Antonio explains score inflation...

From here, for those who still subscribe: http://www.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=243418

I suppose this is the statement that offers the most concise summary:

At the outset, my writing focused on a fairly small number of Piedmont estates that are mostly well-known today, with the exception of a few traditional estates that did not receive much coverage back then. As the years passed, my exposure to wines grew, but where? Was I tasting more great, iconic wines, or was the growth in mid and lower-tier properties? Mostly the latter. As a result of tasting hundreds and now thousands of wines a year that are average at best, my appreciation for what it takes to make a good wine, a great wine and a potentially historic wine has evolved. And that is why the scores for the best wines are higher today than they were years ago.

So it sounds like he’s saying that he has now had so much experience with average and poor wines, that he realized he was actually scoring good wines too low in the past.

[stirthepothal.gif]

Sounds more like the proverbial “if you can’t dazzle 'em with brilliance, then baffle 'em with bullshit.”

It would be so much simpler to just give his old boss credit for improving winemaking everywhere, resulting in universally higher scores.

You mean he could have adopted Drew Carey’s slogan from “Whose Line is it Anyway” …This a tasting note where everything is made up and points don’t matter!!

Bravo Larry!

That doesn’t even make sense… (his explanation).

I see. So, the wines that were good back then didn’t seem as good and the scores weren’t as high as they should have been because he didn’t realize how good they were, or how bad the others were in comparison, or exactly how much better the good ones were, but now that he understands wine more, he can see that more points should be given to wines like those to which he should have given more points back then, so if he tastes wines like those with scores that were too low, he will make amends by giving them extra-special scores in commemoration of those poor great wines that got scores that were lower than they deserved.

The key word here is “evolved”. I am baffled that you judge somebody so harshly who admits that his overview of the wine world has indeed “evolved”, i.e. his tastings add to his experience and knowledge. Sounds sensible to me.I find this more honest than the usual “I am Mr. Perfect” BS that you hear everywhere now. But maybe I am just so tired of this because I see it in my corporate environement every day.

C.

One would think that there would be plenty of room in the never-used 0-85 point range of the Parker/WA 100 point scale to accomodate all the ‘mid to lower tier’ wines one could want. Hard to see why scoring more average to mediocre wines would make it necessary to further abandon the 85-90+ point part of the range and shrink it to a scale of less than ten points.

A more honest confession would probably have read something like “after tasting thousands of wines I realized that numerical scores for infant wines are bullshit, so I collapsed things to a four point scale of less than 90 (let’s not even review), 90 (pretty good wine), 95 (really good wine), and 100 (awesome wine!). Then high-end producers learned how to ensure lots of glossy fruit in their barrel samples, and since most of what you can really be sure about in a barrel sample is fruit, all the young wines are tasting really good these days”.

Don’t come here often, eh?

I explained what has changed in my formal tasting process. Over the years, though, something else happened, which I have written about in the past on our board. I started tasting and drinking the widely acknowledged great wines from all over the world more frequently than in the past. I remember a dinner where the wines were 97 Quintarelli Alzero, 1989 Giacosa SSR, 1989 Haut-Brion, 1990 Rousseau Chambertin and 1990 La Tache. Or another: 1970 Latour/Vega Sicilia/Monfortino, or the lunch meant to feature 1970s-1990s DRC Richebourgs where a 1998 Soldera Riserva stole the show. These informal get togethers, although infrequent relative to my formal tastings, rightly or wrongly, had a profound impact on my appreciation of Italian wines relative to the great wines of the rest of the world. And yes, this is around the time when my ratings for Italian wines started to inch up to reflect the view that the best Italian wines were every bit as great as the best wines from other regions.

I prefer to deal with facts. There can be no question winemaking has improved all over the world. Look at the 2005 vintage in Piedmont. Weather forecasting told growers a big storm that might last over a week was approaching towards the end of the season, so most people brought the fruit in before the rains, which ended up lasting 7-10 days, depending on the exact place. Before weather forecasting, that fruit would have been brought in under or after the rain, and the quality of the wines would have been totally different. Those great $20 Langhe Nebbiolos? Many of them didn’t exist before the 2008/2009 crisis, but growers are being more selective as to what goes into their single-vineyard wines, so the Langhe Nebbiolos and straight (non-vineyard designate) Barolos/Barbarescos are better than ever. A famous Tuscan producer told me recently sales of his high-end red ($60+ retail) are down 75% from the go-go 1990s. Where is that juice going now? His sub $20 wine.

