Revisiting 99 Points
A few years back we created a wine for Willamette: The Pinot Noir Auction. We got a create a small lot, just five cases, of 2017 Pinot Noir that would be auctioned off. Winemakers are encouraged to have fun and create memorable wines that come with unique stories. Yes right in PROJECT M’s wheelhouse.
Our lot was titled 99 Points. It was intended to point out the absurdity of perfection and justify its relentless pursuit. Inspired by the idea of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, we created ninety-nine social media posts that tried to make a point…instead of scoring them.
We recently came across them and thought we would share them. Here are 99 Points.
Enjoy!
POINT 1: The winemaker’s approach is driven by one of two factors; their fidelity to specific methods or their desire for a specific outcome.
POINT 2: Subtly, nuance, and fine structure are greater winemaking challenges than power, weight and intensity.
POINT 3: When choosing wine for a meal a better question than “what are we having for dinner” might be “who are we having dinner with”.
POINT 4: The price of a wine reflects the “value” created by producers more than the cost of its raw materials and labor.
POINT 5: The limitation of most wine writing is its emphasis on describing flavors. A wines texture is much more indicative of its quality.
POINT 6: The dependence of people’s livelihood on the harvest from the land must be a consideration in any description of ‘terrior’.
POINT 7: Wine is the result of human decision making.
POINT 8: Most “wild” or “native” fermentations are neither. The only certainty a winemaker has is that they added yeast or fermentation began “spontaneously”.
POINT 9: As long as new world regions use old world wines as their standards, they will always be inferior.
POINT 10: The winemaker’s challenge in our culture is to manage structure to make wines as enjoyable without food as they are with.
POINT 11: Equating "Ripeness" with sugar fails to account for the most important processes associated with maturation.
POINT 12: Pinot Noir should always wear a dress, always referred to as “she”.
POINT 13: Wine does not make itself. No one has ever foraged a bottle of wine.
POINT 14: Wine is a non-linear reality, there isn’t a single point of ‘balance’ but multiple nodes of ‘harmonic convergence’.
POINT 15: The pursuit of “burgundian” styled wines by new world winemakers is an act of self-subjugation.
POINT 16: Until we can all agree on a single definition of ‘terroir’ we should just use “place”
POINT 17: Most wines pair very well with whatever is in front of you.
POINT 18: Geography must be considered on equal terms with geology in any definition of “terroir”.
POINT 19: The vine has two halves; that which lives above the ground and that which lives below. The best wines are grown with attention given to both halves
POINT 20: It has become more important for a wine to be “different” than “good”.
POINT 21: It is time for “wine” to no longer isolate itself from the larger culture that is society.
POINT 22: Bacon may not pair well with wine, but who cares.
POINT 23: "Bigger is better" is a philosophy better suited to the drinker of Cabernet than that of Pinot Noir
POINT 24: Wine's irony should not be lost on the drinker. That something so refined is the product of humble, manual labor.
POINT 25: A businesses' regard for humanity is revealed in its choice of toilet paper.
POINT 26: Goldilocks should be the winemakers guru, seeking all elements to be "just right".
POINT 27: Wine was once the beverage of artists and thinkers. It can be once more.
POINT 28: Wine's inherent mystery makes it a magnet for "know-it-alls".
POINT 29: Alcohol correlates poorly with quality. For every great wine below 14% there are many more that suck.
POINT 30: Great Pinot Noir regions are the result of ideal climates, not soils.
POINT 31: The barrel is never neutral. It always makes an impact on the wines flavor, aroma and texture.
POINT 32: Like music wine is capable of eliciting, within the taster, an "inner experience".
POINT 33: Every wine is shaped by three forces; people, place and time.
POINT 34: There are no clear "right" and "wrong" answers for the winemaker. The best winemaker's are the best guessers.
POINT 35: "Passion" doesn't differentiate your brand. Passion is the minimal requirment to be in this business.
POINT 36: "When" the grower or winemaker does something is as important as the "what".
POINT 37: The "ugly" is an important component of the beautiful.
POINT 38: The wine drinker will be unaware of most of the details the vintner obbessed over.
POINT 39: Why Pinot Noir? Who would you rather have dinner with, Ingrid Bergman or a Sumo Wrestler? -David Lett
POINT 40: Quality is lost to the gap between the vineyard manager and the winemaker.
POINT 41: Every wine tells a story. Parts of the story are told in a language we are unable to understand.
POINT 42: Scores may be more of an indicator of style than quality.
POINT 43: Wine. The industry that turns financial geniuses into financial fools.
