The legendary Hugh Johnson, author of The World Atlas of Wine, on how you can improve your wine-tasting skill and pleasure

Natalie MacLean
Nov27th

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Introduction

Are you curious what it would be like to ask for wine advice from legendary Hugh Johnson, author of The World Atlas of Wine, among many other books? What would he advise you on how you can improve your wine-tasting skill and pleasure? Why was Hugh initially against wine scoring and how has his perspective changed over the years? What makes a wine great in Hugh’s opinion? Why does Hugh now prefer English sparkling wines over his long-time favourite Pol Roger Champagne?

In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with Hugh Johnson.

You can find the wines we discussed here.

 

Giveaway

Two of you will win a copy of his marvellous memoir, The Life and Wines of Hugh Johnson.

 

How to Win

To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast.

It takes less than 30 seconds: On your phone, scroll to the bottom here, where the reviews are, and click on “Tap to Rate.”

After that, scroll down a tiny bit more and click on “Write a Review.” That’s it!

I’ll choose three people randomly from those who contact me.

Good luck!

 

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Join the live-stream video of this conversation on Wednesday at 7 pm eastern on Instagram Live Video, Facebook Live Video or YouTube Live Video.

I’ll be jumping into the comments as we watch it together so that I can answer your questions in real-time.

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Highlights

  • What is it about Chablis that makes it Hugh’s favourite white wine?
  • How did a late-night tasting of a pair of red wines lead to Hugh’s “aha moment” with wine?
  • How have English sparkling wines changed over the years and why does Hugh now turn to them more than his long-time favourite Champagne Pol Roger?
  • What happens to our bodies when we drink sparkling wine?
  • Why is it important to taste high-quality wines at the beginning of your wine journey, if you can afford it?
  • How can you improve your wine-tasting skill and pleasure?
  • How did Hugh’s first writing job at Vogue magazine lead to his extensive wine writing career?
  • What inspired Hugh’s first book, Wine, which was published quite early in his career?
  • How did The World Atlas of Wine revolutionize the way wine and wineries were understood?
  • What have been the most surprising changes Hugh has seen in the wine world over the years?
  • What was it like for Hugh to buy his first case of First Growth Bordeaux?
  • How does Hugh remember his first encounter with Robert Parker’s wine scoring system and his initial skepticism towards it?

 

Key Takeaways

  • What advice does Hugh have on improving your wine-tasting skill and pleasure?
    • As Hugh says, the first thing you have to do is concentrate on the wine. Look at the color, sniff it, take a sip, but then when you take a sip, think about it. Keep it in your mouth for a moment or two, chew on it. Swirl it around until it registers, and you experience the wine more fully.
  • Why was Hugh initially against wine scoring and how has his perspective changed over the years?
    • Hugh asks how can you score wine any more than you can score Mozart or your friends? He didn’t believe in an objective scale or giving the wrong impression that one wine is better than another. For example, a good wine from the Loire in France can be brilliant in a lovely, fresh, refreshing way, with lots of fruity flavors, which you won’t find in a wine from the Rhone. They’re different grapes, climates, styles. Over the years, he’s accepted scoring within a narrow range say for wine competition categories where all the wines are from the same region and grape. Though he adds no one has ever scored lower than 50, and I would add with grade inflation, we rarely see scores below 89 these days.
  • What makes a wine great in Hugh’s opinion?
    • As Hugh says, people ask me, “Well, what do you mean by fine wine?” And I tend to say, well, it’s wine that’s worth talking about. You see ordinary wine, nothing more to say. Fine wine, you said to yourself, hey, it’s not what I expected, or rather delicious, or I love the smell, or something like that. Fine wine is something you ask questions about. Fine wine doesn’t make statements. It asks questions. You want to know more. It makes you want to sip again.
  • Why does Hugh now prefer English sparkling wines over his long-time favourite Pol Roger Champagne?
    • Hugh says he’s had an account with the house of Pol Roger for about 60 years. He first drank it at Cambridge University. But more recently, he’s been switching to English sparkling wine. He observes they have a brilliant wine industry in England. Climate change is part of it, but they’re also now using champagne grapes to make the wine. It’s got a freshness to it, like going into an apple orchard, it brightens your palate.

