We visited this Château this past July. Fascinating place and really great wines. We had several vintages including 2011, 14, and 15, but not the sample of 16. The 2015 was really great. I’m very interested in trying the 2016 vintage from them.
Justin, how was the '14?
Arguably you could posit the exact opposite as well: Having spent your hard-earned money on an esteemed estate that you have loved for years, and in the face of everyone gushing over it, perhaps you are actually more inclined to like it. I mean really, why would you want confirm that the wine you just dropped your coin on actually sucks, lol (and I’m not saying Figeac sucks).
Jeff and I are friends, I respect his views and love his website, but if you read his posts, he is highly subjective. He is the Fox News to my MSNBC, we are both biased by our definitive tastes. We are both partisans (granted, he is a pro and I’m a rank amateur). I’m not sure how anyone “objectively” tastes wine anyway. I do not want to follow critics that try to do that, I’d rather read someone like Gilman who knows what he likes, calls it as he sees it, and if you don’t like it, read the others.
I too am waiting on a case of 2016 Leoville Barton.
WS barrel score was 96-99
Better than he gave the 2010 which was 94-97
http://www.timatkin.com/articles?1777
Cracked me up.
You are too nice. To me, there is no such thing as a pro. Further, there can only be the attempt at objectivity. Even with the purest intentions, in the end, one cannot extoll the virtues of a wine, or anything, really, that he doesn’t appreciate or understand. If all of us taste things the exact same way, maybe you could make the case for true objectivity. Your Gilman reference is spot on. Love it or hate it, I can learn something either way.
Vinous scores out now. I guess Neal Martin is also a joke, as he gave Cos a 100.
VCC, Mouton and Latour sweep the 100-point derby. Haut Brion came up just short as NM gave it a 99.
I don’t understand the problem with giving wines 100 point scores. In Neal Martin’s review he says he tasted 900 wines. 4 got a 100. 3 got a 99. Less than 1% got the top two scores. That seems reasonable to me. What are these score ranges for otherwise?
NM’s lowest score is 81. So, it’s a 20 point scale. I’ll let someone else graph the score distribution but I for one find this useful.
Minor correction: five received 100 from NM - Cos, Figeac, Latour, Mouton and VCC. Four got a 99: Ausone, Haut Brion, LMHB and Montrose.
Not sure what you mean about the Cos.
If you look at the Farr Vintner website, there are 9 different critics scoring the wines. The English are there in force as are Americans. Jeff Leve for some reason is not included, nor are the Europeans particularly the French, including major figures such as Bettane and Quarin. There is so much information out there, and a ton of competing scores. My feeling is that if you put an infinite number of wine critics into a room with each with a typewriter, you will indeed find that every single wine has been scored 100.
BTW one critic you won’t find in Bordeaux is Gilman, who stopped going there some years ago.
Ok.
Doesn’t change my point.
For me, I don’t really care about the numbers a critic assigns. More important are the relative values and the clarity about the meaning of the scores. I.e does the critic have a palate that I can understand? E.g. Galloni’s palate for Barolo and Barbaresco makes sense to me. His relative scores are consistent with my experience. He regularly scores higher than me, but his overall impressions are useful. Honestly I’m not sure about Neal Martin (and Galloni) for Bordeaux. Still assessing.
I respect the fact that Jeff has carved himself a niche and that some follow what he likes or dislikes, but the idea of him somehow being a “critic” is straight from the upside down world of Stranger Things!
I am not making any judgement here, but I understand he is widely read, his web site is free and it seems to be the second or third website in any google search.
I think he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Perotti Brown and Suckling.
Why did Gilman stop going?
Have them blinded and mixed in with some lesser houses and see what happens? Now I guess I understand one rep’s comment “vintage of the century, like 82, 47…” ![[stirthepothal.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f40faec63ca1018898a40805efbf9f0066a3d205.gif "[stirthepothal.gif]"){kind=small}
Robert…how about 43 tasted? ![[grin.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/5/53ba06e9b6e4b370ae7e3d7b3702ad1bda0a2d8e.gif "grin"){kind=small}
That’s what I got through at the UGC on Tuesday and I want to think I was able to assess the wines.
