I am very grateful to many of you who have contributed to the discussion of the first part. I tried my best to reflect on that in my second article and also share some observations.
I invite you to a discussion. Which are your favourite vineyards of red Burgundy?
Hahaha ))) It takes time to do the write up. In a couple of weeks, should be ready. Follow me or stay tuned as I will definitely share it here once it’s published.
I read your report. I’m fine with identifying preferences, and making favorite lists is a pastime in many hobbies. But as a statistician, my problem is with your numbers. To put it simply, wine scores are garbage. And if you are basing your ratings on these scores, then garbage-in, garbage out.
Why is wine scoring garbage?
were the scores given wines given in blind tastings? If not, they are biased, which corrupts the stats.
are the scores reproducible? In general no, critic scores vary from bottle to bottle. Which leads to…
Is the 100 point scale overly precise? Yes, and this false precision makes it look like science rather than pseudo-science. It’s part of the con.
Is there consensus on what qualities make wine great, and therefore can be used as scoring criteria? Hell no, especially in Burgundy. Parker and his international style came close to converting the world to his idea of great wine, all power and extract. Where was his greatest failure and retreat? Burgundy, where character trumps power. How do you put character on a 100 point scale? Oak usage and stem usage are two choices which could impact score, but who is to say which decisions are better? If there was an objective truth, all the wine making would converge on that style. Happily, it doesn’t.
I could go on. But no, that’s enough.
What are burg tastings like in Latvia? In tastings I’ve attended in the US and UK, folks certainly will express preferences, they spend more time making observations. And I’ve never heard anyone score a wine, at least not without irony.
Personally, I would argue that Musigny belongs in your Supreme category. The fact that it only has a weighting of 97.63 (talk about false precision!), won’t convince me otherwise. I’ve got 50 reasons, but a score ain’t one.
If you consider this list of 31 vineyards to be the best, I’m cool with that. If you want to follow Lavalle, Morris, and others, and create a best-of-the-best category, that seems reasonable. But why would you choose to break the best into four groups? Do you have a statistical reason for it? Or do you just think we need to go to a regional<village<premier<third<second<first<supreme?
It’s funny, I don’t hate your final list, I just have a few minor quibbles. But I am biased, I am shaped by the same group-think we all are, including the critics. So of course, critics perpetuate the group think in their scoring, and you perpetuate it in your summary. It makes me wonder, perhaps it’s all a very long con, started by some monks a thousand years ago. (Yes, I’m kidding, mostly.)
I’d happily drink any of the 31 wines with you. But I’d rather talk about the wine’s qualities rather than its scores. That is the soul of burgundy.
First of all, thank you so much for reading my text. I really appreciate your time investment.
I see your point. I did address it in my text as well. I came across similar point of view before. The denial of any numeric score to be applied to the wines of Burgundy. Well, there is the opposite point of view as well. And I am personally fine with both. I enjoy Burgundy wine and observe the nuances, complexity of the aromas and flavours, its length and trying to assess its potential. I simply sit back and enjoy every sip of it. On the other hand I find it very natural to many humans to put things in some structure and order. If one feels like scoring the wine as a way to compliment the expression of ones emotions induced by the wine, I am fine with that as well. Moreover, many great experts who I learnt Burgundy from use numerical scores. And they did help me to structure my thinking and helped my learning the region. I am talking now about Coates, Meadows, Robinson and many others. I might agree or disagree with certain scores, but I do accept them as one of the means of expressing the impression. Such scores, all of them are subjective by nature. No doubts. However, the amount of data that has been created and collected over decades is immense.
It is now very difficult for me to deny the fact that all these scores have no impact at all. They actually do. They create a great deal of an impact. They set the trends. I am pretty confident that probably all of us are biased with those scores in some way. Those of us who have own great experience with Burgundy may have own strong opinion that can be inline with trends or not. That is the diversity of opinions. And that is even better. That creates new thinking, sets new trends, etc.
The idea of my research was to look at the data and see what comes up. That is not the dogma. That is not my personal opinion. That is just an attempt to reflect on current trends and see beyond that.
And one of the findings that has been already confirmed by other readers of my research, that some of the terroirs are blessed by very talented winemakers owning plots there and making wine.
So when discussing the terroir, what exactly do we mean? Are we talking about its potential, its nobility or breed? Or we are talking about the wines made of the grapes coming from such terroir? There is a very finite amount of wines available from each terroir. New generations of winemakers come, new landlords appear, new winemakers emerge, climate changes, farming and winemaking techniques also change. But Richebourg remains Richebourg. What about the wines of Richebourg?
What happened when Henri Jayer passed away. What will happen once Madame Lalou era is over? What is happening to terroir such as Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet when Caroline Morey starts making wine there? How Corton-Charlemagne will change once DRC release their wines?
Have a look at Marsannay appellation. This is where lots of happening right now.
There are many other observations that I have playing with all these scores.
That is the kind of discussion I would love to have. My study is just the invitation.
But one can blame it, attack it and suggest that I shut the fck up as scores are bullsht. Full stop ))
This was an amazing read, thank you for sharing it. I have tried only a select few so I am in no place to comment on the ratings. My only note, It says when talking about Romanée-Conti, “Since 1985, the vineyard has been cultivated according to the principles of biodynamics.” They went Organic in 1985, but Biodynamic was not till much later. I cannot recall the exact date, I know they went entirely Biodynamic in 2007, but that specific Vineyard could have been before that.
Thank you again for sharing, I truly loved reading it…
