He has used points in a more structured way in the past & he took grief for that as well.
Can’t win.
Points are pointless.
I see california wines don’t deserve be a 93 from you. 
I’m not Adrian, but you can get flavors of botrytis even without noble rot on them. Just overly ripe almost sweet flavors.
Adrian’s whole point is who cares. Why should we care if he puts 92 on all of them. Why should we care if the notes he posted here accurately reflect what he put on CT?
Adrian writes great detailed notes that convey his opinion of the quality of the wine very well.
FWIW, I agree on this point. For my money, Rhys’ take on syrah is more distinctive than its take on pinot. Put another way, there are a dozen producers of CA pinot I like to follow that are in the same style camp as Rhys. The number of CA producers of syrah I regularly follow is much, much smaller. The 2010 Horseshoe Syrah is truly a N. Rhone doppelganger.
Adrian -
Nice detailed write up. I am a fan of Rhys. For me, they seem to find great balance from whole clusters between the fruit and cluster elements. Whether these are not well made in your opinion or just not the style to your taste is not my curiosity. What is however are some American Pinots’ that you like and regularly drink. In my ongoing wine exploration, I am curious to know of different producers and styles I need to try.
Regards,
Mark
I’ll chime in as a long time buyer of Rhys with now a sizable amount that I’m trying to remain bullish on.
Initially I thought the chards might end up being the real score but I’ve come full circle on that and I’m no longer buying the whites. I don’t think they’ve age into anything better than they show in their youth. And a 2011 Horseshoe I opened recently came across like a 15 year old wine.
I’ve never been a big syrah drinker, but I agree that these wines may end up being the true prize of the Rhys portfolio. A 2010 Horseshoe last year blew me away. I’m not the least bit surprised it was the star of the show in Adrian’s tasting.
The pinots have been more of a hit or miss, but when they’ve been good I’ve really enjoyed them so I continue to hold out hope for their positive evolution.
A shame they ripped out a vineyard block to convert it to pinot.
All true, but then the let the notes speak for themselves. As others noted, the repeating points joke might’ve been mildly amusing the first time. But now it just serves as a distraction and creates confusion, as is clear from all the HUH? comments from people who don’t know Adrian or compulsively follow this board every hour …
There are few enough people who post detailed useful notes (I haven’t for quite a while) that it seems ungrateful to cavil at Adrian getting a private chuckle over his commentary on ratings.
I know this, which is why I was asking whether Adrian was using it as shorthand for a particular kind of sweetness (“botrytis-like”), or whether he believes it is from actual botrytis. I wouldn’t have thought that the Rhys guys were aiming for that kind of boost in sweetness to leave in such berries, but perhaps they thought a small number of berries with rot would add interesting complexity.
I like Adrian’s notes, but if he’s trying to make the point that scores don’t matter, or that he doesn’t care about them, he’s not doing a good job. He cares about them and more than a little; in fact, he cares about them so much he has his own scoring system, which he describes on CT. It’s perfectly reasonable to say points don’t matter, but if that’s the case, then don’t use them at all.
Why should we care is my point? Sorry I should have been clear. Adrian’s point is who cares what his scores are. He’s said it, the scores are for him and him alone, but people keep criticizing him for having points too low.
I agree, Charlie. There are so many out there who are so focused on points, especially from those producers who’s bottles they hold, that it freaks them out when the points don’t match their expectations or their experiences.
I appreciate Adrian’s notes and just take his point score with a grain of salt. That is my attitude towards pretty much every reviewer as well 
Posted below is Adrian’s scoring scale on CT. I like that he informs readers of his scale and what his scores mean to him; by informing his readers, his readers then know how to interpret his scores, thereby making his scores meaningful. I would enjoy it if Adrian used his scoring system when he posts here, as well, but I won’t begrudge the man a now-tired running joke, and I definitely find it repugnant that others would criticize him for his scoring scale.
I use a bucketing methodology for scoring. To say that a 92-pointer is better than a 91-pointer implies a false sense of precision.
I use (almost exclusively) the following scores:
100: eyes-roll-into-the-back-of-your-head good
98: pretty much perfect, but I can imagine how it might be even better
95: superlative
93: good to great
90: above average (I tend to buy things that I know I’d like, so grade inflation has moved my midpoint here)
88, 85: what I would like to imagine is the average quality of all available wine
83, 80: below average
70: has alcohol and is presumably made of grapes, though let’s be honest, there’s probably more oak than grapes here
60: a crime against winemaking along the likes of Quilceda Creek, Marcassin, Colgin, or Pavie. If you like those, (1) my notes aren’t for you and (2) you’re wrong.
50: can be weaponized for use in chemical warfare. Serving this results in violations of the Geneva Convention and requires recourse to the International Criminal Court.The scores are a reflection of my own impression of the wine. I will not grade for the style. A wine that I don’t like is, by postulate, a bad wine.
I’d like a date so I can go back to the time when it was funny. I am not sure such a time existed
Oh, come on. Lighten up.
Points matter. It shows who won.
Adrian’s scores remind me of Tom Wolfe, who was asked once in an interview why he wore white linen suits even in winter. He explained that he’d bought one that turned out to be too warm to wear in summer so he wore it out of season a few times. It annoyed people so much that he kept on wearing it, he said.
Incidently, I noted that these wines all rated 92, down from Adrian’s usual 93.
Inspired, I tried one of the pinots to celebrate National Wine Day:
-
2009 Rhys Pinot Noir Horseshoe Vineyard - USA, California, San Francisco Bay, Santa Cruz Mountains (5/25/2017)
Pretty, clear red. Initially it was sweet cherries with a hint of menthol and spices, gradually opening and deepening, adding complexity with earth, balsam and pine. Fleshy and a bit thick with the oak, but still enough acid to not to flabby. The tannins were noticeable, but subsumed into the fruit. Quite tasty, and got better at the end, which raised the score to the final number. (91 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
Comparing to Adrian’s note and (real) score (83) is instructive on the limits of both scoring and notes. We both identified the fruit as sweet, but differ on the desirability of it: simply, I like it (cherries are local to where I grew up and you eat them when they are sweet and not bitter), and he doesn’t. I picked up more pinot flavor typicity, which I also liked and increased my appreciation for the wine; just ballparking, but it probably raised my score from high 80’s to the 91. Both of us noted that the wine didn’t have much “shape;” although my impression was that the “fleshy” did not slump into “flabby,” these are metaphors that lack precision, and I could easily see somebody being more negative on the body of the wine. It certainly wasn’t “taut” or “airy,” which might be deemed to be praiseworthy in a pinot. In the end, it was a good California pinot that had the great benefit of tasting very good. Happy National Wine Day!