The hell of big wine tastings

Will no-one think of the critics? Plus: what I've been drinking this week

Spittoon fever: a big trade tasting under way. Photo: Fintan Kerr

*A version of this piece appeared in the Independent last Friday, 19 January 2024.

MANY in the British wine trade breathed a quiet sigh of relief last Friday following the annual Burgundy en primeur tastings, for the 2022 vintage: at least 15 of them organised by different importers, mostly crammed into last week, with four on some days. But there was little respite for wine critics before the gruelling portfolio tasting of big importer Liberty this week, the Australian national tasting, the big St Emilion London event – and a slew of others. I know: I’m straining to hear the tiniest violins playing in sympathy.

It says much about Brits’ attitudes to alcohol that a large majority are genuinely incapable of imagining a wine tasting as anything less than a piss-up. Sizeable tastings, several times a week, and free as well? Don’t think of even suggesting to friends or family that this might be tiring – or indeed work at all.

You’re essentially moaning to them, “Why do people keep showering me with free booze?” Which sounds about the same as harrumphing, “All my girlfriend wants is sex, sex and more sex – it’s exhausting, so inconsiderate!”

Yet trade wine tasting is physically tiring work. My current day job limits the number I can get to, and I skip plenty anyway that don’t really interest me – such as those held two or three times a year by each of the major supermarkets. But I know from my years as the London Evening Standard’s wine critic that if you write a regular column based on recommendations, bluntly, you need to taste a lot of product to keep a flow of suitable wines moving into print.

How much is that? An average supermarket tasting will show well over 100 wines: long lines of bottles stretching away on long tables. Even ignoring a fair few, you’re still tasting and spitting a minimum of, say, 70-plus wines each time.

These events can be bigger: when I first started as a critic in the mid-2000s, Waitrose tastings were notorious for featuring around 300 wines. At the big importers, it’s usually in the hundreds too. Liberty’s twice-yearly portfolio tastings are spread over two floors of the Oval cricket ground: not only are there up to 400 wines, but the whole place is jam-packed with critics, buyers and sommeliers, plus pub and restaurant owners out for the day. That one is frankly not much fun.

Even in a calmer environment, tasting that many wines can be, well, knackering. When spitting every taste, you still absorb some alcohol through the mucous membranes of your mouth. Jancis Robinson MW reckons 30 spits equals roughly a glass – except that after four glasses of wine, I feel happy, whereas after 120 tastes and spits I just feel washed out.

Meanwhile your taste buds get tired. The scientific reasons for this are disputed: but palate fatigue is real, especially when tasting reds. I know it’s kicking in when I start to “aim off”: I’m aware roughly what a given wine should taste like and start to lean on that expectation harder than I should, to compensate for my dulled palate. The maximum I can realistically taste before my palate is shot – if it’s a roughly half-and-half mix of whites and reds – is around 80.

Not for nothing is a key phrase early in the six-language Winemaker’s Essential Phrasebook, “I would really like a beer.”

I remember at the first big tasting I attended – an Oddbins Spring event in a large upstairs pub room in west London – I was starting to feel overwhelmed even by early on in the reds. Perhaps I was looking green at the gills, because wine critic Oz Clarke – to his credit, as he didn’t know me then – reassured me: “Have a glass of water – or go and walk around outside for five minutes. You’ll be fine!”

This is also, in part, why big and powerful reds tend to do better at mammoth competition tastings like the ones for which Australia is famous. A bigger wine has got more chance of punching through to get the attention of a jaded judge who has already tasted 200 others.

Still, we carry on tasting. It’s not just that for most critics – though not me, at present – sipping and spitting wine is a job. Even after you’ve spent decades tasting tens of thousands of bottles, wine still has the capacity to surprise. It can still seem magical. And I love talking to producers about their wines: the farmer’s view of what’s in your glass. We just don’t tell friends what a hard week it’s been.

Taster’s treat: all I feel like at the end of a big tasting day

What I’ve been drinking this week

Agricola Punica “Montessu” 2020, IGT Isola dei Nuraghi - Punica started as a joint project of Tenuta San Guido, the legendary Tuscan producer of Sassicaia, with Sardinian co-op Cantina di Santadi and the late Italian oenologist Giacomo Tachis, sometimes called the father of the “Super Tuscan” reds. This is a blend of 60 per cent native Sardinian Carignano, with the balance equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Syrah - that Super Tuscan philosophy at work. Aromatic, complex, earthy, peppery with herbal notes and a solid structure: a serious, modern Italian red (Davis Bell & McGraith Wines, Frazier’s Wine Merchants, £23.)

Faiveley Hospices de Beaune Cuvée Nicolas Rolin 2017, Beaune Premier Cru, en magnum - generous City lawyer friends opened this at dinner at theirs last weekend. One to remind you what the fuss is all about with great Burgundy: supple red fruit, soft tannins, elegant and poised but with subtle depth, very long: stunning (now N/A UK.)

Chateau Rieussec 2010, Sauternes - this, one of my favourite Sauternes, was dessert wine at the same dinner: my friends had bought half bottles of this en primeur, though it’s actually still easy enough to find. And while it isn’t cheap , for a mature premier cru Sauternes of this quality, I’d say it’s very good value: astonishing depth and complexity, one of those wines where there’s just so much going on. Honeyed sweetness balanced by acidity, with a long finish. Really just about perfect. (Grand Vin Wine Merchants, IDealwine, Four Walls Wine Co, from £44.50/75cl bottle; widely available by the case in bond.)