 

Start The Conversation: Click Below to Share These Wine Tips

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If I were limited to one white wine in the world, it would be Chablis. - Hugh Johnson Hugh Johnson Click to tweet

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Now, we have a brilliant wine industry in England; the moment has come. - Hugh Johnson Hugh Johnson Click to tweet

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Fine wine doesn’t make statements; it asks questions. You want to know more. - Hugh Johnson Hugh Johnson Click to tweet

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The first rule of wine tasting is to think. - Hugh Johnson Hugh Johnson Click to tweet

 

About Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson is the world’s best-known wine writer, having sold more than 20 million books worldwide over a 60-year career. He began acquiring his wine knowledge as a member of the Wine and Food Society at Cambridge University before becoming a feature writer for Vogue and House & Garden magazines.

In 1963, he succeeded the legendary gastronome André Simon as editor of Wine and Food. At the same time, he became wine correspondent of The Sunday Times, then published his first book at the age of 27 followed by The World Atlas of Wine, Wine Companion and his annual Pocket Wine Book.

His talent for making the subject of wine irresistible is unmatched. He is not only the world’s most respected wine writer, but he is also the most loved as his kindness both inside and outside the industry has made him a hero to many, including myself.

 

Resources

 

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  • The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.

 

Transcript

Natalie MacLean 00:00:00 Are you curious about what it would be like to ask for wine advice from the legendary Hugh Johnson, author of The World Atlas of Wine, among many other books? What would he advise you on how you could improve your wine tasting skills and pleasure? Why was Hugh initially against wine scoring, and how has his perspective actually changed over the years? What makes a wine great, in his opinion, and why does he now prefer English sparkling wines over his long time favourite, Pol Roger Champagne? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in a rare and exclusive interview with Hugh Johnson, the world’s best known wine writer. By the end of our conversation, you’ll also discover how a late night tasting of a pair of red wines led to Hugh’s moment with wine. What makes Chablis such a versatile wine? What happens to our bodies when we drink sparkling wine? How Hugh’s first writing job at Vogue magazine led to his extensive wine writing career? What inspired Hugh’s first book, Wine, which was published when he was just 27 years old? How the World Atlas of Wine revolutionized the way wine and wineries were understood? And the most surprising changes Hugh has seen in the world of wine over the 60 years he’s been writing about it.

Natalie MacLean 00:01:42 Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean. And each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started.

Welcome to episode 313. I am so excited about today’s episode. Hugh Johnson is a giant in the world of wine writing and he rarely does interviews anymore. The last one was several years ago, so I was not only nervous about asking him to talk with me, but when it came time to actually log in to our video call, there he was sitting in a big armchair in his home in London and I nearly fainted. He was, however, as generous and kind as he’s always been over his 60 year career.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:59 A decade ago, my publisher asked him to endorse my second book, Unquenchable, which to my surprise, he did. I don’t know how does the man find time to do all that he does and then spend eight hours reading some Canadian newbie’s book. And even though he is now 85 years old, he was as sharp as a tack, recalling memories from his student days at Cambridge University and as an incredibly young writer and editor at Vogue magazine. We talked for almost an hour and a half and he never flagged. And when we were finished, he said call any time. It was immensely pleasurable. I can’t even do his accent, but oh, what a gentleman. I was drenched in sweat as I thanked him. You can watch the video of our chat on YouTube. Two of you will win a copy of his new memoir, The Life and Wines of Hugh Johnson. This is far more than a list of his favourite wines. Hugh is an elegant writer and offers fascinating stories behind the wines he spotlights. It’s like having a dinner conversation with your most interesting wine friend, which is how I hope you’ll feel about our conversation.

All you have to do is email me and let me know that you’d like to win. I’ll choose two people randomly from those who contact me at [email protected]. It does not matter where you live. Maureen Harriman from Ontario has won a copy of Tony Edward’s new book, The Very Good News About Wine. I still have one copy left of the following books to give away, so email me if you want them: Inspirational Memoirs and Memories of the Women who Shaped Ontario’s Grape and Wine Industry by Jennifer Wilhelm;  The Smart Traveller’s Guide to Rioja, edited by Adam Leechmere; and Beer and Wine Bites: 64. Simple Nibbles that Pair Perfectly with Wine by Barbara Scott Goodman. In other bookish news, if you read the paperback or e-book or are listening to the audiobook of my memoir Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation and Drinking Too Much, I would love to hear from you at [email protected].

