Something Old, something New

Almost from the minute Europeans set foot in some newly discovered place -- California, Chile, or Australia -- they planted vineyards. In their dreams, their vinifera vines flourished on every hillside. Where conditions were favorable, as they were in the Napa Valley, they did. Ever since, professionals and amateurs have wrangled over the merits of Old World and New World wines, mooting whether the differences between them were rooted in geology and climate, or just a matter of style.

Today, with winemakers and their technologies migrating from one continent to another, it seems fair to ask whether New and Old World can still serve as meaningful reference points. When we learned that French-born enologist Stephen Carrier, who recently moved from chief winemaker at Bordeaux's famed Chateau Lynch-Bages to a similar position at Napa's Newton Vineyards, was coming through town, we de cided the time was right to convene a tasting to shed light on the subject. He joined sommeliers Cat Silirie of No. 9 Park and Alex de Winter of Grill 23 & Bar, and Larry Bender, president of Medford-based importer/distributor Ideal Wine & Spirits, for a blind tasting of seven wines from quality New and Old World properties.

Panelists weren't expected to identify the wines or make judgments, but simply to see how accurately each could identify wines as originating in the Old World (Europe) or the New (the Americas, Australia, South Africa, etc.)

We asked Tom Schmeisser, wine buyer at Marty's in Newton, to choose the lineup. We stipulated that the emphasis be on comparing quality cabernet-based Bordeaux with California cab and cab blends. The panel knew for certain that one of Carrier's Newton cabernets would be included.

With seven bottles in the sampling, we didn't expect to settle the question. Still, the results proved intriguing. The combination of five panelists and seven wines yielded 35 opportunities to be right or wrong. In the end, panelists guessed correctly in 25 cases, incorrectly in 10.

Every wine but one succeeded in snookering at least one panelist. The 2002 Château Montrose from Bordeaux's Saint-Estèphe appellation garnered the most wrong guesses, while the 2003 Larkmead Napa Valley Cabernet -- a wine that could well serve as a poster child for New World excess -- couldn't fool anybody.

Removing the wrappers, we saw that Schmeisser had slipped in an Australian cab (the 2003 Bleasdale "Frank Potts" Langhorne Creek) and a merlot-based, rather than cabernet-based, Bordeaux (the 2000 Château Les Gravières "Cuvée Prestige"). The Aussie tripped up two tasters; the Les Gravières one. A side note: Winemaker Carrier correctly identified his own wine. Whew.

What makes wines distinctive is a constant topic of discussion among experts. Some argue that differences derive from place, a concept known by the French term terroir. Others insist that varietal character -- the aromatics of sauvignon blanc, for example -- trump other variables. A third view holds that what's in the bottle is ultimately a matter of the winemaker's technical skill. That's where the controversy begins.

Technology now makes it possible to address nearly every kind of perceived deficiency in grapes. Wines can be engineered to conform with what marketers determine consumers prefer. And what they prefer are rich, flavorful wines with an abundance of primary fruit flavors that are ready to drink pretty much upon release.

It's a situation that favors the New World, since higher average temperatures and more sunshine in places like California and Australia make it generally easier to ripen grapes there. To help counter this perceived disadvantage, many Europeans have been reshaping their products to more closely approach New World standards -- though others have remained loyal to what could be called the classical proportions.

Thirty years ago, success in California meant making cabernet that could be mistaken for Bordeaux -- as several were in the watershed blind tasting now known as the Judgment of Paris. In that event, organized by Brit Steven Spurrier in 1976, French experts were embarrassed when they mistook several Napa cabernets and chardonnays for elite French wines. Today, it's the French who are doing the imitating.

That our panel could successfully convert 25 of 35 chances to sort Old World from New strongly suggests to us that, convergence notwithstanding, a significant distance still separates these two stylistic poles of world winemaking.

Missing three out of 10 hints just as strongly that no wine may be so firmly rooted in its native terroir that a determined and skilled winemaker can't make it look like something it isn't.

Old is old and New is new, but in the case of wine at least, the twain occasionally meet.

Stephen Meuse can be reached at onwine@comcast.net.