FWIW, and I’m a long way from a Bordeaux maven, I think the vintage was a good one with a lot of slightly riper and open and silky wines. I have talked to some friends at the event, and while we disagree on which wines we liked best, we do agree on the overall. My notes are in the “30 + 2016 classed growths” thread that David Sawyer started.
Those scores, and this discussion, is no small part of why I chose to get a ticket and taste for myself this year. My fave was Pichon Comtesse and Valandraud, Lynch Bages, Leoville and Langoa-Barton, Les Carmes, Canon and a number of other luminaries were there. Know what I bought? a bottle of Beausejour-Becot and 2 bottles of Rouget. Truly, chacun a son gout.
Kwa Heri
Mike
Ouch! Talk about damning with faint praise! As a serious maven said in post #5, “Suckling and Perotti Brown have completely stripped their personal brands of any value with these ludicrous scores.”
Honestly, I find Jeff’s note vastly more useful than Suckling’s. The latter’s judgment scale has become so warped it is entirely useless to me and his notes read like gibberish.
As for Perotti Brown, I dipped out of the ebob world before she started reviewing bdx, so I can’t claim to know a lot about her notes, but she has zero credibility with me on every subject on which I am informed. The craven commercialism with which she has handled he RMP franchise makes me highly skeptical about whether her reviews are merits-based.
Jeff, on the other hand, seems to me to have a talent for describing what he tastes and, like Gilmore, is unafraid to “call it likes he sees it.” If you know “how he sees it,” even if your palate is very different, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you are going to find in the bottle. I am not sure what else one would look for in a reviewer/critic. Consistency and clarity of communication. I suppose it would be more useful to me if Jeff and I had the same tastes, but I can learn a lot about a wine from what Jeff says (even if I ignore some of his full-throated recommendations).
As for Scott’s OP, I think his signature is apt: of the over 7,000 bdx producers (and, I assume, the several hundred in the report), 8 got 100 points. I’m no good at math, but 8/7,000 seems to me to be something just a little shy of “every single bdx.” And being LBP, it can hardly be surprising if three of the five 1sts got a 100. Indeed, I find it more interesting that the other two are not included. And she deserves at least a little credit for going (slightly) beyond the predictable by including Cos and VCC. If it is a great vintage (and tout la monde says it is) why would eight 100s produce such skepticism?
Praise indeed!!
Seriously though, I get your point. At least with Leve you know what you’re getting.
As for Google, it depends perhaps on where you are and what you type.
Over here, “Top Bordeaux 2015” for example gets you Suckling in pole position, with something called “Cavissima” in second place, Leve coming halfway down the second page. Cavissima actually has a handy little table, listing their “top seven Samourai” of the critics, with all the scores for the big name wines (NM, AG, JS, JR, plus Moleswort (sic), Quarin, and someone called Gabriel).
“Best Bordeaux 2015” suits Jeff better - he’s on the first page.
Better still, “What are the best Bordeaux wines in 2016” gets you the Drinks Business in first place, followed by Jeff Leve in second…in front of Suckling!! So if one uses Google to find opinions about wine, fair enough.
As for Farr Vintners, I suppose they use the stuff they feel is useful for their market. I notice they quote Tim Atkin, Derek Smedley and Matthew Jukes. You’re right that there are no French critics, but I’m hardly surprised.
Gilman stopped going after polling his readers who wanted him to focus on things other than young Bordeaux. He still does a lot of tastings of older clarets, but not the new vintages.
A little snarky. Jeff and I have very different tastes, but he is consistent, and that is an extremely valuable trait.
I also think his website is a wonderful resource, and does not get the appreciation it deserves.
Mark Golodetz wrote:
I also think his website is a wonderful resource, and does not get the appreciation it deserves.
I agree 100% with this. Jeff’s website has an abundance of information about Bordeaux and it is a nice resource, especially considering that there is currently no charge to access it. And I find his tasting notes very useful and consistent, even if my palate does not completely align with his.
Ed
Always the voice of reason, Neal! And I concur. I’m not a fan of how Jeff promotes these modernist consultants, as I think they are anathema to the history and profile of that great region, but it is his personal taste. We diverge, but I know where he stands, and from reading this note, can generally tell if I will like the wine or not. His website is a wonderful resource on the history, winemaking and vineyards of so many Chateaux in Bordeaux, the coverage is quite broad.