Does Parker review wines under 85 points?

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

My understanding is that he does not post scores of wines below that threshold. He reviews a wine and if it does not rate 85 puntos, then it doesn’t make the publication.

[Yoni_O_v_a_d_i_a]

It is my understanding (and I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong) that if a wine scores under 85, he does not publish the review. Consumer advocacy at it’s best…

EDIT: Tex beat me to it.

[Tom_Gutting]

I dislike that he won’t publish a list of all wines tasted but that score lower. At least let us know – rather than let us think it hasn’t been tasted. Why not just do a “not recommended” list?

[John_Cabot]

In the Ca. rhone report he gave a couple of Bob Linquists(Qupe) wines 79 and 81.

[Scott_Manlin]

Parker publishes on a 15 point scale, he rates on a 50, effectively…

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

@John Cabot

In the Ca. rhone report he gave a couple of Bob Linquists(Qupe) wines 79 and 81.

You are correct. Evidently there are 11 sub 85 point wines in the CA Rhone Report. I didn’t think he published those…my bad.

[Steve_Manzi]

Answer: Yes

Explanation: There listed. Wines that used to be rated 84 pts, are now 89 pts. Geez, what is wrong with you people? Anyone knows that.

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

@Serge Birbrair

I have a good feel that majority of you are having wine geniuses for the kids.
Those who have no kids - you can borrow neighbor’s kids, but alas, this won’t give one bragging rights.

Care to prove me wrong?

My daughter is almost six…I’ll try it out this weekend.

[ToddFrench]

@Bill Tex Landreth

@Serge Birbrair

I have a good feel that majority of you are having wine geniuses for the kids.
Those who have no kids - you can borrow neighbor’s kids, but alas, this won’t give one bragging rights.

Care to prove me wrong?

My daughter is almost six…I’ll try it out this weekend.

This sounds like fun!

[Victor_Hong]

@Bill Tex Landreth

My understanding is that he does not post scores of wines below that threshold. He reviews a wine and if it does not rate 85 puntos, then it doesn’t make the publication.

He allocates those to Jay Stuart Miller.

[John_Cabot]

@Bill Tex Landreth

@Serge Birbrair

I have a good feel that majority of you are having wine geniuses for the kids.
Those who have no kids - you can borrow neighbor’s kids, but alas, this won’t give one bragging rights.

Care to prove me wrong?

My daughter is almost six…I’ll try it out this weekend.

How old’s the boy, Bill?

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

3 1/2

[Yoni_O_v_a_d_i_a]

@Serge Birbrair

@Bill Tex Landreth

@Serge Birbrair

I have a good feel that majority of you are having wine geniuses for the kids.
Those who have no kids - you can borrow neighbor’s kids, but alas, this won’t give one bragging rights.

Care to prove me wrong?

My daughter is almost six…I’ll try it out this weekend.

a bit young, but if she grasps the concept - she’ll do just fine


…and let’s exclude CA Rhones, let’s not traumatize the children

Damn… I wish my son was 8 1/2 years older!! I would love to see the outcome of this.

[Tom_Gutting]

@Serge Birbrair

@Tom Gutting

I dislike that he won’t publish a list of all wines tasted but that score lower. At least let us know – rather than let us think it hasn’t been tasted. Why not just do a “not recommended” list?

Lawsuits. Every “not recommended” wine is a potential liability. Lawyers fees eat into profits pretty fast…
unless you have Geico Umbrella Policy which covers you for
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…unless they kick you out if they have to defend you every week.

You’re not serious, Serge … lawsuits for a not recommended wine? Not on giving an opinion. Such a lawsuit would be frittering away money on the part of the plaintiff.

Love the bell curve graph. This is a hilarious thread. There is good humor over here.

[Gordon_Fitz]

The WS bascially has the same policies of not publishing scores that are below 85. Their exceptions seem to be for wines that are widely available with significant distribution, or wines of what they deem to be of significant industry interest. An example of the either might be a Silver Oak. Large volume and well known.

However, if Joe Putz winery, a new start-up small scale operation out of Sonoma County, sends in wine for review and Laube rates it 84 or below, it gets no review. Parker does basically the same. When you hear winemakers complain that they submit wines to Parker or WS and never get reviews, 9 times out of 10, you just got the answer. The two mags don’t want to get into peeing contests with all these new guys and just don’t do the reviews unless they rate them 85+.

A couple years back, Laube did a blog on this issue. He put in the blog the percent of wines submitted that don’t get written reviews under this policy. I was amazed, but it was a fairly high number. Parker is probably the same. Laube even commented once on the number of new winery and/or label startups that occur every year, that only last 2-3 year and are gone. Guess they don’t like killing them off faster by posting an 80 rating for their wine.

[Bob_Wood]

@Gordon Fitz

The WS bascially has the same policies of not publishing scores that are below 85. Their exceptions seem to be for wines that are widely available with significant distribution, or wines of what they deem to be of significant industry interest. An example of the either might be a Silver Oak. Large volume and well known.

Yes, that would explain why Harvey “Kimchi” Steiman awarded (and the WS published) scores in the high 70s and very low 80s for the component wines (average production around 150 cases each) of the 2004 (?) Bethel Heights Casteel Reserve, which got a score of either 92 or 93.

[Tom_Gutting]

@Gordon Fitz

The WS bascially has the same policies of not publishing scores that are below 85. Their exceptions seem to be for wines that are widely available with significant distribution, or wines of what they deem to be of significant industry interest. An example of the either might be a Silver Oak. Large volume and well known.

WS has also taken to publishing on the web site a great deal of wines, many with low scores, that don’t appear in print. Not sure if everything goes online.

Does WA publish anything online that doesn’t appear in the print edition?

[Terence_T-Bone_Livingston]

@Gordon Fitz

The WS bascially has the same policies of not publishing scores that are below 85. Their exceptions seem to be for wines that are widely available with significant distribution, or wines of what they deem to be of significant industry interest. An example of the either might be a Silver Oak. Large volume and well known.

Have to call bullshit on this Gordon. This is just not true. There have been many 70-79 pt. ratings on small, boutique wineries (albeit scores and not actual reviews).

However, if Joe Putz winery, a new start-up small scale operation out of Sonoma County, sends in wine for review and Laube rates it 84 or below, it gets no review. Parker does basically the same. When you hear winemakers complain that they submit wines to Parker or WS and never get reviews, 9 times out of 10, you just got the answer. The two mags don’t want to get into peeing contests with all these new guys and just don’t do the reviews unless they rate them 85+.

Also have to call bullshit here as well. First of all, Joe Putz winiery does not even have to submit his wines for review, and Laube and Parker can pick them off the shelves themselves and rate them accordingly, even if it’s a shitty score and without alerting the winery that they had done so. Parker made it plain and clear that “everyone in the world wants their wines rated by him.” I called bullshit on this several years back on ebob board, and he was steadfast on it. That’s when I left.

.

You may think this is how they do it, but it’s not. Not trying to get in a pissing match here, but the truth needs to be told.

[Alan_C_h_a_n]

These answers don’t seem quite right to me, unless I misread them.

Parker must publish scores well below 85 points - that’s how the whole flap about a wine mistakenly getting 62 points came about. I remember seeing those scores in the printed newsletter, before the flap ever happened, actually. It may be that anything below 85 gets no written notes, just the score.

Also, I feel like WS prints scores above 75. I could swear I’ve seen 79s, 77s, etc.

[Yoni_O_v_a_d_i_a]

Look at the back pages of any WS. They DO print scores of wines under 85, but they DON’T give tasting notes for those wines. I remember when they first started doing that they said it was in the interest of saving space as those wines are usually not recomended.