Does Jim Laube know how an old California wine should taste

I just read the latest issue of WS, and there is an excellent piece on Mondavi. It finishes with a vertical of Mondavi’s best wines over the last 50 years, and I am astonished that not a single wine pre 1991 got a 90 point score or higher. I would assume the samples are pristine, so now we talk about wine quality.

I have tasted more than a dozen of these wines in the past few years, and cannot believe how completely out of sync our palates are. Mondavi 1974 reserve 87? A 94 from a bottle and 96 from a magnum. 1975, a sleeper, I scored also 94 he gave an 86. 1978, he gave an 84 I gave 93 etc etc.

While I am happy that he is not adding to the rush to secure old California wines, I am disappointed that a critic assigned to such a major region did not find a single old wine that he liked as much as the wines post 1997, most of which he scored in the mid nineties

I lost faith in his judgement with his assessment of 2001 Napa.

Michael, I’m curious to know how Laube assessed 2001 versus how you did? I truly don’t know what he thought of 2001 in Napa. Thanks.

He is kind of forthright about his personal preferences in this blog entry from 2008:

If memory serves me correctly, he largely panned the vintage. I believe he gave the 01 Montelena 69 points.

I have no problem with a critic having a POV, in fact that is what I like about Gilman’s newsletter. I do however expect them a halfway decent palate to back up those “forthright” views. I have tasted these wines with both traditional wine lovers and others who are more modernist, all of whom enjoyed the older Mondavis. I don’t normally call out other critics palates, but these tasting notes make absolutely no sense to me.

It seems a shame that Mondavi wasted so much good wine on him, and also the region is entrusted to somebody who has made it so obvious that he does not understand the ageability of California wines.

I lost faith in about 1989.

Good, so that the wines stay cheap.

Another way of saying what Victor is saying: WS fulfills a very important function – to disseminate utterly meaningless and seemingly random ratings in the marketplace, thereby deflecting money from the good stuff.

I think he has a problem with certain yeasts usages calling wines dirty when they were not. I remember the 2001 Forman. Something like 69 points and I cornered the market for them for like $30ish. A beautiful wine.

Brandon - on release, Laube rated the vintage pretty highly. He raved about some of the wines, although not as much as he did with the 1994, 5, 6, 7, and 1999 vintages. I thought he was about right at the time although I didn’t understand the thinking behind the 1999.

Years in, he thought even more highly of the vintage. At a ten year retrospective, he said: "the 2001 vintage provided one of the most satisfying and enjoyable reunions in memory. I can’t recall tasting so many great—and often stunning—wines after a decade of aging. This qualifies 2001 as one of the modern classics of California Cabernet."

I guess if you lost faith in his assessment and disagree with him you would think it’s a second-rate vintage in Napa.

I do agree with Mark - he doesn’t seem to like older wines all that much. That’s OK, there aren’t that many. To his credit, he doesn’t usually predict a long future for most wines.

He has rated a few wines very poorly because of TCA.

My recollection of Laube’s initial assessment of 2001 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon is that it was lukewarm at best. He gave more than a few big named wines very low scores and I remember the scores in general were significantly lower than one might expect. That fact that he upgraded the vintage years later, shows that he got it wrong initially. 2001 has long been my favorite vintage of that decade. I went long on many wines, preferring it to 2002.

First, the issue ISN’T the scores; it’s whether his tasting notes match one’s own perception of the wine.

Second, I’ve had the 1974 Mondavi Reserve Cabernet many times, going all the way back to release. While it was an excellent wine in its prime, many (if not most) bottles now are well over the hill, at least for my tastes. From my tastes, I think that wine generally peaked somewhere in the late 1980’s to early 1990’s, and has been in decline since. While one might find outliers, it’s not a wine I would generally be that enthused about today.

As always, YMMV.

Bruce

I wouldn’t know about notes since the magazine only publishes scores, which in itself is quite telling.

Well…more pertinent…Does JimLaube know how any California wine should taste??

Given his tastes in wines for which he lavishes high scores upon, I would not be the least bit surprised that he’d award those
lower scores for older wines. He likes wines that have a big impact upon the palate and learning to value balance/nuance/subtility/complexity
of an older wine is sort of an acquired taste, I would say. I have little doubt that he’s had many an old Calif Cab. He just doesn’t value them.
BTW: Who be this JimLaube of whom you speak?? [snort.gif]
Tom

I met Laube at a tasting in Phoenix (for a wine group) some years back. I found him very personable and well informed on the wines we were tasting. He admitted up front that fruit is everything to him; he does not like wines without vibrant fruit. The blog referenced above reinforces that; he states he’d always opt for a younger wine for dinner.

I would argue that most critics are drinking 99+% of the their wine on the young side simply based on what they are asked to review. IIRC, he like juicy fruit (with a limit), so old wines don’t appeal to him for that reason. I threw out his reviews long ago, as he has routinely rated good wines with poor scores, so I really can’t trust a guy like that. Scarecrow stands out as a wine that he rated on the low side early (88 points for the 2003), then suddenly jumped on the scoring band wagon years later, touting it as a great cult wine.

If one believes Jim Laube then one must believe that not only is Kosta Browne the best pinot in CA, but it is the best by a wide margin. At least that’s what his scores reinforced across the entire portfolio for many years running.

I think this is the crux of it, for good or for bad. I agree that it renders his role in tasting a vertical of old cabernets rather pointless - it would be like having Keith Levenberg taste a Pavie vertical, or someone who hates sweet wines tasting a d’Yquem vertical.

Interestingly, a lot of winemakers have the same perspective as Laube, that youth and fresh fruit are what they seek out rather than aged characteristics, though I suppose (a) this could be a function of how much young and younger wine they are tasting in their role as a winemaker and (b) it could reflect the way they want to market their wines to customers (i.e. “you don’t have to wait, this will drink great in the next few years” rather than “you really should buy this and store it at 55 degrees for the next decade before you drink it”).

Laube is consistent in his appreciation for fruit forward wines that are delicious young. He is very up front about this.

There are other voices that speak up loudly for wines that are at the other end of the stylistic spectrum: more vegetable than fruit and more harsh than lush.

I wish there was a larger critical voice for wines that balance their expression more equally between youthful fruit and the potential to gracefully transition to more interesting, complex beverages…and re-visit those wines during the transition.