Natalie MacLean 00:05:15 If you’d like to give this book as a holiday gift, I’d be happy to send you personally signed book plates, both for yourself and for the copies you give as gifts. I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide at nataliemaclean.com/313. Okay, on with the show.

Natalie MacLean 00:05:42 Hugh Johnson is the world’s best known wine writer, having sold more than 20 million books worldwide over a 60 year career. He began acquiring his wine knowledge as a student and member of the Wine and Food Society at Cambridge University, before becoming the feature writer for Vogue and House and Garden magazines. In 1963, he succeeded the legendary gastronomic Andre Simon as editor of Wine and Food. At the same time, he became the wine correspondent for The Sunday Times. Then published his first book at the age of 27, followed by the World Atlas of Wine, Wine Companion and his annual Pocket Wine Book. His talent for making the subject of wine irresistible is unmatched. He is not only the world’s most respected wine writer, but he is also the most loved, as his kindness, both inside and outside the industry, has made him a hero to many, including myself. He joins us now from his home in London, England. Hugh, it’s so great to have you here with us. Thank you for joining us.

Hugh Johnson 00:06:46 Thank you for transporting me over the seas.

Natalie MacLean 00:06:50 That’s great. Yes. We’re traveling cross Atlantic tonight. All right. Now you and I are both sipping on tea, but it is that time of the day, perhaps sliding into cocktail hour soon. Do you have any wines planned for tonight, this evening that you’ll be sipping on?

Hugh Johnson 00:07:07 Well, actually, tonight I know that we are having, as we so often do, fish. My wife Julie and I are mad about fish, and so a lot of our wine is white. And among white wines, I have an absolute thing for Chablis. If I were limited to one white wine in the world, it would be Chablis.

Natalie MacLean 00:07:27 And why is that? That’s the Chardonnay, for those who don’t know, from northern Burgundy. But what is it about Chablis that you love so much, Hugh?

Hugh Johnson 00:07:34 It’s so straightforward. It’s an unoaked white wine from Chardonnay, which is the king of white wine grapes. Is no question. It can do fancy things. It can be subtle. It can be extraordinarily in that way. It can also just be the best damn white wine you ever had to do with what you’re eating.

Natalie MacLean 00:07:55 I love that.

Hugh Johnson 00:07:56 I got an awful lot of Chablis from various producers, and there are many, many good producers in that quite small region in the north of France. I hardly have to think, I just say we’ll have Chablis again.

Natalie MacLean 00:08:11 It’s an easy choice, especially with fish. All right, let’s start with your aha moment with wine. Your Damascene moment that happened during a late night tasting with a fellow student at King’s College while you were at Cambridge University. Maybe share that with us?

Hugh Johnson 00:08:25 Yes. I was in our rooms working or pretending to work one evening when in came my roommate in a dinner jacket, slightly disheveled, I think, and said Hugh, you’ve just got to taste this. And he gave me a glass of red wine. I wasn’t reluctant to stop my studies and taste it. I said, this is absolutely good. I never tasted anything like this. Where does it come from? And so that was really how the whole thing started well.

Natalie MacLean 00:08:59 And did he have another Burgundian wine there? I’ve been reading your memoir, so I kind of know the inside story here, but were you tasting another one as well?

Hugh Johnson 00:09:09 Yes. It was another red wine which was neither here nor there. I mean, it was just a perfectly decent red wine. So there was this contrast. It is perfectly true that if you want to look at a wine clearly it’s a very good idea to make a comparison with another wine, and you get a focus. On that occasion, that’s quite true. I mean, sip put that away. No interest. Sip,  oh my goodness. Hey, what’s going on here? You know, a different world.

Natalie MacLean 00:09:40 Absolutely. And were they located close to each other in terms of where the vines were planted?

Hugh Johnson 00:09:46 I don’t honestly remember. I mean, one came from a famous vineyard in Burgundy and the other was just a red wine. I mean, he was drawing my attention to something that I hadn’t really considered before. So it was that kind of Damascus moment.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:02 Yes. Awesome. Now, your college was also well stocked with a certain Champagne that I think you had a Churchillian fondness for. What was that one?

Hugh Johnson 00:10:12 Oh, I know you mean Pol Roger. I’ve had an account with the House of Roger drinking the White Foil, which is their non-vintage wine, for about 60 years. I first started to drink it when I was at Cambridge and I still do, although more recently, I’ve been switching over to something quite different, which is English sparkling wine because now we have a really, really successful, indeed a brilliant wine industry in England. The moment has come. Its global warming. Got something to do with it, obviously. But we are now using the champagne grapes to make a wine that I am beginning to prefer quite a little to regular Champagne.