POINT 44: "Ripening" is a reproductive process. It's purpose isn't wine, but the seed.
POINT 45: Plants in straight lines do not occur in nature. Vineyards are the result of human intention.
POINT 46: Parcel size needs to be included in the "clonal selection" vs "Selection Massal" argument.
POINT 47: A "B" site farmed by an "A" farmer is preferred over an "A" site farmed by a "B" farmer.
POINT 48: Elegance, precision, transparency in site, season and handling. Pinot Noir's white counter part is Riesling.
POINT 49: Winemaking is a Team Sport.
POINT 50: Style is the perfection of a point of view. -Richard Eberhart
POINT 51: Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it. -Salvador Dali
POINT 52: Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it. -William Ellery Channing
POINT 53: Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.-Gustave Flaubert
POINT 54: The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
POINT 55: The perfection of art is to conceal art.-Quintilian
POINT 56: To me, searching for perfection isn't anywhere near as interesting as trying to find your own voice. -Charlie Trotter.
POINT 57: Bloom sets the winemakers clock in motion.
POINT 58: Intervention isn't the problem, evidence of the intervention is.
POINT 59: The greatest challenge for a new, small winery is getting Gate Keepers to give a shit.
POINT 60: A wine's composition can be measured. It's organization (structure) must be experienced.
POINT 61: Selecting wine has come to be regarded as a finer art than making it.
POINT 62: Great winemaking is taking action with such skill that there is no evidence of the action. Or the winemaker.
POINT 63: Tons/acre should be abandoned in favor of kg/linear foot.
POINT 64: The contribution of soil texture to a wines character is as important as that of soil composition.
POINT 65: The Social Media campaign for 99 Points has made us a believer in a 10 point system for rating wine.
POINT 66: Some wines are described as a "symphony" others "improvisational jazz". Our wish is that 99Points be described as "like a Townes Van Zandt song".
POINT 67: We want to make wines that bring a crowd from roar to whisper the way Gillian Welch and David Rawlings do.
POINT 68: Three S's must be considered in regards to desired yields: Site, Season and Style.
POINT 69: Our winemaking is directed by the shapes we "see" when we taste.
POINT 70: Blending is sculpture.
POINT 71: Great wines are rarely made by committee.
POINT 72: Of the arts, photography is most like winemaking. The presentation of real subjects (people, objects, vineyards) is influenced by a personal point of view.
POINT 73: Wine may be unique among the arts in that the language of its criticism is also a tool used in its production.
POINT 74: There are three kinds of wine: those you won't drink, those you will drink and those you will buy.
POINT 75: Sometimes we forget to thank the Universe for letting us be winemakers in the Willamette Valley.
POINT 76: We are inspired by the work of Painter Edward Hopper. We too apply European sensability to an American landscape.
POINT 77: There is a poor correlation between the financial resources of a winery and the quality of their wine.
POINT 78: Technical virtuosity nor Soul alone is enough. Great wine demands both.
POINT 79: The winemaker's organizational skills determine whether their time is spent making the wine or getting the wine made.
POINT 80: Community is as important to the success of Willamette Valley wines as soil or climate.
POINT 81: The day PROJECT M's Winemaker met the Eyries' David Lett was the day he decided to become a winemaker.
POINT 82: Wind as a feature of terroir is often overlooked.
POINT 83: The grape is the bird's payment for spreading the seed.
POINT 84: Red wine growing is the farming of seeds and skins.
POINT 85: We are grateful for the mentors that have made our path clearer and less steep.
POINT 86: Making wine isn't a business. Selling wine is.
POINT 87: It's inconcievable that a wine could ever be perfect.
POINT 88: One doesn't choose winemaking as a career. It chooses you.
POINT 89: "Cellar Palate" is the winemaker's color blindness.
POINT 90: That vineyard work was once an act of religious devotion is never mentioned in the discussion of “terroir”.
POINT 91: Truth knows no boundary or border.
POINT 92: Great raw materials are merely the starting point. To become something great they require vision and the hands of craftspeople.
POINT 93: Greatness=Internal Standard > External Standard.
POINT 94: “Art” is a function of the artist, not the medium.
POINT 95: Wine is not a multiple-choice test.
POINT 96: “Gravity Flow” is the winemaking equivalent of a “Gated Community”.
POINT 97: Be weary of the winemaker wearing a suit (the winemaker, not the suit).
POINT 98: Your attention is more valuable than money. Thank you for yours.
POINT 99: 99 Points is about building something bigger than any wine, winery or winemaker…a culture and a region.