Dr Vino’s wine blog

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OK, people, did you really think that numerical wine ratings were objective? This gem has just been transmitted to the Dr. Vino Mobile World Headquarters, from Robert Parker’s interview earlier this year with the Naples (FL) Daily News:

For most people, I think, giving 100 points is almost setting up a situation for the people who are reading it … to be disappointed because you have somebody who’s well-known and has credibility saying it’s perfection in wine. And there’s always the issue: Is there perfection in wine?

I’ve always tried to explain it saying that, you know, I’m a very passionate person and an emotional person. I really think probably the only difference between a 96-, 97-, 98-, 99-, and 100-point wine is really the emotion of the moment. (emphasis added)

He admits elsewhere to being a supertaster, but here he says he’s no cyborg! There you go: relativism in ratings! That’s what I just mentioned in the comments section to Jay Miller, a critic at the Wine Advocate. Join the fray with your comments! Or see Jay Miller’s comments on the science of olfactory analysis.

Jay Miller, critic at Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, entered the fray with a couple of comments yesterday. Since these postings received many reader comments initially, I thought I would flag his reactions for you here since sometimes new comments can get lost.

Here’s the thread on grade inflation in wines. He comments about the trend and specifically discusses his recent reviews of Spanish wines, which included many high scores.

And here’s another one when I met him and tasted some Argentine wines with him.

Here’s a taste of his comment:

The palate fatigue argument, frankly, is total hogwash. The principal difficulty for amateurs is maintaining concentration, mental fatigue, not physical fatigue. Someone mentioned doing no more than 12 wines; that’s 30 minutes work. You taste, you spit, you write a note, taste again, spit, add (or not to your note) and on to the next wine. When you’ve had practice doing this, it’s simply not difficult.

But he concludes with this compliment: “Anyway, I like this site. I’ll try to get back more often.” Always welcome!

House of Mondavi’s crumbling foundation
“But by early 2004, Robert Mondavi Corp.’s reputation for high-quality wines had eroded, and the House of Mondavi was rent by conflict. His hand-picked successor, son Michael, had been removed as chairman, and the Mondavi family was on the brink of losing control of the company. Indeed, behind Michael’s ouster was a closely guarded secret: Robert faced a personal financial crisis that threatened to embarrass him and destroy his legacy.” [WSJ, with video!]

Are wine ratings pointless?
“A wine gets rated one time — a nanosecond in its life cycle,” says Sebastiani winemaker Mark Lyon. “From then on, its fate is determined. Aren’t wines always evolving? Shouldn’t they be rated every year?” From a story by W. Blake Gray in today’s SF Chron

Slow drinkers
“Boxed wine really does keep for six weeks, but would we keep one in our refrigerator for that long? There are so many interesting, affordable wines on the shelves that we’d rather taste several wines than one in a big box.” - John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter. But what about the low low price per glass if you can find a good one?!? [WSJ]

Do futures have no future?
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to play this game? I hope 2006 will not be a success. I hope it will really show the Bordelais the shortcomings of the system.” -Jancis Robinson in a podcast on Bordeaux futures, aka “en primeur”

So has he jumped the shark?

“BusinessWeek, US Airways in ad deal: Magazine will put Welch and wine columns in skies” [SF Chron]

Consumers who suspect they may never escape the omnipresence of wine god Robert Parker and management gurus Jack and Suzy Welch will soon have one more reason to think so: Starting next month, columns by Parker and the Welches will be laminated onto airplane pull-down tray tables as part of a deal to sell advertising on US Airways planes.

We all know that Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate essentially sets the market for wine. But how do the critics there taste the wines that they will make or break with their ratings?

Last week I had the chance to taste with Jay Miller, Ph.D., whose duties include vast swathes of the wine world ranging from Australasia to Iberia to the Pacific Northwest. I met with him to taste wines of Argentina. Dr. Jay and Dr. Vino, mano a mano. Or at least Riedel a Riedel.

I didn’t have to travel to Monkton, Maryland. The setting was actually the Argentine Consulate in midtown Manhattan. I walked into the palatial room, which must have been 40 x 25 w 12 ft ceilings, complete with friezes. On one side, Jay Miller was seated at a table with two settings. On the other side were hundreds of wine bottles, even more hundreds of Riedel glasses, and a small flock of people to pour. Read more…

Liquid assets
“I’d bought the wine before it was even bottled, as futures, for $350, and I unloaded it for enough money to purchase a car.” Elin McCoy on her 1982 Chateau Lafleur in a piece on the wine market today. The bluest blue chip? Lafite. But could a correction be coming? [Bloomberg]

