Women Wine Critics Board

Appellation America Selects Two WWCB Writers

We are pleased to announce that two WWCB writers have been selected as regional correspondents byAppellationAmerica.

AppellationAmerica is a new online publication devoted to promoting appellation consciousness across North America. In addition to articles and reviews, the Appellation Discovery Program seeks to identify threads of commonality and pinpoint terroir-based signatures in the wines of each appellation, if such commonality exists, or is developing.

Mary Baker will be covering the Paso Robles appellation with articles, wine reviews, roundtable discussions, and Discovery Panel tastings. Laura Ness is the regional correspondent for the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Appellation America is a comprehensive online wine portal providing access to every winery, grape varietal, and appellation on the North American continent. Its mission is to have the best wine writers in the wine business working in each region to discover and develop distinct wine region identities, and then build appellation consciousness in the broader wine consuming culture. From coverage of the bold, fruit-forward wines of Paso Robles to the elegant, complex style of Long Island wines, Appellation America provides relevant, useful information.

The regional correspondents also organize Discovery Panel tastings, designed to identify specific wine characteristics associated with the terroir and cultural traditions of each region. Wines that are determined by the Discovery Panel to best express the characteristics of their appellation earn AppellationAmerica’s "Appellation Signature" distinction.

A current Roundtable Discussion is open to everyone. The question on the blackboard is:

"Paso Robles is three times as large as Napa, geographically. Are there distinctive regions within Paso Robles?"

We encourage you to post your thoughts, observations and comments in the Appellation America Roundtable, and join this team in a journey to discover the individualistic stamp of our North American wine regions.

Score! Is Wine a Spectator Sport for Men?

Contributed by Laura Ness, Appellation America

Much is currently being made about wine and women, and I hope, song, as good things come in threes.

Most wine ratings have scores—men are obsessed with scores. It’s a sports thing. But does that mean there has been some secret conspiracy to keep women from enjoying wine to the fullest possible extent? It’s not like Scotch or cigars, or all those things men seem to have an innate affinity for, and for which they construct secret dark clubs in which to ensconce themselves and enjoy their sacred pleasures.

I love the fact that wine can be enjoyed in such a mundane, down-to-earth place as my kitchen. My biggest complaint regarding wine critics, and the way tastings are done at the magazines we so highly revere, is that the wines are tasted in a vacuum. Wine is meant to be consumed with food. But this never happens at major wine competitions or trade magazines.

The wines are mass-whiffed, mass-spit and mass-diagnosed, given a letter or a number, and unceremoniously relegated to a spit bucket. It’s a bit unnerving to see what goes on behind the scenes. I’ve been at competitions where people brag about how many chardonnays they zipped through, plus jamming in a flight of pinots so they could go to lunch early. Really, when winemakers work so hard, why do we give them so little time to be appreciated?

The best results come out of competitions where people take their time to interactively discuss the wines and perhaps even fantasize about what kind of food the wine might work with. Panels that have a diverse set of palates and backgrounds serve consumers best. Different styles will be deemed acceptable, and medals awarded for well-made, pleasing wines, even if they don’t ring everyone’s chimes equally. Judgings where there are no discussions, no interactions, where a score is simply scrawled on a sheet and handed to a ticket taker to rank—these competitions do poor service both to the wineries and the general public.

Do women need different information about wine than men? Do we taste and approach wines differently? Maybe. Sometimes. It depends on so many factors.

I’ve been on many panels where I was the only feminine palate, and for the most part, I am in accord with the group. Sometimes I find something to like where others don’t, an at other times, something hits me like a nose bomb and I’m not going to like that wine no matter how my fellow judges vote.