Douglas

Tough to pick just one, but there is one that would beneficially affect many of the other problems in the wine industry.

Sources of wine reviews should have at least two tasters reviewing the same wine. No question. Especially the magazine publications.

I understand there are logistics involved, but there is limited value in having one palette deciding the worthiness of a wine. Find at least two different professional tasters, preferably with somewhat different tastes or from different regions, and have them both rate each wine. Differences in opinion would be expected. They would probably have similar takes on many of the wines and disagree on others. (Think Siskel & Ebert.) In time consumers would come to understand the characteristics that each reviewer tends to favor and dislike, and choose whom they align more closely with.

Not sure why this is not done. Not sure if certain high profile reviewers are protecting their turf, trying to avoid the potential for actually testing their palettes, or just vanity. But it drives me nuts. No one person – leaving aside whether their palette is actually any good or not – should hold so much sway when it comes to making a call on a wine, especially given the subjective nature of the task.

Review fewer wines if they have to (maybe start with the ones that are actually available to most) and have at least one other palette chiming in. It might be uncomfortable for the marquis tasters at first, but it would go a long way in better serving the consumers that rely on ratings.

Guys, if I could wave a magic wand, I would suddenly appear in Adelaide in South Australia with the keys to a rental car in my hand and a map of Mclaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, and the Clare, Eden and Barossa Valleys. Then I could explore the most exciting and dynamic wine producing area currently on this globe.
There is so much happening with wine in South Australia right now that is really exciting, and one could certainly put several tanks of gas thru that rental car and still not experience it all. But I would like to try. There are so many interesting bottlings coming out of these areas right now that the area really deserves some attention on your show.
I hope to visit there some day, but in the interim I would love to hear you interview or discuss those producers who have made strides in style and quality in the past few years. Should you need a guest host to help explore this region, I know someone who would be thrilled to assist…..

Randy Saunders

(Hope I made the deadline)

That’s a serious wish, but I do realize that it’s very likely not going to be a winning wish…

Jim Fleming

2) For restaurants who serve wine by the glass to properly preserve/store their open bottles and not try and serve the last 6 ounces of a 4 day old bottle which has been capped with the original cork pushed back into the bottle with grimy hands. (Yeah, sometimes I have to order by the glass, most of my family are not wine drinkers- oh, the horror! I usually go and ask the bartender what’s freshly opened and look for the fullest bottle, or see what’s not opened yet.)

Love the show!

Also, on the recent topic of non-California shows, would love to see you experience the North Fork of Long Island. I have lots of family there and love to hit the wineries when I’m there. It’s vastly different from the upstate Hudson Valley and Finger Lakes regions, in that the weather on the North Fork is Bordeaux-like (Cutchogue is the sunniest town in the state), and the varietals are all vinifera varieties, lots of Bordeaux style, and not a Niagara or Concord grape in sight!

Eric

If, instead of a magic wand, it was a genie with three wishes (after all we are talking about bottles here) my top three would be:

1. Eliminate TCA;
2. Require all bottles to indicate when they have been exposed to high heat;
3. Provide that every wine was made in sufficient quantity such that everyone got an opportunity to buy it. I would think this would eliminate the craziness of the mailing lists and the purchase of wine for its mere exclusivity.

Jay, I’ve heard you mention a couple of times through previous episodes that you dislike the scoring systems that we have in place right now, whether it is 100 points or 5 stars or whatever, because you think that the distinction between a 90 vs. a 91 point wine is often impossible to make. To that, I agree. However, I don’t believe that this is a good reason to abandon the scoring systems in use. I’ll use the following analogy to illustrate my point (and this is more along Brian’s line of reasoning).

Think about a clock with a seconds hand that goes tick-tock. In between the tick and the tock, do you know the exact millisecond you are in? No. But does that mean I should render the clock useless? Well, it depends. If I have a clock with the purpose of telling me the exact millisecond, then I can only answer “yes, it is useless”. But if I have a clock with the purpose of telling me roughly what the time it is (to the precision of say a few seconds), then I can only answer “no”. This is the same with any numerical wine scoring system (100pt, or 5 stars, etc…). A 92 point wine is roughly a wine between 91 and 93 just like a clock that reads 11:35:42 is roughly indicating a time in between 11:35 and 11:36. So when we look at a score, do I render that score useless? If I am looking at the score as the absolute indication of quality (the exact millisecond), then “yes, it is useless”. But if I am looking at the score as a rough indication of quality (an approximation of time), then the answer will have to be “no”.

