Frankly, if people are really interested in how wine writers like John Gilman or Allen Meadows rate Burgundy compared with California Pinot, email them and ask them. These are pretty accessible people and do not live in some far off land and speak a foreign language. I know that for me I have on occasion asked John Gilman questions by email and he has been responsive. Way back in 2007 when I went to Burgundy, I asked him for the name of a then under the radar Burgundy estate that I should try to visit and that would likely let me visit. He pointed me to Chandon de Briailles and I quickly became a fan of the estate.
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“Critics can’t even make music by rubbing their back legs together.” — Mel Brooks.
Burgundy also doesn’t typically do well in blind tastings because the majority people, even very experienced palates (including some critics) prefer fruit to structure.
That’s exacerbated in blind tasting situations where the wines are tasted in very small pours and rarely have an hour or three in the glass. Tasters rarely see the movement of the wines over time, which is an area Burgundy typically does well.
Also, 2015 was a hot vintage in Burgundy. It’s global warming already “helping” Burgundy unless you don’t actually want fruit driven wines.
I only have one “great Burgundy experience” that came from a one ounce taste, all the rest took place over hours.
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This.
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the idea that a 93 point Sancerre and a 93 point Chambolle Musigny can be compared relevantly.
To be honest, I also can’t wrap my head around the idea that a 93 point Dugat-Py Gevrey is comparable to a 93 point Lafarge Volnay.
Scores are fun and helpful at times, but I don’t think parsing them too closely is a good idea. The more exacting we expect them to be the less useful they will be. And ultimately, they’re as much a sub-conscious, and amorphous, expression of quality rather than an exaft representation.
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Amen
So true.
I agree with this Marcus. I used to give ratings to wine, but started having trouble doing so with respect to German wine - how can one give a ranking to a Kabinett and an Auslese that makes any sense in comparing the two. Too much just apples and oranges. Over a short period of time, I started to see that this was not limited to German wines (as you say) and stopped rating wines with very few exceptions - maybe a few 100 point wines and a few 50 point wines.
I understand that wine writers have to give points to wine. I remember tasting notes before points in wine publications and they were all but useless. But, they really can only be understood in the context of knowing the palate of the wine writer, having personal experience with the producer and the area, the accompanying tasting notes, etc., etc., etc. Still, even then I find the term “objective scoring” offensive. All ratings are subjective.
Funny to see this was created at the very beginning of Covid. Quite a zombie! To preface all of this, I do not use critic ratings to make my own purchasing decisions, but rather buy from producers I like and from importers I trust based on experience. Took me a few years to figure that out!
My original question is still reasonable. For the non-berserkers out there who haven’t read Jaspers Inside Burgundy cover to cover, or don’t live near a bunch of great independent wine shops with learned shopkeepers, how do they go about exploring Pinot noir? The next best thing to tasting widely is to read from those who do… and often similar notes of aroma, flavor, and texture show up in tasting notes. How else can they express the je ne sais qoui of “great bottle of Pinot”? Quite natural to say this was great, and I recall something greater and lesser. So the rating is in the middle.
I don’t think it is a stretch for all Pinot to be compared against the spiritual home of the grape. And while Burgundy might show poorly early on, professional critics have largely tasted these wines at various ages and can reasonably assess their quality at any step along the way. Additionally, there are loads of domestic Pinot that improve with age too (like from @Marcus_Goodfellow and most of my favored producers) that also aren’t showy when young.
So now what? I’ve tasted an exciting Cali Pinot that I paid $50 for. I go to seek out more Pinot, with e.g. The Wine Advocate as my guide. I see that Pinot received a score of 95 points and that the cheapest Burgundy receiving the same score is $200+. Am I ever going to seek the Burgundy? That’s a tough sell. I might never know that there was just as much enjoyment possible from a $39 Bourgogne that got ratings of 87-89 bc, well, that’s what good Bourgogne level stuff gets scored!
Do note that TWA was a random choice and that I’ve found @William_Kelley reviews to be useful enough that I actually subscribed a year ago. Basically only look at the stuff he writes there…
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I understand your point, which you make well. Yet it doesn’t seem to be the actual effect — Burgundy gets chased a lot more than New World pinot.
