Folk,
Just a moment to say that I really like how this thread is going. I am so glad that we are taking efforts to not offend anyone. It is great that each one of us has this as a goal.
Joe, I could not have said it any better myself! I guess that the message we are sending is that having a goal in winemaking is a preferrred and recomended goal....
To sum up so far....
1) It truely does not matter what your personal tastes are.
2) The best way to find out what wine suit you is to first taste a wide variety of wines to find the type/style of wines that best suit your tastes.
3) Once you have a handle on the type/style of wine you prefer, make that particular wine a benchmark.
4) A benchmark is a standard or a direction. Even though you have a benchmark, this does not mean that you can't adjust, change, or embellish to further suit your tastes.
I mean no offense to anyone but in my wine world, here's how the points go:
1.) What I like is paramount. I am going to make wine that I personally like the taste of, in such a fashion that I arrive at that taste.
2.) Experimentation is king. I am open to new ideas but I make no wine to somebody else's standard. For me it is not about what others think of my wine. I'm making this stuff for me. I appreciate honest input on wine: If they like a vintage, great, they will get as many bottles of what they like as they desire and I can spare, and I hope they enjoy it. If they don't like it, great, I will not burden them with bottles of the stuff they don't like. It can be looked at another way: If I slavishly make wine to someone else's standard, where is the room for innovation? I understand fear of failure, but overcoming that fear and acknowledging failure will happen is part of growth and innovation.
3.) Like a lot of styles and make a lot of styles, but don't get hung up on styles of wine. Some will turn out better than others. You will learn a lot.
4.) I don't use the term "benchmark," because it implies to me making wine to someone else's standards, not mine. I set goals. Robert Mondavi did not become successful by making Krug his benchmark wine and making his wines to that benchmark. He became a success by innovating.
I have two more:
5.) Wine folks who eloquently tell you they make wine for a bunch of reasons other than to get a buzz on are not being completely truthful, since it is impossible to actually drink wine and not get a degree of buzz based on consumption. So if buzz is a factor - and it is - why not make some vintages with the principle goal of attaining it in a nice way? There is nothing wrong with liking the feeling, or making wine geared to achieving it. That is simply a goal as are all others, and - judgmentalism aside - is equally legitimate.
6.) Just as you can make wines that are meant to be paired with foods, you can make wines designed to be consumed as stand-alones. Because a wine is made to be a stand-alone beverage does not mean it is inherently inferior.
All of this is based on a life philosophy I adopted after reading a Teddy Roosevelt speech in which he said,
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
You don't get there by worrying too much over how you stack up against someone else's benchmark.
Again, I mean no offense to anyone, I just have a contrary opinion.
Fabulous wines, I just use your wine styles as a point of reference, not directed at you, okay.