Natalie MacLean 00:11:03 Wow, that’s saying something. Go toe to toe with Champagne.

Hugh Johnson 00:11:07 It’s got a sort of freshness to it. Is like going into a lovely apple orchard, and it sort of brightens your palate. I taste Champagne and I think, well, I’m very used to that, but I find excitement in the English version.

Natalie MacLean 00:11:24 We’ll have to get to know English champagne better or English bubbly I should say better over here in Canada, because we don’t get it very often. But I’ve heard marvelous things about it.

Hugh Johnson 00:11:34 To be honest, there isn’t much of it. It’s a new industry.

Natalie MacLean 00:11:38 Well, save some for us. Send us a send some over the Atlantic sometime  [laughter]. You describe bubbly as a giggly wine. I love that phrase. And you mentioned a fascinating tidbit that’s kind of proves that from the scientific perspective, what’s happening with sparkling wine or bubbly as it relates to CO2?

Hugh Johnson 00:11:57 Well, it’s interesting thing when you drink it, you are obviously swallowing in the bubbles. Carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide is not something that the body really is very keen to have inside it. So it goes into your tummy and it very rapidly gets into your bloodstream straight away. I mean within seconds your blood absorbs carbon dioxide and wants to get rid of it. So it races around your system. You know, this is not a medical lecture, but this is my understanding. And goes straight to where it counts in your brain, so you get giggly alarmingly fast.

Natalie MacLean 00:12:36 Well, yeah, the part wants to get it out of its system as though you’re working out almost. Do you think that it’s a requirement or a good thing even to taste high quality wines at the beginning of your wine journey. Is that important to understand wines, to taste really top quality wines at the beginning?

Hugh Johnson 00:13:00 It’s important to realize how different the quality can be. So, you know, if you only ever drank the best wine, you would think well that’s the standard. That’s what I can expect wine to be. But if you drink it in something less of lesser quality, more ordinary, then you’re bound to notice and say this is so much better. Why? Where does it come from?

Natalie MacLean 00:13:24 It’s true. It’s always the comparison. And as you say so eloquently, and I won’t be able to paraphrase as eloquently, you bring yourself to the point of being able to see where the pleasure lies. You don’t want to perhaps leap to high priced wines right away, but you need to know the differences.

Hugh Johnson 00:13:40 Oh yes.  There is a place for great wine if you can afford it, and there’s obviously a place for a local everyday wine. And in between, I’m sort of make rather artificial grades. There is a whole category that I call fine wine. And people ask me, well what do you mean by fine wine? And I tend to say, well, it’s wine that’s worth talking about. You see, ordinary wine it’s just wine. There’s nothing more to say. Fine wine, you say to yourself, hey, not quite what I expected or really rather delicious or I love the smell or something like that. And then you get into a category that generally I call fine. In between, wine basic, good wine, better and something you really want. Fine wine, something that you ask questions about. I always say that fine wine doesn’t make statements. It asks questions. You want to know more.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:45 And what kind of questions does it ask you? It just provokes your curiosity. Can you think of a wine that kind of asked you a lot of questions?

Hugh Johnson 00:14:55 So basically it makes you want to, well, have more. I mean, sip again, sniff it more, more deeply. Concentrate on it. Pay attention to it. I think some people make the mistake that very good wine will somehow tell you it’s very good at the first sip. Well, it might. But the first thing you have to do is concentrate to notice it. It’s the first rule of wine tasting, sort of rigmarole as you look at the colour, you sniff it, you take a sip. But then when you take a sip, you actually think. You keep it in your mouth for a moment or two and you sort of chew it, swirl it around a bit, then it registers and you’ve actually had the experience. And then you can like it or not, like you can judge it. Then you really had that one’s experience.

Natalie MacLean 00:15:53 Great advice for tasting for everyone who wants to improve their tasting ability or just their pleasure. You described your writing career as taking off when you began writing for Vogue magazine, and you published your first article for the magazine in the December 1960 issue. What was it about it?

