My apologies for the blogging silence these past several days but I have been traveling and had problems with my global wifi service. All that has been worked out now, so I will play catch up for a couple days.

As readers of my Twitter feed already know, I am in Spain on a press tour organized and sponsored by Grupo Osborne, one of the larger wine and spirits firms here. My intention is to bring you a sense of the food and wine through blog posts, podcasts and photographs.

I accepted this trip after consulting with a few bloggers and podcasters who assured me that if fully disclosed, there would be not conflict of interest. My hosts at Osborne have not asked for any specific coverage and all my posts and reviews are completely my opinion.

Although the first few days will exclusively feature Osborne wines, I will be touring independently this weekend with Gabriella and Ryan from Catavino where other producers will be written — and I hope podcasted — about. If there are any specific Spanish wines or regions you would like see covered, post a comment here or send me an email.

So come to Spain with me this week…

Salud!

Right on the heels of WBW’s 34 summary we have the announcement of the next edition focused on the red wines of Spain hosted by Michelle from My Wine Education. I’ve blogged some candidates here in the past but this theme has me really chuffed as I’m just about to board a plane bound for the country in question (more on that a bit later).

Join us on July 11th to see what Spanish values turn up… and a return to my monthly WBW podcast format.

Now seems like the right time to put on the table how this system might work in practice. After thinking about this some and considering what Ryan wrote the other day, I humbly propose we wine bloggers adopt the following rating scales:

Overall Wine Quality

* Flawed, Not Recommended
** Average
*** Very good, Recommended
**** Delicious; A Wine of Distinction
***** Outstanding; A Classic Wine

Value/QPR

* Bad Value
** Average Value
*** Good Value
**** Great Value
***** Excellent Value

We can discuss the merits of adding half-stars to this mix once I get a read on the community’s reaction to this proposal. In the meantime, vote on what our icons should be below (aggregator/email readers might have to click back to the site to vote):

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts on this modest proposal. I believe we are making some progress here.

OK, I admit it; I’m the Mr. Spock of wine bloggers.

El Jefe laid me bare in his post early this morning (insomnia?) with his poetic argument regarding scores. Let me be clear here, the score is the exclamation point on a bit of prose on the wine in question. Sure, I’m a bit clinical and detached in my reviews sometimes but I do have some passion to spare that Spock might not express. I’ll work on expressing this a bit more.

But I stil think the 5-star (or glass/bottle/cork/bung/unicorn) system is the way for us wine bloggers to go…

Discuss

I seem to have stirred up a fair amount of discussion in the blogosphere about my proposed 5-star (or whatever image you want) system for rating wines. Emboldened by the positive comments from my fellow bloggers I posted a couple of test reviews to Snooth and Winelog and then reposted here (see last 2 posts).

Umm, not good; the formatting was off and, as subscribers to my Twitter feed will attest, I had to do a bit of work to get these reviews presentable on the site. I don’t think this is due to anything in the feeds but from some issues with my current Wordpress theme, since all the tests I have done on my personal blog have worked without any modification.

So my question for other wine bloggers is what needs to change in the format of the reviews before you will join me in using the 5-star system (and these Wine 2.0 services) to post your reviews?

Name: Bogle Petite Sirah
Vintage: 2005
Varietal: Petite Sirah
Winery: Bogle Vineyards
Region: USA > California
Price: $10.79
SnoothRank: N/A
Winecast’s Rating: 4/5
Winecast’s Review: Deep black-purple in color with aromas of blueberry, boysenberry and fennel. Rich and soft in the mouth with blueberry and black pepper flavors finishing with soft, dusty tannins. A nice value for less than $10.

13.5% ABV
Score: 85

As posted on Snooth

Wine: Peterson, Zinfandel, “Tradizionale” 2002

Added on: 06/20/2007

Notes: This Zin from one of my favorite Dry Creek wineries is a traditional “field blend” where other varletials are intermixed in the vineyard and fermented together. This practice dates from the 19th Century where Italian immigrants practiced techniques similar to their homeland. Over 90% of this blend is Zinfandel with Petite Sirah, Alicante Bouschet, Carignane, Semillon, Palomino and Chasselas mixed in. The last three varieties are whites which is used to add aromatics and help extract color during fermentation from the red grapes. The Peterson’s like to season their reds with a fair amount of American oak but this wine seemed to have a lighter hand in this area; perhaps it’s also the age of the wine where the oak component is nicely integrated.

Tasting Notes:

Deep ruby in color with aromas of black raspberry, sage, vanilla and licorice. Well balanced bramble fruit with black pepper and spice finishing with moderate tannins. Very nice, old school Zin and a good value.

14.7% ABV
Natural cork closure
Score: 87

Comments:

Rating: 4