How does a wine that smells like cat pee score 17?

The short answer is, we plugged our noses when we drank it.
Not a joke.
Well, Andrea was the only one that was successful at it... Christine and I broke into a giggling fit every time we tried! But seriously, it’s about the categories and allocation of points. For instance (and this is simplifying but you get the idea):

• Is this wine the correct color for a Petit Chablis? Yes or No.
• Bouquet? Distinct or None.
• Balance? Yes or No.
• Finish? Long or Short.

Most of the eleven categories are objective and do not allow for personal opinion. Yes, the wine may have a distinct bouquet but whether we like the bouquet or not isn’t factored in (read our comments on the Oliver Tricon Petit Chablis here). So while a wine might look really good on paper and score 17 points, maybe we weren’t in love with it. Conversely, we might really like a wine that only scored 12. In an attempt to offset that, Christine tweaked our score sheet so we could give more weight to the only two subjective categories: Appeal and Overall Opinion, for a possible 5 points combined.

Smell and taste work in tandem but it does sometimes happen that we are surprised when a wine tastes nothing like what it smells like, which can be a good thing. Case in point: a group of us went to Sushi Hai, an elegant but casual sushi house in Denver. While we waited for our table, we hung out at the wine bar downstairs. My brother-in-law passed around a glass of wine and grimaced. "What do you smell?" he asked. As we all smelled it, I wondered if it was appropriate to say what I thought... I mean, should one really utter the words "dog poop" in such a refined atmosphere? In the long run, it was fortunate that it happened again at Thief Wine in Shorewood. A friend and I decided to share a wine flight and I must have made a face because the bartender laughed and said, "Yeah, it's actually a really good wine if you can get past the barnyard funk." Perfect phrase for it and now I don't have to struggle with whether it's appropriate to say "dog poop" out loud! Also fortunate for us that there aren't wines running around out there that actually taste like they smell.

So yes... bad smell, good wine. If this ever happens to you, just plug your nose!