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Monday, May 5, 2008

One California winery tackles the wine-ratings conundrum head-on

By Uncorked | Monday, May 5, 2008, 06:49 AM

An alert reader who noticed the robust response to our Uncorked entry of 10 days ago entitled “Clive Coates slams Parker, Wine Spectator and ‘emasculated’ wine trade” shared an email he received from high-profile Siduri, the Sonoma-based winery that makes several highly regarded pinots from throughout California and Oregon. With a subject line that simply said, “Some Thoughts from Siduri Wines,” here’s how one California winery tackles the wine-ratings conundrum (and the issue of very divergent wine reviews of its wines) head-on, directly with its customers.See if you find it the breath of fresh air that I did.

Dear Friends,
We wanted to chat a bit with each one of you about the press, wine reviews, and Siduri Wines. As you may recall, we introduced the last newsletter writing about the press and the power of wine reviews. We wrote, “ We always have to be cautious that our excitement for reviews doesn’t become so consuming that we start to produce wines with these reviews in mind. Nor can the success of our sales efforts be wholly determined by reviews. With both Siduri and Novy we are committed to doing everything possible to produce wines that we believe in. We want to make wines of increasing complexity that are the finest possible representations of the place and the vintage. We are also committed to selling these wines honestly, certainly using reviews at times, but also selling the wines based on their merits and honestly representing what we think of their quality.”
These comments were especially prescient as we have recently received a slew of interesting and very divergent reviews. Here is some of what is being said:
2006 SiduriChehalemMountainPinot Noir ($29)
90 Points, Wine Spectator : “Smooth, harmonious, and appealing….Has style and transparency.”
87 Points, Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine : “…if not one for finesse, either now or in the foreseeable future….”
;
2006 Siduri Sonatera Vineyard Pinot Noir ($49)
95 Points, Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine: “…this opus from the Sonoma Coast is a rich and lavishly filled wine whose impressive complement of very deep and delicious fruit comes with no debt to overdone ripeness.”
88 Points, Wine Spectator : “This is marked by herb and cola flavors….that turns delicate
2006 Siduri Rosella’s Vineyard Pinot Noir ($48)
93 Points, Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine : “…A classy and complete package that ranks among Siduri’s best efforts in 2006
85 Points, Wine Spectator : “Dried herb, cola, and sassafras flavors thin out on the finish”.
So, as a consumer, how are you supposed to make sense of such wildly varying thoughts on our wines? Here are a few suggestions:
1) Taste the wines and decide for yourself. Honestly (and obviously) there is no greater indicator of quality than your own palate. Many smaller wineries are not open for tasting but we believe very strongly that we need to make our wines available for you to taste. Accordingly, we are open 7 days a week, from 10 am to 3pm, by appointment for tasting. Anytime you want to come by and taste we encourage you to do so. And, should you want to taste a specific wine we encourage you to ask about it and we will do our best to accommodate your request.
2) Attend one of our Open Houses. We have numerous events throughout the year (the next one being the huge 10 th Anniversary Novy Party on June 7 at the winery). At these Open Houses we pour a huge range of wines so that you can taste them side by side and decide for yourself which ones you prefer.
3) We realize that for those of you who live away from the Bay Area it is not so easy to just come up to the winery and taste. Consequently, those of us that work at the winery are spending quite a bit of time on the road selling wine and, in every market, attempting to do winemaker dinners, public tastings, etc. We attempt to email each of you to let you know when we are coming but if you would like a full listing of our current travel plans you can always reach out to us at vino@siduri.com.
4) We also attempt to make it easy for you to sample our wines. Unlike some wineries, we don’t have minimum orders, bundled offerings, hostage wines, or any of those other practices that bother us too. And we are happy to hold your wines here at the winery, consolidating orders until you’ve reached a quantity that saves you some money on shipping.
5) Finally, please take the time to get to know those of us that work selling wine at the winery. You can always reach out for Jody ( jody@siduri.com ), Kate ( kate@siduri.com ), Jonathan ( jonathan@siduri.com ), Jeff ( jeff@siduri.com ), Dianna ( dianna@siduri.com ), or me ( adam@siduri.com ). We are all more than happy to share with you our honest thoughts on all of the wines (we have favorites and not-so-favorites ourselves), get to know your particular tastes, and recommend wines that we think you would like. Despite the obvious self-interest involved, we have truly found that it not only makes us feel better about ourselves but is really in the best business interest of the company to only recommend wines that we honestly think you would like.
We hope that this is interesting to you all. Please feel free to reach out to any of us should we be able to help you at all with any of our wines. And should you want to see for yourself what the wines taste like we have attached an order form below. You can send that in by return email to vino@siduri.com , call us with an order at 707-578-3884, or fax it to 707-578-3884. Thanks for your continued support.
Cheers,
Adam & Dianna Lee and Everybody at Siduri & Novy Wineries

So, what do you think? Were those reviewers tasting the same wines? When’s the last time you saw a winery call attention to wildly divergent reviews of their wines? And if wine distributors and retailers took the same approach as that of Siduri, would Clive Coates still call the wine trade “emasculated?”

Just wondering …

Mark Fisher

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