Comments on: One wine, two scores

By: Good Reads Wednesday « Artisan Family of Wines

Good Reads Wednesday « Artisan Family of Wines — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:15:04 +0000

[...] One wine, two scores [...]

By: Coppola is the Director's Cut of Wineries

Coppola is the Director's Cut of Wineries — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:01:32 +0000

[...] One wine, two scores Related Articles Share About Author Mari Kane [...]

By: Debbie Gioquindo

Debbie Gioquindo — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 14:24:57 +0000

As the Chairperson of a wine competition and I also work the back room of another, I see a great discrepancy in scores. How one wine can win a best of in one competition and no award in another.
From my view, I believe that the judges need to have an open mind when judging a competition. If they already have preconceived opinions on certain types of wine and grapes, they shouldn’t accept the invitation to judge, knowing they might have to judge those varietals.

I know everyone palates are different, but keeping an open mind and focus on the wine.

By: RobinC

RobinC — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:59:58 +0000

It’s interesting to realize how subjective our tastes are and how easily influenced we are by marketing and by price and by suggestion. What to do? If you own a winery you can hire a marketer. If you’re a consumer, you can find some reputable producers and forget about ratings. There are over 6000 wineries in the U.S. each making more than one wine. That’s an awful lot of stories to tell.

By: Bob Foster

Bob Foster — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:49:23 +0000

All these comments assume the different scores are the result of the tasters’ palates. Another possibility is bottle variation. I’ve had groups of six bottles of the same wine where 3 were great, 2 were so-so, and one mediocre.

By: Doreen Pendgracs

Doreen Pendgracs — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:41:26 +0000

I agree with Gabe. I think that nowadays, people are interested in the story behind the product and not just a score. I do that with chocolate (I write about fine chocolate of the world) and never give scores, just my opinion and some background info.

By: Terroirist: A Daily Wine Blog » Daily Wine News: Promoting Balance

Terroirist: A Daily Wine Blog » Daily Wine News: Promoting Balance — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:01:14 +0000

[...] “One wine, two scores.” Dr. Vino has the scoop. [...]

By: gabe

gabe — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 03:17:59 +0000

Interesting to see you write back-to-back blogs on wine scores and tasting notes. I was just discussing on another blog about your tendency to write up various wines or wineries, but I can’t remember you ever giving a wine a point-score (aside from the time you gave a wine your highest compliment by saying you would buy a case of it). Nevertheless, your reviews do move the needle in the wine world; I’ve seen a winemaker pick up distribution in new states as a result of one of your blogs.

I’m not saying this to stroke your ego (although I do think your blog is great), just saying that scores and tasting notes seem to be on their way out. Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator have definitely carved out a niche, and I know that our winery has received a very real bump from their reviews. But as a new generation of wine drinkers moves up, I think that scores and top-10 lists and everything else are met with a healthy dose of scepticism.

The verbiage I hear these days is that people want a “story”, not a score. While I think this is an oversimplification, I think it speaks to the fact that today’s consumer wants to know about more than just how one particular wine tastes. I think (or maybe I hope) that people are now on the lookout for wineries they can believe in and support, thru good wines and bad. I know that is how I feel about wine. If I find a winery I like, I don’t give a crap what Robert Parker thinks. I hope that as more Americans continue to expand their relationship with wine, that becomes a more popular philosophy.

Anyway, thats my two cents

By: Zack

Zack — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 01:32:41 +0000

Actually, I think the point is that Mr. Peterson was saying the setting is always going to be different and even if some of the reviewers tasted them “blind” (or didn’t) that the tastings were unstandardizable.

A more interesting approach would be to standardize all other aspects of a wine (time of decanting, glass, etc.), but only change the time and order between tastes of wines varying from tannic, fruity, and austere at a single price point and see how the scores change. I bet not a single professional reviewer currently tastes in a way that physiologically makes sense.

Unfortunately you can’t standardize palates so you’d have to have one arm of novices, another of regular drinkers or test for super tasters, non-supertasters, and a third arm of actual MW, MS or top tier professional produces. Doubt they’d go along, but it’d sure be interesting!

By: Dom

Dom — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:36:46 +0000

When I worked at a winery we had our wine and bottled the same wine for a French client with his label and we got I think 88 points and I think they got 92 from a very well know usa wine magazine. Exact same wine he had great sales we struggled.

By: Lee Newby, AIWS

Lee Newby, AIWS — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:51:07 +0000

Great piece the fMRI takes away some of the issues of other blind/unblind taste tests. The cheap wine they liked best without price info was probably of the “international” style, a fruit forward reasonably balanced wine that the average wine drinker would like.

The average wine drinker is not looking for the complexity and length of a great wine nor the balance of high acidity so sweetness of a great Riesling, these things just turn them off the wine.