WTF, Jancis?

See http://www.salomonwines.com/PDF/Jancis_Robinson_07_Alttus.pdf

Which is a wine maker site (Salomon Estate in Australia - http://www.salomonwines.com/estate/index.php?page=12&lang=en) that posts what purports to be some notes of an event with Jancis on a tasting of all Shiraz based wines....including Sassicaia???

I don't get it!

[David M. Bueker]

Ringer. That's all.

Ringer. That's all.

But in what strange world would anyone, much less Jancis, think a cabernet would pass as a ringer for a Shiraz, especially in a group of Northern Rhones and Aussie juice? Maybe it was the organiser? Geez. Tnat would be like you sticking a California Chard in a Riesling tasting!

[David M. Bueker]

I seriously doubt Jancis did the organizing.

I don't think it's that extreme Bill. It's happened before with one of my old tasting groups (or the converse at least happened) - someone stuck a bottle of 02 Grange in blind in the midst of a flight of Cabernets. Nobody picked the ringer from a group with some very, very experienced tasters and palates (a few of us did guess it to be an incredibly young Bin 707 given the Cabernet theme ). I've felt - at least for my palate - that there are a lot of big young generically styled reds like El Nido, Numanthia, a lot of bigger Aussie Shiraz, Super-Tuscans and certain styles of Cabs/Bordeaux that are very hard to identify in terms of a grape or distinct regional style (even when non-blind).

I am not sure I understand it either, but CS and Syrah are not far apart in blind tasting terms. The title of the article appears to be the problem, with another title the whole thing makes sense.

I am not sure I understand it either, but CS and Syrah are not far apart in blind tasting terms. The title of the article appears to be the problem, with another title the whole thing makes sense.

It was probably a case of someone else setting it up and deciding it was good idea to toss in a ringer. The choice of ringer just seemed pretty strange to me.

After reading the title, I read the article. I gotta conclude that the bigger WTF was her rating the corked Sassacaia. WTF?