2018 Sonoma getting high praise from Jeb Dunnuck

[larry_schaffer]

Am I the only one that thinks Dunnuck gives high praise to everything?

I feel like every score he hands out is 96+. I’m clearly exaggerating, but am I?

It certainly appears that way. I think you can substitute in nearly every region in CA in the title instead of ‘Sonoma’ and you may see the same results. No disrespect to the wineries that continue to excel and get great scores, and I did not submit but I was going to post something on Facebook wondering if I was the only one who did NOT get a 94+ score . . .

[Jeb_Dunnuck]

Am I the only one that thinks Dunnuck gives high praise to everything?

I feel like every score he hands out is 96+. I’m clearly exaggerating, but am I?

Yeah, I’m sure it seems that way, but it’s not true. If you’re not a subscriber to a publication, what you see from the trade will only be higher rated wines… However, of the 10,370 wines I reviewed over the past 12 months, only 12% were rated 96 or higher. It’s also important to know that I focus on what I think are the top wineries. I don’t have the time to do large, open invite tastings (there are pluses and minuses to every approach to covering regions) and chose to focus on who I think are the producers subscribers should be aware of. This will skew results towards higher ratings. I plotted the score distribution over the past 12 months and am pretty happy with the results (YMMV).

[Jeb_Dunnuck]

It seems like it and he seems to really like the more full bodied modern styles more. I actually care more about the notes and the description than the actual points. They both do a good job describing the wine which usually tells me if I’ll like it. My palate is more aligned to AG.

I’d push back slightly on the full-bodied/modern styled comment. The top rated 2018 Pinots from the Sonoma report were from DuMOL, Kistler (the style today is very different from in the past), Rivers Marie, Ferrren, Rochioli, Wayferer, Morlet, Cattleya, Paul Hobs, and Sojourn. If you can find a common style there, you’re better than I am! BTW, I also love the wines from Failla!

All the best,
Jeb

[Brian_Tuite]

D’oh!

[ykwon]

Lolol

[Dav3_Dyr0ff]

I’m just going to leave this here:

the 10,370 wines I reviewed over the past 12 months

[brigcampbell]

Long ago the CT crew ran an analysis of Jeb’s scores versus CT way before TWA.

It’s over in the CT forum but Jeb’s points ran 2-4 higher than CT. Not being critical as he was very consistent in the range and that’s all you really need, a reference.

I think people critical of his TWA scores were not taking into consideration the high quality of wines he tasted, although fruit forward, vs grinding through ripe vintage CdP when he was focused there.

You can’t say the guy isn’t passionate and sincere.

[Paul_Gordon]

Long ago the CT crew ran an analysis of Jeb’s scores versus CT way before TWA.

It’s over in the CT forum but Jeb’s points ran 2-4 higher than CT. Not being critical as he was very consistent in the range and that’s all you really need, a reference.

I think people critical of his TWA scores were not taking into consideration the high quality of wines he tasted, although fruit forward, vs grinding through ripe vintage CdP when he was focused there.

You can’t say the guy isn’t passionate and sincere.

Brig

The average CT user simply does not use the full score range. I am guilty of this also.
You can read many a glowing CT review with a 92-93pt score. We are all waiting for some mythical wines that do not exist.

Paul

[J_Rock]

Yeah, to be clear, I really like Jeb’s reviews and love that my palate seems to have a huge overlap with his, and he probably reviews more wines I’m interested in (excluding Rieslings) than any other reviewer. Even if I don’t exactly agree with his scores all of the time (and how often would that happen with anyone), if he recommends a wine, there’s a very high chance that I’ll really enjoy it. I’m just a bit surprised that the wines I get or consider getting seem to always get phenomenal scores from him, although, I guess it makes sense that I’m more interested in what some people would consider really high quality wines.

[Brian_Tuite]

Long ago the CT crew ran an analysis of Jeb’s scores versus CT way before TWA.

It’s over in the CT forum but Jeb’s points ran 2-4 higher than CT. Not being critical as he was very consistent in the range and that’s all you really need, a reference.

I think people critical of his TWA scores were not taking into consideration the high quality of wines he tasted, although fruit forward, vs grinding through ripe vintage CdP when he was focused there.

You can’t say the guy isn’t passionate and sincere.

But everything in CT is a 90. Now that’s consistency!

[Brian_Tuite]

Yeah, to be clear, I really like Jeb’s reviews and love that my palate seems to have a huge overlap with his, and he probably reviews more wines I’m interested in (excluding Rieslings) than any other reviewer. Even if I don’t exactly agree with his scores all of the time (and how often would that happen with anyone), if he recommends a wine, there’s a very high chance that I’ll really enjoy it. I’m just a bit surprised that the wines I get or consider getting seem to always get phenomenal scores from him, although, I guess it makes sense that I’m more interested in what some people would consider really high quality wines.

Face it, you just have good taste.