Hugh Johnson 00:16:13 It was quite the Christmas issue. The editor sent me off and said we want to write about wine, Hugh. I was a general sort of feature writer at the time, and I said, yes, well, what are we going to do for Christmas? I said, well, suppose I ask 2 or 3 people who are known for their love of wine, possibly for their riches as well, what they’re going to have for Christmas. So I went round and I did. I mean,  I collared a famous millionaire anyway, a couple of well-known names and I took down their answers and that was my first wine article.

Natalie MacLean 00:16:52 Wines for Christmas. How seasonal? It’s a topic that comes up every year. 60 years later. Which ones were Christmas or holiday turkey?

Hugh Johnson 00:17:00 Well, it’s like one of the great virtues of wine as a subject for a writer. There’s always a new vintage.

Natalie MacLean 00:17:06 That’s true.

Hugh Johnson 00:17:08 Its sold many, many copies of my little annual Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine book, because there’s always news on the wine front. You know, if we were talking about trees, which is the other subject I love writing about, you know, an oak remains an oak. It’s not a different oak next year.

Natalie MacLean 00:17:28 Right. That’s true. It’s got this built in renewal cycle to it for both the plants and the writer. That’s great. And how did working at such a fashion focused magazine like Vogue shape your approach to writing about wine or did it?

Hugh Johnson 00:17:47 No, no, really. I think it was just I wanted somebody to publish my work. You know, I was brand new. I hadn’t had any published before, but I know what happened and thought about this for the last half century. A friend of mine at Cambridge University had been offered a job on Vogue magazine. I can’t say why he was, but he was. Then he was offered another job in television, and in those day television was something very special. See how old I am? He said, look, Vogue would take me on board. Why don’t you do the job instead? And so I went and saw the editor of Vogue and she said, well, yeah, give it a go. It must have worked.

Natalie MacLean 00:18:32 I’d say it did. I think things rolled along pretty nicely after that, Hugh. That’s great. Now, you published your first book on wine in 1966, when you were just 27 years old. What was it called and what gave you the confidence to do that at such a young age?

Hugh Johnson 00:18:51 Well, the title was just the four letter word Wine. And my favourite. You are bringing me, reminded me of things I hadn’t thought about for years.

Natalie MacLean 00:19:06 I hope that’s a good thing.

Hugh Johnson 00:19:08 Oh, it is, it is. The publisher had had a smash hit with the first sort of coffee table cookbook and made a beautiful production of it. The colour photos, and it was an American author called Robert Carrier, who became very well known as a result. He even got on television. Imagine.

Natalie MacLean 00:19:35 What did he write about? What was that book about?

Hugh Johnson 00:19:37 Oh, it was a book of recipes.

Natalie MacLean 00:19:39 Oh, recipes. Okay. Food.

Hugh Johnson 00:19:42 His publisher had the idea, or was given the idea, that if you could sell a coffee table book about cooking, perhaps you could about wine. So he asked me to come up with a big book, coloured cover, coloured plates. I mean, in those days in publishing, text and pictures were not integrated very much. It was so much simpler to have a colour page printing separately than the text, and so they weren’t properly integrated. It looks pretty primitive by today’s standards. So that’s the way it was. So I had to take these colour photographs, and that’s where I discovered my skills as a photographer. I went out with my polycaves camera and photographed everything that I thought looked good in the wine field. I did still life. Masterpieces, of course, because they were published [laughter]. And the first book, that’s how it came about.

Natalie MacLean 00:20:43 Wow. And did your experience as a magazine editor help you to better integrate like the colour photos, the captions. And I think as you call the text, the gray stuff.

Hugh Johnson 00:20:53 Good point. And that came later. You see, this first book was very simple,  just text and colour plates. And then I went back into the magazine business. I’ve been working Condé, Vogue, House & Garden. They started a little magazine, which was actually called Wine and Food, and I was given the editorship. And so I learned quite a lot about editing, and I thought we could integrate things. And then came the offer. That’s right, I was editing a magazine called Queen, which was the sort of fashion and social glossy of the time in London, and I’d done that for not very long when an editor came to me and said we are working with a Dutch cartographer, a mapmaker. And he says what about the relationship between maps and wine? Because wines are called after where they come from, so suppose we show people these places. And I said, wow, but could you afford really good maps? I mean, I would want ordnance survey level maps. And he somehow produced a huge advance for the book by those standards of those day. I do remember it was £100,000, which today would be a million.

