Percepnet

THE PERCEPTIONS MODULE OF PERCEPNET PROMOTES CRITICAL DISCUSSION ABOUT HOT ISSUES IN SENSORY SCIENCE AND PERCEPTION, THROUGH MONTHLY CONTRIBUTIONS OF OUTSTANDING RESEARCHERS AND PROFESSIONALS.
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«We use words to denote a flavour. Words are a bridge sometimes imprecise, though»

[«Utilizamos las palabras para describir un sabor. Las palabras son un puente, en ocasiones impreciso»]

By Montserrat Daban

Jancis Robinson at her arrival to the Vinorum tasting room

Jancis Robinson is a Master of Wine, an exclusive title owned by a reduced group of people with exquisite tasting capabilities and extraordinary connoisseurship of wine. She has visited Barcelona to participate in Alimentaria, one of the most outstanding professional fairs of the Food and Beverages industry, where she was asked to close the Vinorum –a space devoted to wine knowledge– conference sessions, with a talk about Spanish wines. Percepnet has had the unique privilege to share with this lovely and sophisticated woman a much pleasant time, talking about her day-to-day work and one of her favourite issues: wine.

[Percepnet] ¿What defines best your work: aptitude, concentration or memory?

[Jancis Robinson] I am personally conscious about the fact that concentration is the most important thing. I think none of us can judge our own aptitude. We can see our aptitude measured by third parties, but we can’t really be conscious of our own aptitude, because we can’t get outside our aptitude, we only know ourselves… We can’t measure our own aptitude against other people. When I’m doing my day-to-day work, what I am most conscious of is the need to concentrate, actually.

Our memory probably is important too but, again, it’s difficult for the taster to analyse it. Memory happens subconsciously, and I suppose I am subconsciously aware, pulling things back from the memory.

[Percepnet] Actually there are works reporting that what best defines a taster is his or her capability to match sensations to descriptors…

[JR] Yes. I think that the words help. The words are the bridge, even though sometimes they are very imprecise. We use the words to denote a flavour. I am thinking of a very good example: gewürztraminer. We tend to use the word spicy, because we know gewürz means spice in German. Actually, the smell of gewürztraminer is not very like any spice at all, it’s more like maybe litchi or Rose petals… but spicy is that word that in our heads means the smell of gewürztraminer. It’s not a very precise language.

[P] Then ¿how do you succeed in actively relating flavours with memories?

[JR] As I suggested, I think that a lot of this is done subconsciously, rather than consciously. We may train ourselves to make that connection, but we would still find it very difficult to explain. I’m often asked by newcomers to wine –particularly people who have money, but not much experience with wine–: «When you taste a young wine and you judge its quality or the moment it should be consumed, what’s the process you perform, how do you do that?» And I find it very difficult to explain exactly what I do. I suppose that, since I have been developping the technique for 30 years, it has become almost unconscious, so it’s very difficult to analyse it and to stand outside it, and tell someone else how to do it. It’s more or less like trying to explain someone else how do you smell. It’s very difficult!

[P] Some Wine Masters find that the most common system for wine tasting affects the scoring of wines that emerge in a critics’ echelon because of its punishing circumstances, under which the taster performs tastings hour after hour, sometimes extending to as many as 200 wines in a single day. Actually, there seems to be a big enemy for those large sessions: palate fatigue, especially with red wines, by which alcohol is absorbed even when tasters spit, and both alcohol and tannins blunt the palate. Also, some experts talk about psychological fatigue.

Some winemakers and wine importers comply that it's physically impossible to find nuance in those large and quick tastings. Some British Masters of Wine even affirm that, under these circumstances, one can pick out some of the best wines, but not all the best ones, missing the more subtle wines, and they consider this unfair. On the other hand, outstanding wine writers assert that the number of wines that can be tasted without palate fatigue depends on the taster. What’s your opinion about this issue?

[JR] Obviously I can’t answer for any other taster, all I can do is talk about is my own experience. We all vary enormously physically, and I think that this is important. We all have friends out of this business who find it difficult to taste more than two wines and, probably, when we start we can’t do more than this. But when we evolve, we finally realize what our personal maximum is, in ideal conditions. Ideal conditions are close to lab conditions, without noises or distractions. This allows the taster to concentrate 100 %. Perfect conditions are most important.

But, also, we all vary enormously, and I think body weight must be a factor. If you are big, I am sure you are capable of tasting more wine that if you are very slim, and men are probably more physiologically prepared to stand alcohol, as a generalisation, than women.