Blog buyout
Gary Vaynerchuck, video blogger and owner of the store Wine Library in Springfield, NJ buys out the social networking site, Cork’d. I wonder what Dan and Dan are uncorking tonight? [via Lenndevours]

BYOB in NYC
NY mag has a list of six BYOBs with decent wine shops conveniently located around the corner. [NY mag]

Crank it up to 11
“Another barroom brawl on the BB…hey, is that what BB really stands for?” -Commenter in the fray about point inflation over on eBob. Keep scrolling (post 242) to when Mark Squires compares Parker to Galileo! [eBob]

Related: “Lake Wobegon wines” [Dr. V]
Map of New York City wine shops [Dr. V]

On Saturday at the University of Chicago, we had a fun time “critiquing the critics.” We discussed what is certainly one of the hottest hot-button issues in wine, the use of scores, and assessed a variety of other ways for evaluating wine. We tasted our way through ten wines and munched through some artisanal cheeses and breads.

The wines were from a range of styles and included bubbly, red and white. Some of the faves were:

* Bisol prosecco, NV (about $13; find this wine). Controversy came with this wine with high praise from Wine & Spirits (93 points) and faint praise wine Wine Spec (86 points). The yummy sparkler got a thumbs up from the group.

* William Fevre, Vaudesir, Grand Cru Chablis, 2004 (about $45; find this wine). I didn’t even realize that Rovani/Parker tasted Chablis but Rovani slapped a 93 on this one. ‘Tis good. Wonderful minerality with delicate acidity, which makes for a very nice mouthfeel and it has an excellent finish. No unanimity on this wine to be sure, with others preferring the American chardonnay, but I thought it was excellent, if pricey.

* Deisen, shiraz, Barossa, 2002 (about $50; find this wine). A brawny shiraz from down under with 15% alcohol. Parker 94. The class loved it with no dissenters. While the wine is very user friendly as far as shiraz-ma-taz is concerned, I found the alcohol to be somewhat off-putting.

* Castano, Hecula, monastrell, 2004. (about $10; find this wine). This is a darned good value vino since many participants thought it was at least $30. It’s got hints of that mourvedre gamey-ness and I think it could do with a few years in the cellar to tame it a bit. But still, it’s vigor would be great with game or grilled meats.

* Dominus, Napa, 2003 (about $100; find this wine) This was the most critically contested wine of the day with a huge spread between Parker’s 95 and the Wine Spec’s Jim Laube zinging it with an 81 (a score so low that the Wine Advocate would not even publish it). Laube didn’t even grumble about TCA, the usual cause of his zingers, simply going with the “disappointingly dry and austere.” I poured it blind and there were lots of pros and only two cons before I revealed the “controversy.”

It was a hedonistic afternoon. If you’re interested, there may be a couple of spaces left for my next class in May. Hope to see you there!

In the pages of BusinessWeek, Robert Parker calls some under $20 wines from Gallo, Beringer, and Kendall Jackson “excellent” to “very good.”

Meanwhile, in the main arena of the Parker Empire, the Wine Advocate, his new hire Dr. Jay Miller handed out high scores like candy–including five 100 point scores–to Spanish wines.

Is Robert Parker’s world turning into an enological equivalent of Lake Wobegon where all the wines are above average?

tags: wine | Robert Parker

Points: they’re possibly the most polarizing thing about wine. While many critics use the 100 point scale and many shops sell wines with flaps of paper touting the point scores, there is a backlash against points. A growing number of retailers favor staff-written “shelf-talkers” and many wine reviewing web sites–including this one–don’t use point scores in reviewing wines choosing instead the old-fashioned form of communication known as words.

While I understand what makes points popular and have to a certain extent made my peace with them, I still find them to impart a false sense of precision and objectivity while totally neglect the consuming context (e.g. “does this wine go with a my grilled asparagus?”). Moreover, once everyone starts rating wines out of 100, whom do you believe when two reviewers give the same wine different scores? I just found something that makes me want to reach for the dump bucket: Justwinepoints.com.

This apparently new web site only gives wines a point score out of 100. No words. No mention of who is the taster handing out the points. Just wine points because as their tag line reads, “because nothing else matters.” And, oh, they don’t mind sticking the producer for “added value” by charging to have a label image next to their points.

Surely this is so new and so decontextualized that nobody will care, right? Wrong. I just got an email blast from Sam’s Wine in Chicago (map it) touting the introductory vintage of a $15 sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. They turn to justwinepoints.com for the score: 99 points. But they had to add the words “lovely, rich and crisp.”

Let me give justwinepoints a review they’ll understand: 62. And the only reason that’s above failing is so that they don’t came and see me during office hours.

Related: “Are wine ratings running out of gas?” [NYT]

tags: wine | wine scores