I know those things influence me. If a cheap wine shows much better than expected, I will gush over it. If it cost me an arm and a leg and does not meet expectations, will judge it harsher than otherwise.
I don’t want to do it, but just can’t help it. I guess you have to be a pro to be immune to those influences. 
Should have made it a poll.
With all the wine in our store, most of my favorites are in the “reasonable” range. The occasional outstanding $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ wine makes me appreciate them, but my palate must be tempered by my wallet. Therefore, I forget how good the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ wine was and go back to appreciating my “reasonable” range wines. I will admit that I have had a few of those expensive wines that were not to my taste/palate and grumbled about wasting money. One example that comes to mind was a $160.00 Barolo I had in an upity Italian restaurant. My thought was that if you take the basket off a cheap bottle of Chianti, you can charge an arm and a leg for it. They tasted the same to me.
If anyone can make it a new poll and take it from there would be appreciated. I brought it up because of my 96 Dom Ruinart thread. We can also eliminate this thread.
Most certainly, yes.
if a reasonably priced wine behave like a wine a bracket ot two above, I will usually score higher. At the same time, if a higher ecpectationed wine goes slightly ‘belly down’, I will consider that as well and score even lower than the lower priced wine.
I am with you, Otto.
Of course it does ! If a Petrus is not at the level I do expect for this jewel, then, I am furious. if a 1961 Palmer is corked, yes, I am furious too.
if a nice beaujolais at <$ 15 is too acid or too bananas style, I just say to myself : next time, avoid cheap wines. It is my fault.
in other words, up to a certain amount of $ and knowledge, the choices are mine and I am the guilty guy. Over that, when I buy a name, an AOC, a top brand, and if it does not meet my expectations,yes, I blame the producer. And I am right in doing so.
And, of course since it is the topic, the same reactions for my scores if I am in a tasting session.
Amen.
Agree 100% with what Francis just said - as I just experienced with Rich Trimpi, when that bottle (or two bottles, in this case ![[swearing.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/8a0d3f3461d40641d294442fc2be78039bf94d19.gif "[swearing.gif]"){kind=small}
) of '86 Lafite does not perform up to expectation, I’m ticked. On the other hand, a dud bottle of the $17 Produttori Nebbiolo Langhe is relatively painless and easily remedied.
I think so. I probably get excited when a less expensive wine performs well and add a few points. I go the opposite direction if the wine is more expensive. It’s not an intentional skewing, just the byproduct of subjectivity.
On the flip side, though, price anchors as well. It’s harder to give an expensive wine a really low score. Or a high score to a truly cheap wine.
Yeah great point Greg. That happens too, I guess I just don’t want to open myself to ridicule from others! ![[pwn.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/3/3d5d493eaefe29f8a37971ea1ffbb65a4e2b21aa.gif "pwn"){kind=small}
No.
yeah, I’ll be ticked off if an expensive or famous wine is flawed or doesn’t perform to what i’d expect, but I won’t adjust my score. Nor do I take a lesss pricey wine and inflate the score because it outperformed what I might expect from that wine at that price.
Keep in mind that I rarely buy $10 wines that drastically outperform - some might perform in the $15-$20 range, but I haven’t had any that have equally a good $40 bottle. I expect most $10-15 bottles to be solidly in the low to mid-high 80s, say from 82 to 88 or so. Now, I’m using the scale as it’s really defined by WS/RP/ST etc… so that means they range from good to very good, but don’t reach outstanding (90). To me, the 90 point score is a nonlinear jump up - there’s a spark, a something special that a wine has to have to go from 89 to 90+… and most inexpensive wines lack that. Some wines in the $20-$25 range have it, but that’s really pretty rare too.
In contrast, a poorly performing (non-flawed) expensive wine might only get an 87 if it, too, is lacking in the ‘something special’ that I look for to push a wine past 90. My recommendation on buying would be different if the 87 point wine was $15 vs $150… but not the score.
PS: This is why i don’t take CT scores seriously - people vary too much in how they score wines and don’t interpret the scale the same way… and you cannot meaningfully compare scores if what the scale means isn’t agreed on.
Pretty much the same sentiment here.
Also, if the label is too “cutesy”, I will be very skeptical before tasting it.
I find occasionally that I’ll be drinking a very inexpensive Muscadet/Beaujolais/etc. on a weeknight, after a long day of work, and not thinking about it critically at all… and then when the bottle is almost empty I realize that I’ve been drinking a stunningly good wine that if I’d thought harder about it would warrant a high score and a glowing note. I don’t find it as hard to give expensive/prestigious wines low scores as I do to give daily drinkers exceptionally high scores–because I occasionally am tricked into not giving cheap wines enough focused attention.
