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!