[F.Daner]

Hi Jeb,

Thanks for the feedback and I should qualify my thoughts below. I was not referring to your 2018 Sonoma report and it was more of a general statement based on your notes that I’ve read. I also was not inferring you only like a certain style of wine. I have read enough notes on wines we both tried to know that you seem to enjoy more full bodied modern wines than I generally do. For all critics I prefer notes and not the scores to get a feel for whether I’ll enjoy the wines or not. Good to hear your thoughts on Failla.

My main point of tagging Brian’s post was being surprised that there was not more buzz on the board on the quality of 2018 across Napa and Sonoma. So whose buying and what have you bought so far ? For me lousy timing as I went deep on 2016 Barolo. So far I’ve purchased Littorai, Rivers Marie, Di Costanzo, William and Mary and Failla. I’ll add quite a bit more next year for what I can find that is not sold out or later releases like MacDonald.

Cheers

It seems like it and he seems to really like the more full bodied modern styles more. I actually care more about the notes and the description than the actual points. They both do a good job describing the wine which usually tells me if I’ll like it. My palate is more aligned to AG.

I’d push back slightly on the full-bodied/modern styled comment. The top rated 2018 Pinots from the Sonoma report were from DuMOL, Kistler (the style today is very different from in the past), Rivers Marie, Ferrren, Rochioli, Wayferer, Morlet, Cattleya, Paul Hobs, and Sojourn. If you can find a common style there, you’re better than I am! BTW, I also love the wines from Failla!

All the best,
Jeb

[Robert.A.Jr]

Long ago the CT crew ran an analysis of Jeb’s scores versus CT way before TWA.

It’s over in the CT forum but Jeb’s points ran 2-4 higher than CT. Not being critical as he was very consistent in the range and that’s all you really need, a reference.

I think people critical of his TWA scores were not taking into consideration the high quality of wines he tasted, although fruit forward, vs grinding through ripe vintage CdP when he was focused there.

You can’t say the guy isn’t passionate and sincere.

But everything in CT is a 90. Now that’s consistency!

Can’t you say that about most of the critics? Occasionally when I look at a wine on CT, it is almost always below the critics’ ratings. Shouldn’t surprise anyone given the aggregate.

[Philip_G]

Long ago the CT crew ran an analysis of Jeb’s scores versus CT way before TWA.

It’s over in the CT forum but Jeb’s points ran 2-4 higher than CT. Not being critical as he was very consistent in the range and that’s all you really need, a reference.

I think people critical of his TWA scores were not taking into consideration the high quality of wines he tasted, although fruit forward, vs grinding through ripe vintage CdP when he was focused there.

You can’t say the guy isn’t passionate and sincere.

Brig

The average CT user simply does not use the full score range. I am guilty of this also.
You can read many a glowing CT review with a 92-93pt score. We are all waiting for some mythical wines that do not exist.

Paul

I’m somewhat guilty of this, although I tend to score in the 88, 90, 93, 95, 95+ ranges. 92-93 is not usually a glowing review for me but a very good wine, I would say 95 is glowing. I’ll admit that I don’t know if I can distinguish between a 97pt and 100pt wine, so tend to top out around 97. I think my scores are usually a point or a few below JD and LPB, I often just don’t find some of the extra subtleties that they’re finding, which I guess should be expected since they do this for a living.

[mike_pobega]

This just arrived. After my first taste I had to find more. People always looking out for me and I was pointed towards these at $35 per. I was through my original 3 by June.
Ant then I had 13. Drank

[ykwon]

This just arrived. After my first taste I had to find more. People always looking out for me and I was pointed towards these at $35 per. I was through my original 3 by June.
Ant then I had 13. Drank

Nice score!! I only had three which I drank within a month. Wish I could find more as well.

[Roy_Piper]

Jeb is wrong.

2019 is the best Pinot year ever. No question. 2019 will be for Pinot what 2013 was for Cab. You heard it here first. And I don’t even make Pinot!

[Brian_S_t_o_t_t_e_r]

I’m just going to leave this here:

the 10,370 wines I reviewed over the past 12 months

That’s an average of 28 wines/day

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

Long ago the CT crew ran an analysis of Jeb’s scores versus CT way before TWA.

It’s over in the CT forum but Jeb’s points ran 2-4 higher than CT. Not being critical as he was very consistent in the range and that’s all you really need, a reference.

I think people critical of his TWA scores were not taking into consideration the high quality of wines he tasted, although fruit forward, vs grinding through ripe vintage CdP when he was focused there.

You can’t say the guy isn’t passionate and sincere.

Brig

The average CT user simply does not use the full score range. I am guilty of this also.
You can read many a glowing CT review with a 92-93pt score. We are all waiting for some mythical wines that do not exist.

Paul

I’m guilty of this, but I put forth considerable effort to be consistent.

Of all the wines I’ve scored in CT (approx. 33% of all wines for which I’ve written a TN), I gave a score of 96 points or higher to a mere 1.9% of them.