5 May 2008 - Did He Really Say That?

You know that I don't pay attention to wine critics. They're not in the business of selling wine to you, of being directly responsible to you for recommendations made. Even if they're full-time wine geeks, they're still removed from the face to face contact with you, the wine buyers/drinkers. A couple of part time critics, Al Spoler and Hugh Sisson, the co-hosts of WYPR's "Cellar Notes," are good guys whose original mission as I understood it was to provide recommendations from the point of view of the "average (wine drinking) joe."

I was driving home on the evening of April 16th listening to WYPR when Cellar Notes came on. The subject was Pinot Noir, from Callifornia and Oregon. Al Spoler expressed his particular fondness for Oregon Pinot Noir, and then stated that at this point in time French Red Burgundy was irrelevant. I almost drove off the road! Burgundy irrelevant? Besides being a ridiculous statement, it was so negative, when the current state of Pinot Noir around the world is so positive. Spoler could have mentioned that it was Oregon's Pinot Noir producers who, about fifteen years ago, in their quest to make better wine, came up with the idea of inviting any and all of the world's devoted Pinot Noir producers to Oregon to meet and share their ideas about how to make better wine from this difficult grape. We are enjoying the results of Oregon's "Pinot Noir Camp" in the current abundance of good to great examples in every price range. That is a story worth telling on Cellar Notes.

I'm not finished with this subject - stay tuned for the next CWC Wine of the Week...