My view of wine criticism in general is different from that of some other critics out there. I have always strived to be exceedingly transparent and accessible. I think people deserve the truth. If the NYC Berserkers want to organize a small offline so we can discuss these issues mano a mano (just kidding!) I am in.

thanks Antonio–curious why you didn’t review Lewelling this year after you said such nice things last year.
Hourglass I understand [wink.gif]

It would be so much simpler to just give his old boss credit for improving winemaking everywhere, resulting in universally higher scores.

Then we should just stop drinking wines from the past, they have now all become irrelevant!! :wink:

Antonio, first of all, let me commend you on coming here, into the proverbial lion’s den to explain your scoring. It takes guts and you’ve always engaged in what can be difficult discourse adeptly (especially in comparison to your predecessor on certain beats with whom I’ve attempted to have conversations). Also, I did read much of your latest Napa report and I do think you’ve done a very good job rating the wines relative to each other in a way that’s as good as anyone I can imagine - of course there are wines where we disagree but that would be the case with anyone’s ratings, I would guess.

I’m not by any means an expert on your body of work so let me explain my understanding and perhaps you or someone else here correct me if I have anything wrong. My general understanding is that prior to you taking over duties for California for WA, you had never given any 99s or 100s (or was it 98-100?) to any Italian wines in your years of writing about them in the Piedmont Report or WA. I also think you gave few, if any, scores of that level in last year’s Napa report. Now you have given dozens of wines that level of rating in the latest Napa report.

So, my questions: are you saying these latest Napa wines are better than anything that you tasted in Italy all those years, or that you probably underscored some of those Italian wines in years past? Also, I believe you scored many fewer wines in the 98, 99, 100 range in last year’s Napa report, and I’m guessing the same holds true for your Italy reports last year, so even if your explanation is “evolution in your knowledge and views”, it would seem to me that evolution seems not so gradual, but quite recent and sudden. (And thus, it feels like you might be caving into pressure to give scores that are either more Bob-like, or a competitive response to the ever-escalating scores of certain other critics.) Do I have that wrong?

(For what it’s worth, this is a purely academic exercise for me. At some level I find splitting of hairs between a 95, a 97 or 100 to be silly. My view is that once you get to about 94-100 range, whether a wine feels like a 94 or 100 to anyone, even seasoned knowledgeable tasters, is almost entirely up to personal preference and not quality difference.)

Also, perhaps a more important question is, what is the status of your future at WA? No sense in overanalyzing this report if they are lame duck scores. Sorry if this is too direct on what I imagine may be a sensitive issue around WA these days.

Lastly, count me in for any NYC offline you participate in!

February 25. Wines of TRB in NYC! February 25, 2013 sign up and post wine. - Event Planner - Online or Offline - WineBerserkers

Alan, here are Antonio’s 100s with the region and date of score:

Barolo: Feb 2010
Champagne: Jul 2011
Barolo: Oct 2011
Tuscany: Jun 2012
Burgundy: Aug 2012
2 x Cali Cab: Dec 2012

For 99 point scores from Antonio, there were 5 Italian wines, 2 Champagnes, and a Burgundy rated 99 before the one recent Cali Cab.

Antonio,

Thanks for jumping on board - and thanks for your frankness. Truly appreciated. You say it as you see it - nothing more, nothing less. Just wish folks would let it be and appreciate it for what it is . . .

I also appreciate your comments about the likes of Maybach and others - if you like the wines, should one really care about an arbitrary score? Of course not . . .

Cheers.

Thanks for the posting, Antonio, and for being so open about this.

I take it from what you said here (and I don’t have access to eBob anymore) that you were referring to scores for Italian wines – that your view of the best of them had changed after tasting a broader range of wines more intensely. Have I got that right?

Ken are the scores out on ebob for Dec 2012? Two 100 pointers.

Thanks Ken - perhaps I have not framed the score cutoff correctly but I still have the same question whether we are looking at sdores from 98-100 or 96-100. Also, I think if you take into account the barrel scores given, there is a palpable shift upward in scores, as Antonio has admitted. To me it seems more shift than is warranted by CA vintage variation, and I’d like to square it with Antonio’s past work in Italy, etc. If it is about evolution, perhaps Antonio or someone else with broad knowledge of his scoring can shed light as to whether that evolution was truly gradual or more recent and sudden as it feels to me.

Thanks for the insights Antonio.

If i understand you correctly, It sounds like you’re saying that you were previously more conservative on the better/best Italian wines, due to having a limited frame of reference to the best wines from other regions?