Scoring A Wine You Just Don't Like

I have noticed on CT occasionally someone who just doesn’t care for a particular wine will offer a ridiculously low score. This seems unfair to me and it skews the average. What do you think? If a wine is just not the style you like should you score it or just offer your opinion and tasting note?

I think it’s up to the taster to score the wine for their own purpose, and that they have no responsibility to maintain some others’ desire for uniformity in the community scoring system. I know one fellow with a lot of experience and a consistent palate who uses a 0-100 point scale instead of a 50-100 point scale. For him, an 85 is a fantastic wine. If he were to post that on CT, it would be meaningless to others who don’t know his system. But very useful to him.

The CT average is meaningless. Too many voices singing in different keys.

You can always offset their low score with a much higher score.

And that would mean what? Just another bad key.

Maybe they’ve got it right and it’s your score that’s the ridiculously high one.

i hate it when i get comments on CT stating that my tastes are wrong and that my scores hurt the CT average and should be removed. tastes are subjective, so are scores.

Anytime when you have consumers rating products - this is what is going to happen -

The Beer Advocate and Ratebeer.com are much worse than cellartracker - There you will find a perfectly fine pilsner receive 17 points (out of 100) because… “…it’s ok for a pilsner…”

I use cellartracker quite a bit when looking for tasting notes on something I might be purchasing, and it’s much more even handed than other consumer sites, and usually 50% of the ratings are spot on. All you have to do is ignore the 97 point scores because it “went good with the pizza…”

It amuses me how people get so twisted up when someone scores a wine very low because they don’t like it. The score is meaningless without a descriptive note. If the note says why they didn’t like it and give it a 60 that is fine with me. Even then, you have to have some familiarity with the taster’s palate for it to be meaningful.

What is unfair about it? If I score a wine poorly, it’s because I really really didn’t like that wine. Should I have 80 puts as the baseline for a wine I feel is putrid?

I’ve actually mulled over this question more than once. I think that there’s a difference between a poorly made wine and a one whose style I don’t prefer. I usually don’t care for Beaujolais, but can understand that a wine might be made well. OTOH, a wine like Meiomi tastes like crap and should be scored the same.

If a wine is well made, but not my style, I will put it in my notes and I generally don’t score. If a wine is poorly made, I’ll score it poorly (assuming I score at all).

I´m not on CT - but if I don´t like the style of a wine, but think it nevertheless necessary to give a score I would try to rate simply the quality, stating in the comment that it´s not my style but IMHO it´s a worthy wine … (if it actually is)

That’s my general approach, too.

For example, at a recent dinner party were we had an array of wines, I posted notes on a bunch of wines, and scored them this way: “NR, not my style” for a 2001 Harlan; 80 for a poorly made 2003 Leoville Poyferre; NR for a new release of a Bordeaux that was way too primary for me to assess; and 93 for a 2000 D’Armailhac that was glowing.

If the wine is poorly made, score it poorly. If it’s not your style, don’t rate it unless you can be fair and objective (which I cannot).

I think in any case you have to read the tasting notes, as people’s ideas of what constitutes a 90 differ. I’ve read plenty of tasting notes in which the taster was not at all enthralled by the wine, so he “only” gave it a 90. I’m thinking, the whole tone of the notes is negative but yet the wine gets a 90. Most often it is because it is a wine that is “supposed” to be a good or great one. So somehow the mediocre great ones get higher scores than mediocre lesser known wines just because of reputation. That skews the numbers as well.

Surely the whole point of rating a wine it to give your opinion? You’re saying that only people who like wines should rate them? Makes the whole rating thing a lot less useful.

Ratings are already skewed by the selection process. Most of us are buying wines that we have a good idea that we will like – favorite producers, grapes, etc. Plus, you have cognitive dissonance factoring into play…if you spend good money on a bottle of wine, you almost always want to like it.

I don’t mind numbers on wine ratings, but think that they are of limited value.

Not all styles are equally worthy. Judgment means being able to tell the difference between a style that’s fine but not to one’s taste and a style that intrinsically sucks. I find it interesting that people who like these sucky styles get so defensive about it. Apparently it’s not enough for them to enjoy their purchases, they need everybody else to congratulate them on their good taste, too. Bunch of fascists.

“…a style that intrinsically sucks…”

Umm…got any mirrors in your house?

Someone should email a complaint to Eric about this!

This argument sounds like the same one all of us can have with ‘professional reviewers’ - let’s not forget that the idea of an ‘objective wine review’, whether by a professional or just ‘one of us’, is truly an OXYMORON.

As others have pointed out, it’s best to read the notes anyways - and if the person is being ‘honest’, their dislike for the style should come across there.

But why would one look at a single score on CT without understanding what this person ‘usually’ likes to see how your palates align? No different than pulling out a single RMP or JL or whatever score only to find that it differs widely from your preferences . . .

Scores are meaningless without context - period.

Cheers.