Hugh Johnson 00:22:24 And so we created these absolutely amazing maps really. We were the first people to map the vineyards of the world in this degree of detail. And once you get to the detail, then you could really explain the differences and you could say this could be simple, you know, this is a south facing hill, slope or it is not.  It is something else. And you show it to people. That actually was quite revolutionary because instead of just in the tex  you have a list of names. And you said, this is a Medoc and it goes Saint Estephe, Paulliac, Saint Julien, Margaux, blah, blah. But actually, if you show them that this is the land itself, look at it detail and you can decide where to have your picnic in it [laughter]. So that was totally convincing and that really worked. And the book sold and still sells.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:21 It does, it does. And that was in 1971. And things have changed so much. There’s been multiple editions since. But am I correct in asking was New Zealand not even in that book? Because literally New Zealand wines weren’t on the map yet?

Hugh Johnson 00:23:37 There wasn’t any New Zealand wine at all.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:41 Wow.

Hugh Johnson 00:23:42 There was something called Dallies Plonk. I have to explain that because a lot of the miners in New Zealand were immigrants from Dalmatia, and they were called Dallies. Dalmatia being a winegrowing country, they planted vines and they made wine. And so this was I pretty much the first New Zealand wine Dallies Plonk. And then they realized that it was much better than plonk. They really have the climate, a very similar climate to France in some cases.And they could upgrade and they did.

Natalie MacLean 00:24:17 Yeah. You’ve just seen so many changes over the years. I mean, from the time you started to now, what’s been the most surprising change you’ve seen in the world of wine? If you can name one. I know there has been many.

Hugh Johnson 00:24:31 There were so many. The general upgrade in quality, there’s no doubt about that. I mean, you used to be able, without any difficulty, to find bad wine. Now I really challenge almost anybody now to go out and buy a bad wine. We don’t need to make it so we don’t do it. I mean, the technique has been perfected and we have also. Of course, good wine certainly fine wine used to be limited pretty much to France, a little bit to Italy, Germany, definitely to Austria funnily enough. And that was it. Other people made perfectly a decent wine, but not fine wine. They didn’t see it in that way. Well, that sort of that idea sunk in and people realized that the basis of any fine wine was the grape variety. So they start to look at the grape varieties. And I do remember actually in the States, there was a friend of mine who was a war correspondent in the Second World War called Frank Schoonmaker, and he’d been in France after and during the war, and he had learned to taste wine in Burgundy, I think. And Frank wrote for the New York Times. And he wrote a little wine encyclopedia. And he asked me to do an English version of it to get rid of the Americanisms. And and so we published it in England and it was a big success. And so how did I get around to talking about Frank [laughter].

Natalie MacLean 00:26:06 You were talking about fine wines and identifying them through the grapes that sort of thing, as the appreciation developed.

Hugh Johnson 00:26:12 When California wine was pretty plonky frankly. There was very, very little fine wine, if any, in California then. He was advising them and he told them that if they were going to make better white wine, they were planting Chardonnay grapes. The best red wine was from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. It was as simple as that. And he said, well, put it on the label. Don’t just say something county, you know, but put the grape variety on the label. That was immediately convincing. It had sort of raised the bar. If you’re planting the best grape varieties, you can expect in a wine. That was a historic moment. It really was.

Natalie MacLean 00:26:56 That’s revolutionary for even the understanding of wine appreciation of it here in North America, to be able to identify and ask for a certain grape because up until then it had all been just regions. And Europe was a kind of a mystery because it was all regional. People weren’t sure what the grapes were if they didn’t have wine knowledge. Well, speaking of fine wines, tell us about buying your first bottle of 1961 Bordeaux. I think it was actually a mixed case that you bought. And maybe tell us what you paid for it.

Hugh Johnson 00:27:28 Well, 1961 came around and it was very clear from the beginning there was going to be a great vintage. I mean, the the weather conditions were right. It was a warm summer. The grapes ripened at the right time. They will not overbaked when they were picked in the vintage time. And people tasted it and said, this has everything. The only vintage of my lifetime I think when the consensus has been this has everything. I was carried away by this and I spent a little of my tiny earnings. It must have been a month’s wages, I should think, on buying a mixed case of the first growths from Bordeaux of that wine. And I resisted drinking it because I had learned that great wine as a matter of time. You don’t just buy it and drink it. I think I drank my last bottle of those four different first growths about 40 years later.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:30 Wow.

