Community Tasting Note
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Keith Levenberg Does not like this wine: 55 points
May 17, 2013 - This is of course really, really terrible, but the main thing that continues to mystify me is how people call this kind of thing a crowd-pleaser. I poured it for a crowd and almost nobody liked it. It smells like blueberry Smuckers jam and tastes so sweet and grapey one wonders if they even bothered to ferment it; this resembles the Kedem grape juice that my 3-year-old drinks more than wine, albeit with an admittedly higher Fruit Weight™ index and the completely gratuitous addition of an obscene amount of oak that tastes of such raw, pure wood (not even toast or chocolate or spice or any of those things) that it almost seems like they figured out some way to crush and ferment a truckload of tongue depressors, which I guess is ironic considering the totally unfermented flavor of the grapes. There was actual jawdropping around the room when I pointed to the explanation on the Mollydooker web site that the producers consider this a 65-70% on their Fruit Weight™ scale and that they make other wines that go all the way up to 100, considering that we are already well into Spinal Tap territory here. On the "other" point scale I am scoring this a 55 rather than a flat 50 only because the 16% alcohol actually didn't stick out so bad, but this really does taste like a wine made by somebody who has never actually drank wine. I get that the idea here is to take all the characteristics that impress the critics so much and use those trademarked techniques and the Aussie sun to crank them up to 11 (and beyond), but if this is an attempt to emulate any style of actual wine it's akin to having Stevie Wonder try to copy a painting.
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6 Comments
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marcellevi commented:
5/17/13, 11:05 AM - It appears you are in the minority. Judging by your tasting notes, you seem to have a tremendous bias to very expensive European wines. I would guess your "crowd" has the same bias. Nothing wrong with that. On matters of taste, there can be no debate. But for what this wine is, stylistically, it is crafted well. Even the Rhone Report gives it a 91.
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Wineson commented:
5/17/13, 12:51 PM - Keith - Thanks for your honest comments. I must admit that I love Mollydooker wines and I still have many bottles of their wine in my cellar. However, I am also beginning to get that sense that they are a little over the top. They are perfect for the right group and occassion. But, I wouldn't serve one to a person who loves fine Burgundy. I'm sorry that you were disappointed. Don't buy it again.
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Arinbraghe commented:
5/17/13, 5:16 PM - To comment on marcellevi's comment (hey, how'd I end up in this echo chamber?) - if the minority report is to be discounted, then Kendall Jackson Chardonnay and Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc must be the cat's ass of the wine world; container ships' full of those wines sell every year, to a consumerate that can't seem to get enough. Quite apart from the trope that all taste is subjective, it would seem that deferring to the majority opinion in any critical arena is a race to the just-above-average, if not worse.
And I would disagree with robrats: please, Keith, keep purchasing the occasional Mollydooker, inter alia! There's nothing like tasting a wine you absolutely, unequivocally despise to calibrate the palate and heighten the appreciation for wine one really *does* like. It's akin to the dozing Buddhist adept being struck with a rod to wake him up. A good, atrocious bottle of wine is sometimes just what the doctor ordered... -
Wineson commented:
5/17/13, 6:55 PM - Excellent comment, Arinbraghe! I agree. I'm expecting to come across many wines that I come back to and re-enjoy or say "ok, it's not for me." My only point was, if you are so convinced it's awful, don't buy it again. I'm giving Mollys a second and third chance all the time.
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Keith Levenberg commented:
5/18/13, 11:50 AM - Marcellevi might want to do some thinking about the concept of selection bias. Most people who buy wines like this (or any other known type) do so expecting to like them. People who do not like that sort of thing don't tend to buy them or have occasion to drink them. That's why community tasting notes skew towards the positive, and that kind of selection bias makes it virtually impossible to figure out who is really in the "minority."
Personally, I rather enjoy having the occasional excuse to taste a wine I hate. It is certainly more entertaining (in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 kind of way) than drinking a wine which is "just okay." Obviously, this wine was not something that I purchased expecting to enjoy it, although I didn't expect it to be quite as bad as it was. I chose it as part of a tasting I was presenting to non-wine folks in my office in which I was trying to show style contrasts. Mollydooker is of course one of the most extreme examples of its style out there. (Sine Qua Non is another, but outside our budget.) Served after a traditional Rioja, I think it made the point very effectively. Out of about 20 people, one person said they liked it, a few were indifferent, and most absolutely recoiled. Marcellevi's "guess" about the crowd I poured it for was thus a pretty bad guess. And I am not sure why he thinks I would care what score the Rhone Report gave it. -
mazik commented:
5/23/13, 2:22 PM - Re "occasional excuse to taste a wine I hate": Sounds like one of the dandies in Benjamin Disraeli's first novel Sybil, or The Two Nations:
"I rather like bad wine," said Mr Mountchesney; "one gets so bored with good wine."