Lastly, the difference between a 5 stars, or 20 points, or 100 points system is, to stick with the clock example, akin to the differences between a clock with every minute marked on its’ face versus one that doesn’t. It is just a basic tradeoff between accuracy and precision. Of course If I knew the time is 11:36 and on the clock that has every minute marked on its’ face it reads 11:38, I know the clock is wrong. Yes, the clock sucks. But if that clock did not have the minutes marked on its’ face, I may not be so readily assured that the clock did not read 11:38 (due to the imprecision built in).

And for my swing with the magic wand, I would want world peace. Oh, wait, I’m hallucinating again. I thought I was in a beauty pageant.

Keep up the good work guys. Always a pleasure to listen to.

Nowell, call me when you open that bottle.

Jay

However, my magic wand can eliminate all wine flaws (TCA, VA, Brettanomyces, and more), even wines that are simply oxidized!

Thus, I won’t have to suffer, as I recently did, my storing, saving, and eagerly serving my only bottle of 1990 Pol-Roger Cuvee Winston Churchill, only to find it corked; or my serving ten vintages of Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Spatlese, only to have the vertical broken by another flawed bottle.

So, in 2013, when I open my only bottle of 1993 d’Angerville Volnay Clos des Ducs, I won’t have to worry about my evening being ruined by yet one more corked wine.

Best wishes for that,

Nowell

Do a follow up show. An author of biograpies I know always has the same dilemma: As soon as the bio comes out, someone emerges with new documents and data that wasn’t seen before. That’s why book sequels and second editions exist.

1. It would be possible to sample any wine before buying a whole bottle. This is already possible in some places e.g http://www.decanter.com/news/131883.html but it should be universal.

2. Fine wine would be cheaper

3. Wine reviewers e.g. Parker, Decanter, Wine Spectator, etc publish reviews in full with scores for every wine they review – even the ones that get -1 out of a 100. They seem to be scared to do so – maybe because they fear they will not be allowed to get the wine for free to review the next year. For me. it is more important to not buy a crap wine than to buy a really good one. I would rather have something drinkable than not.

My second wish, is that many restaurants need to upgrade their stemware. If they’re going to mark up their wins 100 -150 – 200% they should darn well serve it in a decent glass! (I’ve been known, to the embarrassment of my friends, bring my own stems along with my own wine!)

As always, keep up the great work!

Andy.

How about a separate point system – one for cocktail wines and one for food-friendly wines. Some wines can straddle the fence and be happy with both applications but most morph from one to the other such as being started with dinner and finished with the evening snack of choice. I’m not a fan of point systems but they are here to stay and we should make peace with them.

Give home winemakers a greater voice. We do use our wines with food and make the wines we like with our favorite meals or special occasion meals. Not for everyone but it demystifies wine and makes it accessible. Accessibility sells.

1. I wish that every bottle of wine would include the physical location of where the grapes were harvested or grown. Not just the regional or appellation name because these tend to fall into some gray areas.

2. I wish that every bottle came with tasting notes from the actual maker of the wine. I know some do, but many do not. I am always curious on how my notes would compare to what they believe we should taste.

3. Last I wish and hope that all the boutique vineyards out there stay on course and continue to a make those special prizes that few people have the opportunity to sample and enjoy.

Love the show
Michael.

My “impossible” wish is to be able to easily find and purchase whatever wine I hear about via some sort of online alliance of retailers…and with reasonable costs.

Thanks for the great show!

1. Corks that have all attributes we love about real cork without leaking, “corking”, or any other negatives…

2. Once every 2-3 years the untouchable wines (i.e. Screaming Eagle) with the gigantic waiting lists that few of us would ever get on, put up 15-20 cases via some kind of lottery where us common folk the chance at a bottle. 200 people get the magical gift of the untouchable wine…..

3. Not as big a wish because it very doable, but GR should have quarterly off-lines, great way to connect your listeners and everyone get to drink stuff they wouldn’t necessarily get a chance to.

Keep up the good work,
shawn