adam Dial on a.dial@appellationamerica.com."

Malcolm Gluck, creator of the Superplonk UK wine guides and website, once argued that "wine is an expression of locality but that locality, that expression is to my mind less about local soil and more about local soul," in his book 'Brave New World' (Mitchell Beazley). He continues: "...wine is made. It cannot simply be grown, no more than letters can arrange themselves without effort and create coherent sentences, thoughts, declarations... Each and every wine, however noble, however vastly overpriced, however humble or rustic, is an expression of those human endeavours called winemaking and grape growing... But there are those that insist on that mystical something called terroir... Yet the biggest elements of terroir are overwhelmingly human..."

September 2009. I just spotted this on the home page of Eric Solomon's website, head of the well-respected and impeccably portfolio-ed European Cellars wine import company in the US: "Place over Process." Very neat, terroir in three simple words!

November 09. I keep coming across the term "wine-lands" in all vinous things South African, as in "tour the Cape wine-lands... blah blah." Beginning to use the word myself, I like the sound of it. Terroir without the Gallic tongue twister. Nice.

Further thoughts, "definitions", rants and examples as and when I dig them up...

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What are these classroom scores all about?

I used the ‘100-point’ system in a previous life, so that's what you'll find in older posts and articles. But I got bored of this, so I started using my own new-fangled simplified scores of one, two or three ‘ticks’ (good, very good, fabulous); or just 1-2-3. And, inevitably, I've already got bored of that too so I've reverted to good old-fashioned words on their glorious own! Anyway, here's some background on 'wine scoring' written in that previous life, and gleaned from different sources, with a slight rant of my own thrown in.

The so-called 'Parker 100 point scale'

First and foremost, I don't really like giving a score to wine. Very difficult to be that mathematically precise or consistent, even if you could remove all subjectivity from tasting. However, scores do offer useful guidelines and easy cross-referencing. You should always put them in context with my tasting notes and comments on style, quality, maturity, balance etc; and perhaps also take a band either side of the score, e.g. a wine rated 87 falls between 85-90 (read on for further explanation). In addition, I'll try to offer a food-matching suggestion where something worked particularly well for me, which is arguably more interesting anyway.

There are several scoring systems for wine and each one has its supporters; but, attempting to keep an international perspective, I use (and am now used to) the so-called 100-point scale, which is widely recognised. Apparently it was popularised (rather than invented) by Robert Parker, the influential American wine critic, and many magazines also 'mark' wines using the same or similar criteria. It's a tad more complicated than you might first think. I'm told "the premise of the scale is to appear generous." It works by readjusting 0 to 50, so in reality every wine is scored from 50-100 with 50 being undrinkable and 100 wine heaven. It's best understood following these simple rules:

50-60: very poor, faulty, nasty wine.

60-70: marks in this category really aren't any good either, crap to shoddy.

70-80: wines in this band are generally below par from mediocre to average to OK. Not necessarily bad, just dull, out of kilter or lacking.

80-85: solid working examples of their type, most decent wines should fall into this category.

85-90: good to excellent wines with genuine character and style. Might be Bronze to Silver Medal in certain competitions.

90-95: top stuff. These should ring your Bacchanalian bells, they'll be true classics or beautiful upstarts that linger on the palate and in the memory; must be excellent to outstanding. Silver to Gold.

95-100: speechless. Very few wines get these scores, as they represent the peak of terroir, fruit quality and winemaking - the world's best wines from the greatest vintages. Unless you're rather lucky (like me occasionally), not to mention wealthy (unlike me all the time), you'll come across a handful of wines like this in your drinking/tasting lifetime. They'll feature in your top ten, or perhaps 100 for the rich or lucky. Gold Medal to "Trophy" winner.

Here's another way of looking at this system, or at least one I thought of. You convert it to a mark out of ten by subtracting 50 (so the same base as above) from the score out of 100, then a bit of simple maths (divide by 5). Thus: 70 points = 4/10, 75 = 5/10, 80 = 6/10, 85 = 7/10, 90 = 8/10 and 95 = 9/10.

And, when on a trip to the Ardèche region in summer 2010 and knocking up a feature on it afterwards, I experimented with another greatly simplified "scoring" scheme which might have a future. This is what I said: "You'll notice a departure here from the usual "100-point" system proliferated across this site, as I suddenly just got (and still am) bored of this narrow, although admittedly widely recognised, way of "assessing" wines. So, for this feature I dreamed up a new simpler scheme showing one to three ticks, as below, which echoes the already popular "star" ratings you see around. Still best to actually read my comments at the end of the day, if that's not too boring. And inevitably, I ended up giving some half-marks as well represented by a tick in brackets!"

√ = good √ √ = very good √ √ √ = fabulous

And now simplified as 1, 2 or 3 and variations thereof...

Try to score a wine in context. If it's right out in front there, you shouldn't be afraid to rate it highly; and inevitably the mood and atmosphere of a tasting environment will always affect the outcome. Wine tasted in an intimate setting or with great food will almost always "count" higher than in a clinical laboratory or busy trade tasting. Anyway, carry on sampling and scoring if you must...

Richard Mark James

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