99 POINTS
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.