370: Wes Pearson: What Happens When the World's Most Expensive Wines Are Tasted Blind

What really happens when the world's most expensive wines are tasted blind, without their labels or reputations? Why is the Len Evans Tutorial considered such a valuable experience in the wine world? How did Grenache go from a filler grape to one that producers take seriously? In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Dr Wes Pearson, a senior research scientist at the Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide. You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks.

Highlights How did a curiosity for astrophysics shape Wes's mindset as a wine researcher and sensory scientist? Why does Wes believe that the more you learn about wine, the more you realize how little you know? Why does Wes see scientific research and hands-on winemaking as complementary approaches? What role did the Len Evans Tutorial play in shaping his palate and wine judging standards? What is it like to taste hundreds of benchmark wines blind, including Domaine de la Romanée Conti? How did Wes's internship at Château Léoville Las Cases reveal the depth of precision and investment behind elite Bordeaux wines? What drew Wes to McLaren Vale and how did the region reshape his priorities as a winemaker? Why was Grenache long treated as a filler grape in McLaren Vale? How does sensory science work to eliminate bias? Why are trained professionals often excluded from traditional sensory panels? What kinds of unconscious bias can labels, color, and context introduce when tasting wine? How does pivot profiling allow winemakers and sommeliers to use their technical language productively? What's behind the rapid improvement in no and low alcohol wines?

Key Takeaways The current vintage of the Romanée-Conti Grand Cru, or that vineyard, is about $15,000 on release. They're not wines that are generally bought and drunk. They're bought as investments. And they're kind of these holy grail wines that you would never get a chance to see otherwise. And not only is it great to taste them, but you taste them blind. The Len Evans Tutorial is a one-week immersive tasting session with the world's greatest wines. Not just Australian wines. You have a bracket of Pinot Noir, and within that, you've got DRC and you've also got all of the great Australian examples as well. It's meant to set your benchmarks for what is the world standard and what is the Australian standard. Historically, Grenache was the filler in blends. Grenache loves the heat so you can leave it out in the vineyard. The Shiraz has to come in first. "We'll get the Grenache later when we have some space in the winery." It was used to fill up the blends. It had lots of flavor. It always had lots of alcohol as well. Then around 2010, a few producers started saying, we've got some pretty good resource here. Maybe we should think about investing a bit more time and effort into what we've got with Grenache.

About Dr. Wes Pearson Dr Wes Pearson is a senior research scientist and sensory group manager at the Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide. He holds a BSc in Wine Biochemistry from the University of British Columbia, a diploma in Applied Sensory and Consumer Science from the University of California Davis and a PhD from Charles Sturt University. He has worked in the sensory group at the AWRI since 2010 and has completed hundreds of sensory studies and authored over 25 research papers in that time. He is an alumnus of the Len Evans Tutorial and of Wine Australia's Future Leaders program and sits on the board of directors for the McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism Association. He has judged at multiple capital city and regional wine shows and has been an educator/judge for the AWRI's Advanced Wine Assessment Course for more than a decade. He is also an accomplished winemaker, having made wine in Canada and France, and currently makes wine under his Juxtaposed label in McLaren Vale, South Australia.

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