And if scores were really driving people into categories (instead of to wines within a category), the most overscored wines are probably Riesling, Port, Sauternes, yet demand is pretty weak in those categories in the critic era (Riesling seems to be picking up but only recently).
Score inflation across all regions would incline that higher score affectation is more likely than deliberately scoring low. Burgundy is one of the few places on the planet where the exploration of difference between wines/regions/communes is strong and the codification of vineyards via the Cru system combine to create a lot of enthusiasm and confidence in Burgundy buyers without as much need for scores to help guide consumers or generate enthusiasm.
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By eliminating from your scoring rubric things that are inherently different between different styles of wine. ← easier said than done, for sure; but possible, nonetheless.
Every wine I score starts with a score of 50, 5, 13, 18, ___ , and I add or subtract from there, depending on various things such as complexity, persistence, structure, balance, alcohol presence/perception, and proven/perceived ability to improve with age. I don’t claim this is perfect, nor do I claim to be a perfect taster, but I believe that a very strict, regimented, approach to scoring wines does allow one to “compare apples and oranges”, so to speak.
The best thing any taster can offer to himself or herself is Consistency. Any one taster’s notes/scores/opinions are best viewed in the context of (relative to) the same taster’s other notes/scores/opinions; the more consistent the taster, the more accurate/helpful their notes are — both to themselves, and others. There’s a reason my TN format, and approach to scoring wines, has remained exactly the same over all the years I’ve been doing it. Sure, over time, I’ve learned a lot, and this knowledge has certainly altered some of my final notes/scores/opinions — I don’t think there’s any escaping that — but I think there’s a lot to be said for being as methodical as possible when analyzing anything, particularly on a repeated basis over a (lengthy) period of time.
{pause} …
that said, I, too, have greatly curtailed how frequently I score wines, as the exercise offers significantly less utility to me than it used to, and it’s a lot of work when done in a fashion that I deem “proper”. In other words – most of the time – it’s just not worth it to me.
YMMV.
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Yep. Bet you just enjoy what you drink more.
When you score, how do you fit in context. The beautiful simple well made Bourgogne rouge that is perfect for a light dinner outside in the summer compared to the good but not great Volnay Premier Cru that is bigger and more complex than the Bourgogne Rouge but somehow just does not taste as beautiful?
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100%. Scores are helpful as a person begins to navigate through becoming a wine drinker, but the more experience one gets the less necessary/useful scores become. They paint in broad strokes and as we become more nuanced in our understanding they still are useful sign posts but we have our own built in GPS.
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This is spot on with my experience. I used scores early on in my journey to seek out the more quality minded (small) producers from the bulk juice, and importantly, the bulk juice masquerading as artisanal wine (which traps a lot of new drinkers, I’ve noticed).
With time, and a lot of research and travel, Ive largely ignored scores and can use plenty of other clues to spot great producers (I find one of most compelling clues is the relationships producers have to other great producers…friends, previously worked together for an extended period, etc.)
But…when I drop in on a region I’m less familiar with (eg South Africa), I find myself looking to scores again as a starting point.
I do my best to eliminate context when scoring.
There are plenty of times I purposely go looking for exactly that “simple Bourgogne rouge” (which I score lower), rather than the “good but not great 1er that is more complex” (which I score higher). Different wines have different utility/purposes. I was just talking with some family about this a couple days ago — I’d estimate that 96% - 97% of the bottles we open (seriously) are opened to go with whatever meal we’re having, and only a few times per year is the wine chosen before the food. Frequently, higher score does not equal “better with the meal” — in fact, score doesn’t play one bit into my decision as to which bottle to pull (e.g.: last week I pulled a 2013 Jean Tardy - Vosne Romanee “Vigneaux” to go with dinner, a wine I’ve generally pegged in the "mid to upper 80’s; I passed-over countless “better” (read: higher scoring) Pinots in favor of that one because I felt the Tardy would be best for that moment). IIRC, my gut impression score for last week’s bottle was “mid 80s”, yet I felt it worked perfectly as I had hoped it would with the meal. I give zero extra points for a wine “working as I had intended/hoped,” nor do I subtract any points for not working as I had intended/hoped.
