What is a Great Wine?

As a wine writer and more importantly a wine lover, I have tasted a lot of wine. A small portion of it was dreadful, most was enjoyable but ordinary, often enough it is luscious, delectable, and captivating, and on rare occasions the experience is earth-shatteringly profound. The one’s that come to mind from that last category are wines such as Screaming Eagle, Vega Sicilia, Chateau Margaux, or Romano Dal Forno Amarone They are not merely delicious but life-changing, beyond measure, a vinous work of art. These are outrageously expensive wines and I don’t mean to suggest that only expensive wines can qualify as profound. I have had many profound wines of lesser reputation. I mention these “stars” only because their reputation helps locate the quality level I have in mind If you have read many wine reviews you know what makes wine excellent according to the standards of wine criticism. Intensity of aromas and flavors, complexity, elegance, balance, and structure adding up to an overall…