I pulled an issue from the 80s and it isn’t there.
Thanks, Jay. I think that was inserted later. Don’t know why, since it never seemed to be true of the way he gave out scores.
Exactly! So what he said in the box in the newsletter about the scale simply didn’t comport with the way he scored.
The only conclusion I drew was that he didn’t like Beaujolais very much unless it tasted like Chateauneuf du Pape.
You are right that there are some good values in Burgundy. I just have been burned so many times by $50 Burgundy that was meh. I should be more open minded and will never turn one down if someone is offering me a pour, but the thought of paying big bucks for average wine is scaring me off.
I’ve had some similar experiences Brian (Burgundy disappointment). Hah, I’ve had them for every region of Pinot Noir. The cure is tasting tasting tasting. One of the best events of the past few years was the La Paulee ‘Off the Grid’ - lesser known regions of Burgundy. Many fine discoveries, as well as lots of things I didn’t much love.
Back to scores: There’s another system commonly in use that helps us understand the meaning of scores between regions. Words. More universally comprehensible than a Richter-type scale (though I love that idea!). Critics I find useful make good use of narrative to help us understand individual scores and context. Many posters here don’t use scores but their descriptions tell us what we need to know.
Certainly there’s lots of mediocre Burgundy. I’ve had a couple of wonderful red Loire pinots in the last year or so. It’s a lighter style, but they were full of fruit, and not overly tart in the way you might expect from a cooler climate. And they go for less than $25.
I had a Muscadet (years ago, don’t recall what) that far exceeded the norm. Some of the old Chalone Melon de Bourgogne pushed above 90, imo. Not sure if the potential of that grape has been found. That’s the problem with the idea of some sort of relativistic lower standard for a grape, region or type.
When I first got into wine, I made a star system which was essentially “Now that I’ve tried this wine, how much would I pay for a bottle to drink?” Pure personal economic value. So, a wine could be fine and get a zero. A wine I felt enjoyable-but-overpriced could become a buy on clearance sale. It’s a good exercise. Some humble wine you enjoy may be a steal. (Being an economic exercise, you can also ask: How many you’d actually drink? Is there a diminishing return on enjoyment? Is there an opportunity cost regarding other wines you could be trying?) Some excellent prestige wines might be overpriced for the pleasure they give you.
Burt-era W-S are far from the only exceptions. That shows a flaw in your comparison. My guess is you understand Burgundy well enough to heavily bias which wines you age and try. The characteristcs you describe of CA PNs sound like the type I would rate zero or less. Or, 75 to 88 points on the 100 point scale, which is exactly what I did at an extensive tasting of the then current release prestige 2005s. Lots of critic and board darlings, with the winemakers in attendance. At Pinot Paradise the same year (all Santa Cruz Mountains, many obscure, tiny, quite rustic) I rated the wines 84-94 points. That’s a median of around 83-84 versus one of 90-91. Wines priced $45-85 vs $20-45. Wines with big ratings from Wine Spectator vs wines mostly not rated.
That makes sense to me Howard, thanks for that observation. Burg is so hierarchical, I can see need to maintain consistency in scores I suppose.
Remember, I think this is one of multiple reasons I find scoring wine to be inherently flawed.
This is a great anecdote. My wife and I saw Joe Dirt together years ago. Not memorable to me or most others I’d guess, but I do recall being amused at times. I also recall my wife being emotionally moved by the ending; I think there was some Joe Dirt parental issues that came up perhaps? Anyways, my wife is a softy for that sort of thing and it made Joe Dirt a memorable (dare I say good?) movie to her. So my 86 on Joe Dirt might have been a 93 to her.
Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, be it wine or David Spade movies.
Great thread. Recently joined, so I am late to the game. As a lover of both Burgundy and Ca. pinot, I will start by saying I have never, ever had a single Ca. pinot that possessed the haunting, and mysterious quality of a great wine by Leroy or Anne Gros. Never. They are utterly profound. Granted, I have been blessed with friends who bought them long ago, and were willing to share bottles that are now thousands of dollars each. Are they worth it? No. Are they 50 times better than a great Ca. pinot at $100? No. But, they are amazing, and they are singular. Completely unique and profoundly amazing creations!
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Maybe —-
California Pinot needs scores to be high in order to sell well and/or be popular, whereas burgundy does not. If this is true, this implies scores are materially more important to one crowd than they are to the other (note: I said more important, which means both crowds assign some non-zero level of importance to scores). And, if that’s true, then we have one group who might tend towards giving higher scores than does the other group – – because — well, it’s more important to them!
We keep surmising the high scores are somehow an affectation of the drinkers of California pinot.
It is also possible that excessively hard scoring is an affectation of the Burg crowd. It definitely can feel like that in these kinds of threads.
We all have our things, I’m sure I do too.
That further assumes that the main wine publications scheme their scoring to favor sales in one category over another. I don’t see all those things being true, but that’s just one person’s opinion.
I don’t think it’s a scheme; rather, I think it may be a natural consequence of differences between groups. I also think your point
is worth considering, although my knee-jerk reaction to that is that humans generally will have an affectation for the positive (high scores) over the negative (low scores). Nonetheless, it’s worth a careful look, if this is something one cares deeply about, which I don’t, so … yeah.
At the end of the day, however, I do find it curious, these apparent scoring differences between the regions. But I still don’t care. 
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Perhaps comparing scoring across regions is a pointless exercise. A 95 point Burgundy is an excellent Burgundy. A 97 point California Pinot Noir is an excellent California Pinot Noir. That said they are inherently different, except that they are made from the same grape. Everything else about the two wines is different, and so evaluating one score (already a subjective, an ultimately meaningless number except in how it influences sales) against the other is not worth the mental exercise.
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lots of good comment in this thread.
I’ve a mild idea that hierarchies are often somewhat murky - even just flagging that a wine is a producer’s first wine, or equivalent, or a lesser rendition would be useful info often. So in Rioja, it’s fairly straightforward given the Reserva system, but unless you are well versed Burgundy is slightly less clear and in the US in particular, I don’t think there’s anything that usefully grades out the perceived level of a wine in-house?
Price obviously does this to some degree but then if the absolute best wine a new or small producer makes costs $60 and it’s great, then maybe comparing that to the first wine of somewhere that charges multiples of that is fair