… and, to put a bow on this long-winded reply, coming back to context: I always take a really good run at a wine and my TN before taking one bite of food. I’ll enjoy the wine with dinner, and might write a comment or two about the wine during dinner in my TN, but generally reserve the rest of my TN for a single post-dinner glass, after having waited a decent amount of time for my palate to reset. This is done in an effort to eliminate from my analysis of the wine, itself, the context of the meal. The wine is what it is, and I try to make my TNs reflect that. Over time, I think I’ve become better at adding some of my musings to my TNs, and I will throw-in a comment or two about the extent to which the wine paired well with the food, but as for the actual analysis of the wine itself – I try to make that strictly about the wine. Sorry for the long and rambling answer, which I’m not even sure answered your question.
Brian,
Thanks for the well thought out response. However, I must admit that when I read your post I wondered even more why you score. Obviously, because you like to do so is a sufficient reason.
But, two things stuck out at me.
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“I do my best to eliminate context when scoring.” Then, is the scoring really useful to you? My first thought is I try to focus on context when figuring out what to buy and drink (and you go on to say the same thing).
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" There are plenty of times I purposely go looking for exactly that “simple Bourgogne rouge” (which I score lower), rather than the “good but not great 1er that is more complex” (which I score higher)" Are you trying to score “objectively”? If so, do you score wines you prefer lower than wines you don’t like as much because you think you are supposed to do so? [I sometimes think there must be hypothetical 100 point wines on an objective scale that nobody actually likes.]
At this point — honestly — the primary reason I score some wines is because I’m a stat geek, and I like sorting, and resorting the scores/regions/varieties in different fashions. Scoring, in and of itself, no longer has much, if any, utility for me.
Answers to your (1) and (2):
(1). No. Not really. At this point, my TNs are enough.
(2). Am I trying to score “objectively”? Yes, I suppose. Again, I approach every single wine the exact same way, with efforts made to eliminate context from influencing my perceptions. I don’t score in a manner I “think I’m supposed to”; rather, I’ve decided on a method for analyzing and scoring wines, and I stick with it. I prefer different wines at different times for different purposes. Sometimes I will prefer that basic Bourgogne rouge over the Volnay 1er, and other times I’ll prefer that same Volnay 1er over that same basic Bourgogne rouge — that’s where context matters — but, if I’m succeeding at analyzing/scoring wines in the manner I intend, the scores for each wine will remain the same regardless of the context.
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I have not read the entire thread, but I just want to thank everyone for taking part of it. Very illuminating.
And I think the same arguments, and or comparisons could be made with old world, Bordeaux and modern Napa.
In the US, it seems that in general, if you make more restrained old world style lines, you are not rated as highly as if you make wines that are ‘in your face.’ Is this an overreaching stereotypical answer? Of course, but it really does seem to hold in many cases.
Cheers
Brian,
Thanks for all of your answers. You may be a stat geek, but I have my own way of being a geek with all of these questions. I should say that you absolutely are doing what you enjoy and therefore what is best for you.
My question has to do with what is another type of context. If you have two bottles each of wine from two producers and let us say that one from each producer comes from Gevrey Chambertin and the other from Volnay (could just as easily be one from the Russian River and the other from Lompac, the specific area does not matter. The two wines from producer one taste really good, but just alike (or at least very similar). The second producer’s wines are maybe not as rich and complex as the ones from the first producer but the wines taste entirely different from each other - wine one tastes like a prototypical Gevrey (or RRV) and wine two tastes like a Volnay (or a wine from Lompac). Which producer’s wines would you rate more highly.
Please note that a perfectly acceptable answer is that this is a trick question because, as I heard David Schildknecht say more than once (I bought a lot of wine from him a long time ago when he worked at retail in DC), wines of distinction are wines of distinctiveness so that the ones that taste different from each other will have something extra that make the wines taste better. But, I thought I would see how you answer this when you say you try to eliminate context when you are scoring. Does this just mean the occasion and the food or does it also extend to terroir and maybe other things.
You can probably see why I don’t rate wines anymore (I just find it impossible to do other than maybe with 100 point or so wines). I just can’t do it. I am trying to understand how you get comfortable scoring wines.
I think a lot of the issue is a lot of wines are scored from large tastings where bigger wines stand out and more elegant complex wines don’t at least for many wine writers - didn’t Robert Parker say that in his heyday he would try 75-100 wines a day. I have a lot of admiration for people like John Gilman and William Kelley who can taste as many wines as they do and still be able to pick out more elegant wines.