Hugh Johnson 00:28:32 It had evolved. It had gone through the sort of magic maturation, that mellowing that wine does, and had become a different substance and magic.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:43 Wow. Very patient waiting for it that long. And that would have been like Lafite, La Tour, Margaux.

Hugh Johnson 00:28:49 Yeah, exactly. It was Lafite, La Tour, Margaux, and Haut-Brion. The four very first growth

Natalie MacLean 00:28:57 Magical. Do you remember what you paid for it? I know it’s a month’s earnings, but do you remember the price back then?

Hugh Johnson 00:29:03 I mean, I’m more familiar with them now, obviously, so, yes. Great, great pleasure. Great moment.

Natalie MacLean 00:29:14 Yeah, absolutely. And then when you’ve reflected in your book on Bordeaux from 1982, you describe it as a year of pleasure, where personal milestones intertwine with wine moments. And I love the way you weave those two together. Was there a particular moment or wine that stood out for you that year?

Hugh Johnson 00:29:34 In ’82, I don’t remember it for one amazing bottle, but lots of amazing bottles. That was the way it was. It was very untypical of the Bordeaux that I got used to up to there because it was very warm year. And it pleased the great American wine critic, Robert Parker. And he was always looking for concentration in wine, dark colour in red wine, high alcohol content. He wasn’t into subtlety at all, Old Parker.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:11 Said you had to have a stomach for hyperbole to read some of the tasting notes [laughter].

Hugh Johnson 00:30:16 Yes.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:19 A subtle way to put it [laughter].

Hugh Johnson 00:30:21 We were friendly, but we never read from the same page at all.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:27 But you did read a few of his pages back in 1978 when you were with your publisher. It was your first time not only encountering Robert Parker. Tell us about that, it was your first time encountering something else when it came to wine and description.

Hugh Johnson 00:30:42 You’ve got all the stories [laughter]. My London publisher came up to me and said this book is doing amazingly in America. It’s just rushing off the shelves. Why did you read it and have a look? I did and I said it was well edited. And in the margin it went through the vintages. Okay. So 78, 79, 80 and then there was another figure beside it, a figure like 90 or 92 or something like that. And I said, well, that’s the vintage, but what’s this figure here? That’s the score. I said, oh, what? Score? Wines don’t have scores? How can you score wine? And they said Detroit does it with motorcars. You know, Americans like scores. They like to know where they are in some ranking, which is unspecified really. It’s the palate of a critic who gets more and more excited and ups and ups the score. And I said, well I can’t do that. There is no objective scale. It’s giving the wrong impression to people to say that this wine  is better in an abstract way than another one. Maybe my mind has changed about that a little. But at the time I said it’s not a mechanistic like that at all. Minds are good in different ways. A really good wine from the from the Loire in France can be brilliant in a lovely, fresh, refreshing way with lots of fruity flavours which you won’t find in a wine from the river Rhône which is quite a different. Different grape varieties, different climate, different qualities. So I said, how do you score things as different as that? I said, do you how about scoring Mozart operas or I tried scoring your friends [laughter].

Natalie MacLean 00:32:49 Exactly, how do you trap a subjective experience into what seems like an objective number? Just seems kind of tricky. Have you changed your mind a little bit on scores? You alluded to that.

Hugh Johnson 00:33:02 If you contextualize it, if you say we are scoring things within a narrow range of qualities and so on, then obviously we can make it happen and it has to happen all the time because that’s how professional wine tasters do their job. I mean, in some cases, the American way was to mark out of 100 or other. And that’s also true as in school exam marking. It actually ran for 50 to 100, so nothing was humiliating by scoring 20. Nobody ever did mark as low as 50. I mean, if you look at the Parker type scores in wine magazines and that kind of thing.  Even the wine they really didn’t like would get something like 70. But then there’s a lot of hyperbole as the scores get more exciting.

Natalie MacLean 00:33:53 So you think within a context they could be useful today?

