Different Strokes for Different Folks

It always feels good to be among people who agree with you on what’s right and wrong. Which is how I felt, two decades ago surrounded by fellow British tasters who’d been flown to Santiago to take part in the first Chilean Wine Export Awards - a competitive event to identify and reward the wines we thought would do best in our and other overseas markets. 

After the tasting - at which the visitors were joined by local producers or critics - and the allocation of medals, there was a conference attended by numerous members of the Chilean industry who were eager to hear what Jancis Robinson and her compatriots had to say about their wines. 

Gratifyingly for them, our comments were generally positive and, in particular, included positive recognition for the limited use of new barrels in the samples we had tasted. Watching the audience, I could imagine them writing menos roble - less oak - with a tick, in their note-books. 

Then one of the Chilean tasters quietly had his say. Patricio Tapia is, as he was then, a distinguished critic with a large professional audience in the US. What, he wondered, if North American wine drinkers were actually keener on oak than the Brits? Should they be forced to drink styles of wine that happened to suit the tastes of experts on the other side of the Atlantic? And should Chilean producers risk losing sales to US importers who might go looking for oaky wines elsewhere? More

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