Put Me In Coach

 

There is a guy that I know that knows as much about wine as I do underwater welding.  He had heard that I passed the MW Theory exam from a mutual friend and said, "Theory?  That's the easy part.  Tasting.  That's the hard part."  Is it a bit galling to have a guy that doesn't know anything wash away my accomplishment on theory with a wave of the hand?  Yes, but the real zinger is that he isn't wrong.  Tasting is the harder part (though it's not like either side of it is a fucking cake walk).  What I have been doing has not been working, so I'm sort of like a losing NFL coach standing at the podium saying things like "We are searching for answers.".  I am tearing it down to build it back up.

I have two obstacles that I need to overcome.  The first one sounds self-evident, but that doesn't mean it's not something which doesn't need to be addressed.  I need to taste better.  If there is a note on a wine that I hear like on the Guild Somm podcast where the taster is struggling like "Light bodied red, pale ruby color, fine grained tannins with moderate grip, cherry/cranberry primary fruit with forest floor secondary flavors", I automatically say "That's pinot noir you dipshit."  It's really easy when it's not you sitting in front of the glass under pressure.  However, if you have made an accurate assessment of what is going on in the wine, it becomes much, much easier.  I am too variable in my ability to make accurate notes where I will under or overestimate tannins or acid, maybe not notice oak, can't pick up aromas, etc.  I am probably hitting on the quality of the wine in the glass 80% of the time knowing if it's $20, $50, or whatever.  It's the details that can allude me.  I haven't figure out how I am going to get better at that yet because my nose is really failing me.  I can't smell shit.  This is a tough work around.  I need a plan there.  So far I am a slave to structure and acid character but I need to wrangle on how to not let tannin carry over fuck with my perception.  I'll get back to that.

The current tasting exam is said to be about 35% identifying the wines and 65% commercial position/quality level/winemaking as per how the points are distributed.  I think that point can be argued. For example, if you identify something as Burgundy, that means you need to say it's premier cru and sold to global collectors that can afford $125 a bottle.  If that wine turns out to be a really good $40 Marlborough chardonnay, an obvious mixup, then you will lose all the commercial position points and probably half of the quality.  I was listening to a Jasper Morris podcast this week.  He is probably the top authority on Burgundy wines in regards to the more academic side of things.  I mean, the dude literally wrote the book on Burgundy.  Besides some high end retail buyers, who else is tasting more Burgundy?  

Morris did a tasting with a New Zealand based MW and other pros where the task was to assess quality and point of origin on chardonnay from either Burgundy or NZ blind.  They note on the podcast how they couldn't reliably tell which was which, and in public data 16 of the 24 wines were identified by the majority correctly as Burgundy or New Zealand.  Considering that these are arguably the biggest international experts in the world and they are batting 67% knowing the identity is A or B, imagine the batting average if they needed to consider the entire world of wine in providing the origin including Margaret River, Adelaide, Tasmania, Willamette Valley, Santa Rita Hills, Sonoma Coast, Elgin, Rheinhessen, Pfalz, Limari Valley, Leyda, etc.  As climate change, winemaking technology, global knowledge sharing, and traveling winemakers continue, calling the origin is becoming a crapshoot.  I think to pass the exam, you need to get lucky when you are confronted with a wine where you are thinking, "Well... this is Hawke's Bay or Beaune... heads...  New Zealand it is!".  The Lord must be on your side on that exam day.       

The other major issue for me is I am not writing notes the way The Institute wants to see them.  I say "The Institute" because you never get test results back or a name on individually graded papers that say "My name is Phillip and when I graded your test it said this, this, and that which I thought it was bullshit."  The only thing you get back from the exam is "C" or "F" from The Institute.  Super helpful.  The feedback I get back from assignments can often be inconsistent where one assignment says "You need to use Old World/New World in your funnel" and then the very next one I get back will say "You can't use Old World/New World as climate change has made this a moot point".  That situation isn't likely to change.  It's a real "it is what it is" situation that I am powerless to fight or impact.  I just need to figure out how to best write these friggen notes.  That's why I have hired on a Brit.

There are plenty of MW coaching services which are out there.  It's quite a little cottage industry.  I think there are a lot of people that get the MW title that had anticipated a giant lift in their career and discovered it had the same resonance as you might have in meeting a "Master of Cheese" at a party.  "Wait...  Are you a Somma...Summa...Sommer...?"  A sommelier?  No, I'm not.  Maybe there is more oomph in Europe than here, because unless you are in The MW Student Game, I don't think most people in the wine business even know what a Master of Wine is, which is sort of a stand alone problem onto itself.  Anyway, I looked around to find a Brit because I need to tear down cultural misunderstandings in my writing.  I need to write as a Brit for other Brit education system people to try to give myself an edge.  For example, I wrote on a note that a Barossa Shiraz was made in a "clean technical lab coat style hence was likely to be Australian" that was taken to be a diss on an entire nation.  Hey, hold on there partner!  I certainly didn't mean it that way, and I don't think most Americans would read it that way.  I need to see how to express that sentiment not only better but reflexively.  There isn't much time to write answers, so I can't be worried about offending an entire nation of people, ya know?  Who wants all of Australia pissed at them?  Not me amigo.  

I thought it was interesting that when I reached out to my new exam writing coach that he noted he could provide feedback either as brutal honesty or a softer approach.  I am not sure what the fuck they do to kids in the British education system, but Pink Floyd must have been onto something when they made "The Wall".  We are just talking about a wine test here, so maybe engaging in anything brutal isn't necessary.  I don't want to be crying in thew shower with a scrub brush.  I have a pretty thick skin from a career in marketing and sales though, so I suppose I'll see how many layers of skin get peeled off before I need some soothing lotion.  I'm going all in.  If Coach says "jump", I'm jumping.  Coach passed.  I didn't.  I need to do what Coach says.  If you're looking for me, I will be trying to figure out the right way to say a pinot noir is from Willamette Valley instead of the Ahr getting my ass kicked along the way.  

Here we go.