I think I can be fair judging 80 wines, as long as the conditions are good… But sometimes I find it difficult to keep myself within this limits. For example, at the end of this month I should go to Bordeaux to taste «premiums» and I know it will be very tempting trying to taste as much as I can could.

[P] I heard you saying before that top-rated wines do not necessarily seduce customers. But some of them confess they only buy wines rated 90-plus.

[JR] This is probably true in Spain, I would think.

[P] Actually this is something we read in a comment about other new markets…

[JR] Well I think it partly depends on the market. If you look at the last few vintages in Bordeaux, there are many very, very, high rated Bordeaux that are not sold.

[P] But looking at the markets where this is true, don’t you find it ironic that, despite the fact that wine is an object of subjective judgments, its marketing should rely on a system of numeric scores to succeed in some marketplaces? Is this because of its own complexity?

[JR] I think so, yes. We can’t avoid the fact that wine is a complex subject, and I think the market, the consumers, are absolutely delighted to see people putting numbers to it. This makes it easy for them. And it is true that in the old days the people who needed to make buying decisions of fine wine usually had fathers or friends who already had experience and connoisseurship. Nowadays, the majority of people expending a lot of money, they didn’t even drink wine five years ago, so they need this guide.

In my website, cause I understand this need, I give numbers up to 20, but if I taste the wine again and I have another opinion, I can change my mind. I think that those who rate wines shouldn't say «This is it!», but rather say: «For me, on that day and that bottle, this is it».

[P] With a total membership of 245, the Institute of Masters of Wine is an international organization with 18 different nationalities so far represented among members who work or live in 17 countries around the globe. Why, do you think, Mediterranean countries, in which wine has been part of their culture for centuries, are so underrepresented, to the extent that there are only twelve Masters of Wine from this area (one Greek, two Italian, nine French and no Spanish) out of 245, while there are 180 from UK and about 20 from USA? There are more MW from New Zealand than from Italy or Spain, and more from Norway or Chile than from Spain.

[JR] It’s not so mysterious, I think, cause the Institute of Masters of Wine is a British organisation. It started in Britain in the British wine trade. It started in 1953. When I passed in 1984, I was the very first person outside the British wine trade to pass. So, it was only in the eighties that they realized they would have to expand it and invite other nationalities in, and people that perhaps weren’t either in the wine trade. And all of the teaching and most of the exam answering is in English. That’s the big problem. So it’s inevitably going to be strongest in Anglophone countries, although they are trying to make it more international, slowly.

And I think another factor is that when one lives somewhere like in Spain of France and becomes very interested in wine, he or she will perhaps more likely go to a University and study Enology and Viticulture in real depth, rather than seek this Master of Wine qualification that does a bit of enology, a bit of viticulture, a bit of wine connoisseurship, a bit of essay writing and a lot of tasting…

[P] But, assuming that those professionals who judge wines lead the wine market consumer tendencies, do you think that this predominance of Anglosaxon leading tasters rating the profiles of wines is feeding a sensory version of a unique thought? We shouldn’t forget that we, as human beings, are a product of our culture and our experiences. What is excellent for our senses in one certain context may be vulgar or even unpleasant in different ones.

[JR] I would love to think that Masters of Wine are as powerful as you suggest, but I don’t think we are! And, as you see, we are getting more broader and broader, in terms of nationalities. In the old days, when I became a Master of Wine, I felt that everybody else was a man in a pinstriped suit, having all been at exactly the same schools and having all exactly the same palate… But I don’t think that is true, actually, anymore. I can see how you get that idea, but it’s getting a broader and more interesting group of people.

[P] The multiple and outstanding interest of many aspects lately unravelled in wine make it a unique product. Initially a basic product in many culture diets, it becomes a cultural product and, from there, health panacea. However, professionals like you, tasters, are still qualifying wines according their sensory properties. But, when we talk about sensory properties, we refer to pleasure (to our senses) or information (for our senses) that wine provides us. An excellent wine, definitely, gives us more pleasure or more information, more knowledge?

[JR] I think that, because I am almost always writing for consumers, I think more about pleasure than information. If I wrote for professionals it may be different. But my main route is to talk to the wine lover.

Jancis Robinson finishes our conversation asking us one question: Which wine region in Spain is suffering more an influx of money in terms of cellar investment, but not necessarily increasing the wine knowledge. This is an open question that reflects some of her interests and wonders. Finally, she recommends us to visit her project web, www.jancisrobinson.com, which she expends most of her time doing.

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22/03/04

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