Hugh Johnson 00:33:57 Oh, yes. I mean, if I’m at a wine tasting, a professional tasty tasting, I’m usually given a sheet of paper with the name of the wines. The other tasters, there was a bunch of us who write down scores. What I do in that case very often on a bench along the wall, the wine bottles are lined up and as I go along the line, sniffing, and sipping, and spitting. If I like something, I’ll pull the bottle a bit towards me, and if I don’t, and push it a bit back. So the end of the tasting, you get a sort of jagged line like that. And I know which my favourites have been, and they go back and taste them again and come to a conclusion or try to.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:45 Right, I think that’s a great way to do it. Well, there you have it.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:54 I hope you enjoyed our chat with you. Here are my takeaways. Number one, what advice does you have on improving your wine tasting skills and pleasure? Well, as Hugh says, the first thing you have to do is concentrate on the wine. Look at the colors, smell it, take a sip. And then when you actually do, take a sip, think about it. Keep it in your mouth for a moment or two. Chew on it, swirl it, and until it registers. Then you can experience the wine more fully. Number two why was he initially against wine scoring and how has his perspective changed over the years? You Who asks, how can you score a wine any more than you can score Mozart or your friends? I’d like to try that, actually. He didn’t believe in an objective scale, or giving the wrong impression that one wine is better than another. For example, he notes a good wine from the Loire Valley in France can be brilliant in a lovely, fresh way with lots of fruity flavours which you’re not going to find in a wine from the Rhone.

Natalie MacLean 00:35:59 There are different grapes. Climate styles. Over the years, though, he has accepted scoring within a narrow range, say for a wine competition category where all the wines are from the same grape and region, and you’re trying to differentiate for the purposes of giving medals or awards. Though, he adds, no one has ever scored a wine lower than 50, so it’s not really a relevant range. And I would add, with great inflation, we rarely see scores below 89 these days. Guilty as charged. Number three. What makes a wine great in his opinion. As he says, people ask me, well, what do you mean by fine wine? He says, well, it’s a wine worth talking about. You see, ordinary wine has nothing more to say. Fine wine. You ask yourself, hey, that’s not what I expected. What’s going on here? Or I love the smell or something like that. Fine wine is something you ask questions about. It doesn’t make statements. It asks questions.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:02 You want to know more. It makes you want another sip. It draws you in. And I love that definition. And for why does he now prefer English sparkling wines over his long time favorite Paul Rosé champagne? He says he’s had an account with the House of Paul Rosé for almost 60 years. Oh my gosh, I love even the sound of it. I have an account with Paul Rosé. He first drank it at Cambridge University, but more recently he’s been switching to English sparkling wine. He observes they have a brilliant wine industry in the country. Climate change is part of it, but they’re also now using champagne grapes to make the wine. It’s got freshness. It’s like going to an apple orchard, he says. It really brightens your palate. In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of our conversation with you, links to his website and books, the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now no matter where you live.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:59 If you missed episode 209, go back and take a listen. I chat with another leading light in the world of wine, the Napa based Karen McNeil, author of The Wine Bible. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.

Karen MacNeil 00:38:14 The world of wine is now a really big place. I’m a very rigorous researcher. I will spend two weeks on one little fact within a sentence, within 30,000 sentences, to be sure that I know something. The Wine Bible doesn’t cut any corners. I’ll give you an example. I mean, most people would say something like when wine glasses were invented, comma, blah blah blah blah blah is true. The Wine Bible sentence would be when wine glasses were invented in 1615. comma. Da da da da da. It’s true. It’s really laced through with concrete information, even in the simplest sentence. And so it takes a while to figure those things out.

Natalie MacLean 00:39:06 Absolutely. And yet it’s more useful because of the density of information that is still not yet overwhelming.

Natalie MacLean 00:39:17 You won’t want to miss next week when we continue our chat with Hugh. If you liked this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell one friend about the podcast this week, especially someone you know who’d be interested in learning more about how to deepen their knowledge and enjoyment of wine from the industry’s most renowned writer. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search for Natalie MacLean Wine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, their favourite podcast app. Or they can listen to the show on my website at nataliemaclean.com/podcastt. Email me if you have a sip, tip, question, or if you’d like to win a copy of any of the books I mentioned today in the intro, including Hugh’s, or if you’ve read my book or are listening to it, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Were you surprised at Hugh’s take on wine scores? What do you think about them? Do you agree with his definition on what makes a wine great? And what’s the greatest wine you’ve ever tasted so far? Email me at [email protected]

Natalie MacLean 00:40:23 In the show notes, you’ll also find a link to take a free online wine and food pairing class with me, called The Five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner and How to Fix Them Forever at nataliemaclean.com/class. And that is all in the show notes at nataliemaclean.com/313. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your class this week, perhaps a wine that is the liquid embodiment of greatness and pleasure for you. You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media, so subscribe for free now at nataliemaclean.com/subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.

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