Another random point to this fundamental question. I find that I probably over-score overachieving QPR wines, but largely because they have succeeded in what they’re trying to do and not because I’m surprised at how delicious they are. One could argue that the perfect Beaujolais or Muscadet should warrant 100 points–for precisely the same reason that if you were scoring football players, both Peyton Manning and Shane Lechler would register in the upper 90s, even though one is a legend and the other obscure. But this is probably the Burgundy drinker in me speaking, in the sense that to me a paramount virtue of a wine is that it lives up to the potential of its terroir/appellation. None of this, of course, means that exceptional Cotes du Rhone tastes better than mid-tier Musigny.
With a rather large cellar that is 55% Bordeaux and is now probably 50% Petite Chateau, I will admit that I enter a tasting of my bottles with lower expectations for the lesser rated and priced wines.
I still feel that my palate is able to discern those characteristics that I enjoy without consideration of price and rating by others.
Of the last 6 97+ Parker rated wines I opened I only enjoyed 3.
I thoroughly enjoyed a 2003 Charmail recently that cost me $17.00.
I expected less and was pleasantly surprised.
So to answer Otto’s question, the price point does have impact on my tasting of wines going in to pouring them. The enjoyment factor probably less so.
Depends on the peer group. Also depends on what definitions you use for the scale. Take Parker’s definition of the 96-100 range
An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase, and consume.
Do even the best Muscadet or Beaujoulais hit those heights? Keep in mind I love both. Too many people casually toss out “95!!!” when they mean “damn, that’s good.” For your own use, of course, it doesn’t matter. But when communicating to others it does… except that without a common definition…
And that’s why I never note scores in my CT notes.
+1. You’ve been talking a lot of sense lately, Rick. I might have to start liking you if you keep this up. ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
All of these are interesting questions. I can definitely see the argument where Beaujolais isn’t going to reach 98 points–because it isn’t a wine that’s meant to be profound. I do this myself, reserving anything over 94 or so for wines that reach a more spiritual level…
But at the same time, I would be interested in a wine reviewer who rated wines the same way that the Penguin Guide rates classical music. The Penguin Guide doesn’t tell you which classical pieces are the best–it doesn’t distinguish between Beethoven’s 1st and his 9th–it only tells you which recording is the best of each (i.e., which recording best realizes the potential of the score). If a wine drinker is already sophisticated enough to know what a Muscadet is supposed to taste like, then a scale where a Muscadet could receive 100 points would make a lot of sense, even if it wouldn’t be as good of a wine “in the glass” as a 100 point clos de beze. Like anything else, wine criticism is most valuable when wines are compared against their peer groups. To say that a Foillard Morgon is 91 points and El Nido is 98 doesn’t really tell you anything.
Of course, if actually implemented such a wine rating system could be confusing and probably create as many questions as it answers (i.e., it would elevate unending debates about typicity), but to me it’s an interesting idea.
For me it is more of whether I would consider purchasing the wine in question again. I tend to score towards the low side. Something I give 83-85 points to is (for me) a pretty good value below $20 but as the price starts to climb, the wine better be better.
I’m generally a terrible judge of inexpensive wines. Especially super-inexpensive ones (below $8). I know what I would want in a wine but I have a hard time imagining what other people would like. I am generally wrong about what people like at this price level. Certain areas of the world that I frequently drink (Spanish wines, Austrian wines for example) probably don’t fall into this category.
Whoa… Scores are based on what is in the bottle and the glass. Period, end of note. That is precisely why most critics taste blind when possible…to avoid the bias of scoring on the basis of fame or fortune! The ony thing that might be adjusted after knowing the wine is the drinking window and that based indeed on past experience with the winery.
Notes on value for money should not be related to the score but should be noted separately in the crit or the article.
Best
Rogov
Daniel, (and the only reason I call you Daniel and not Mr Rogov is because you asked) the idea here is that wines are tasted non blind, and therefore the label and price point would impact the scoring. If the wine is completely blind then you are absolutely correct.
However, when I talk blind, they shoud really be blind, as in I have not f-ing clue what’s out there. I have a feeling that if the tasters knew that some cheappies were gonna be included, it would drive all scoring down so that they don’t end up looking the fool.
Why in the hell would the score of how good the wine is be affected by the price? That just mystifies me. I can certainly understand makng a buying decision or not based on how the wine performs vs its price… but I just don’t get the idea that you’d raise the score of a wine that overperforms because it’s cheap. Um… THAT"S NOT WHAT SCORES MEAN.