Best to you, A, and the kids from us, brother! We hope everyone’s well.
I’m right there with the OP’ sentiments. The best approach for me, though, is just to ignore threads that go off the rails, or are overly snarky.
And it’s berserkers! Kudos to Scott for expressing an opinion and opening himself to some criticism 
3 Likes
I’d much rather be corrected so I’m not wrong next time than have my error go uncorrected so I keep repeating it.
So thank you, Otto. We need you on that wall.
4 Likes
We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.
None of us have actually had wine since, well I forget. My last tasting was redolent of warm colitas.
1 Like
5 Likes
I was literally about to post that.
1 Like
I’ve lost count of how many hundreds of times somebody has linked that picture to me.
No wonder, that’s me in there all right.
6 Likes
Why would someone post about conspiracy theories? Make you think…
4 Likes
Believe it or not, I published an article long ago about potential advertising bias in Wine Spectator. I collected all of the reviews that I could from WS online in 1999 and 2000 and matched them to reviews from WA. I hand collected data on advertising intensity for different wineries/firms from several years worth of print issues of WS. My memory of the paper is pretty foggy at this point (since I wrote it as a graduate student), but I remember finding the following patterns:
- The delta between WS ratings and WA ratings was about one point, on average, for wines from WS advertisers.
- I found some evidence that advertisers wines were more likely to be retasted, with the higher score being reported. (I was only able to find this evidence because the WS tasting notes would state when WS was reporting the higher score.)
- I found no evidence that awards like Spectator Selection or Cellar Selection were related to advertising after controlling for WS rating. The likelihood of receiving these awards was increasing in production and decreasing in price, however.
- I could not find any test for inclusion in the WS Top 100, and I don’t remember why I would have excluded this test… or why the referee wouldn’t have requested it.
Here is what I concluded: “At worst, the tests for biased ratings suggest that Wine Spectator rates wines from advertisers almost one point higher than wines from non-advertisers. However, selective retastings can explain at most half of this bias and then only within the set of U.S. wines rated by both Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate. Given Wine Spectator’s claim that it rates wines blind, the remaining difference in ratings may simply reflect consistent differences in how the two publications rate quality, which leads to predictable differences in advertising.”
I can’t say whether any of these patterns hold in more recent data, but the interpretation that wineries whose styles appeal to WS tasters are more likely to want to advertising in WS is hard for me to dismiss.
Source: Reuter, Jonathan, “Does Advertising Bias Product Reviews? An Analysis of Wine Ratings”, Journal of Wine Economics, Volume 4, Issue 2, Winter 2009, Pages 125–151.
21 Likes
I actually thought this was going to be about conduct in some of the political or quasi-political fora!
It may be an interesting topic, but what a stupid patronizing title.
7 Likes
1 point…in other words meaningless difference, especially considering different reviewers, and the fact that palates are not calibrated.
3 Likes
This is the only topic @Scott_McDonald has created “almost as long as it (this board)
has existed.”
Thanks for chiming in. On to ignore you go with the other trolls who contribute nothing.
3 Likes
– Raise hand–
I wrote that in the WS Top 100 thread.
I’ll preface by saying i’m not responding below to argue the validity of my comment, or to debate the WS Top 100 issue on this thread. Happy to in its designated thread. I’m highlighting the utter stupidity of the OP (the post not the person). You can agree or disagree with an opinion… but “Be Better”? awww shucks, sorry not all of us are good enough for ya. … but here we go:
When you say “I wish people would be more responsible and informed when they level accusations.”
- Can you tell me how to become more informed in this case?
- How is what i wrote an accusation?
Let’s take both of them in order:
FIRST - Can you tell me how to be more informed?
Unless someone has seen independently audited financial statements or are somehow are inside the executive meetings at WS, how does one become more informed of what is ACTUALLY the case?
In fact, can you tell me how my comment of “rating is based on advertising dollar…” is any more or less INFORMED than someone else’s comment (J_dornellas in this case) of “it is based on aggregate score, availability, and price”?
That’s a rhetorical question - you can’t. We can only base our opinion on what we observe/believe. And what I’ve observed (as well as some others), is that throughout the years:
- there are a lot of ads in the WS magazine by a several known/notable producers (i.e. antinori as an example, along with some bdx brands, south american brands, etc).
- while their scores may not be wildly inflated vs non advertisers, when the top 100 gets released, a lot of these brands that have large amounts of advertising presence, often appear in the top 10.
So my question/comment frankly feels quite valid - Does one actually believe that these two are purely a coincidence? or do you believe advertising is a factor in the top 100 list. If you either 1) believe it’s pure coincidence or 2) disagree with the assertion all together and feel that the high ad producers do NOT get an outsized share of the top 10, feel free to comment on the thread and support with your own observation. isn’t that what a forum is for?
SECOND - How is what i wrote an accusation?
Doesn’t an accusation imply there are some wrong doing?
Clearly you read what i wrote since you decided to start a new thread and quote it. But if you read further down that thread, i also said that pay to play is a perfectly acceptable business model, and one that works for them. There’s NOTHING WRONG with it in a free market. So how is that an accusation when I specifically state there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing? so what am i accusing them? perfectly normal business practice, albeit one that isn’t best for wine consumers? I’m making the point that calling out the producer bias based on advertising is not some conspiracy theory
And then there is Decanter. I recall someone far more experienced than I telling me the old saw about Decanter journalists had special sensors on their cars that opened the trunk when they were in proximity to First Growth chateaux.
1 Like
Minus the occasional shortness between certain members towards each other, I find those who participate in WB to be somewhat “better” than the standard internet decorum. Clearly YMMV but it’s easy to ignore whatever you find offensive. And welcome to the internet 
1 Like
Right back atcha my friend 
Just a subjective impression: I always felt the ads more often appeared after being included in ratings.
I never got the impression that the ratings skewed in favor of their big advertisers.
If anything, and this is just me, I always felt they favored very very small productions wines because it would be harder for readers to seek out those wines and find that WS might be full of it. (My very own conspiracy theory!)
“40 cases made, you’ll never find any, 99 points. Prove us wrong.”
I am joking, just in case it wasn’t apparent.
1 Like
Your self-assessed, apparently superior, level of virtue is duly noted…
Michael
1 Like
I’ve been accused of beating my wife for asking if a berserker was factoring price into his wine evaluation. I’m still around. Ignore the worst, like the best !
2 Likes