Rating Wine

Dan Berger
Mon, 09 Feb 2026 23:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

A friend heard that I was going to be a judge at a wine competition and he laughed a little bit when he said, sarcastically, "That's gonna be a tough job!"

Actually, I said, it was. Having a glass of wine at dinner can be a joy, but when they place 100 dark red wines in front of you to analyze, the work changes to arduous.

I've often written about how context plays such a vital role in how we all perceive wine. But it's hard to imagine how it affects those who review wine for a living.
Updated: Tue Feb 10, 2026

A friend heard that I was going to be a judge at a wine competition and he laughed a little bit when he said, sarcastically, "That's gonna be a tough job!"

Actually, I said, it was. Having a glass of wine at dinner can be a joy, but when they place 100 dark red wines in front of you to analyze, the work changes to arduous.

I've often written about how context plays such a vital role in how we all perceive wine. But it's hard to imagine how it affects those who review wine for a living.

For one thing, the rules in many blind tastings vary from place to place. Imagine being asked to evaluate 90 syrahs and then 90 petite sirahs in six hours. I was asked to do this in 2006.

As you can imagine, the results were anything but precise. I preferred the wines that I tasted with a fresh palate. At the end of the day, I was so tired that a few wines might have been judged incorrectly.

In 2005, I visited a famed Champagne house. Candlelight sparkled in the handsome dining room. The new bubbly, presented in crystal glasses, seemed perfect.

I wrote glowing things about it. Weeks later, in the quiet of our home, we opened the first U.S. bottle of the same bubbly. It was good. But it wasn't identical to the wine we had had in Champagne.

The gorgeous setting in a French chateau must have colored my thinking. The wine remained nearly as excellent as I had originally thought, but I knew that the "gloss factor," which attaches itself to wines served in special surroundings, was at play.

Another tale. I was asked to "judge" the wines entered in a San Francisco food show. Only a handful of wines were at the show. An organizer put them all in a group and asked the only wine "experts" in the hall (me and another fellow) to judge the wines. We tasted them. Most were pretty bad. One modest producer's sauvignon blanc showed well; we both liked it, so it was proclaimed the best white wine in the show.

Weeks later, in another blind tasting against much better wines, the food-show winner seemed ordinary. Side by side with poor wines, it was good. But in better company, it was nothing exceptional.

A terrible place to get tasting notes is at walk-around tastings, like those staged by charities. Walking around with a glass and a notebook can be distracting and rarely leads to an accurate critical analysis. Think of all the aftershave, perfume, hair gel and deodorant that fill such venues.

Another reason walk-around events are a challenge is that some are staged outdoors. Although the winds are nice, they can bring distracting aromas.

Moreover, the best way to evaluate any wine is over a period of time, to see how air affects it. But in those walk-around tastings, there is rarely time for concentrated thought.

And the faster the evaluation, the more the showier wines will take the spotlight. As a result, subtlety is rarely rewarded in today's wine-tasting world.

Sometimes, the best way to find a good bottle of wine is to simply buy a bottle, take it home and try it. Trust your own palate. If you like it, it may be worth buying more.

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