I use it as a contra indicator for some regions. If it is expensive and 100 points, for example in Napa, I will most likely not like the wine.
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The topic is how you would score.
Price on a given wine can be highly variable, from a discrepancy between SRP at the winery and a lower range at actual retail. We see clearance pricing on some wines, and others skyrocket in price over a short period of time. I see wines I used to buy for $20 going for $160 now (where time-value of money would be under $30). How would factoring price into a fixed score even work?
Exactly. Points should rate the quality of the wine regardless of price. Measuring value is different.
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+1
On the other hand if I am honest, my potential disappointment is likely to increase with a higher priced bottle.
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But that shouldnāt impact the score.
Or if it did, it would lower the score, which, in turn, would increase your disappointment, which, in turnā¦ I hope you see where this is going.
Thats why blind tasting is awesome. Takes away some bias.
But no, scores should not depend on price (otherwise every GC Burgundy would score in the 70s). Quality is objective, vaiue is subjective.
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I think what @Otto_Forsberg does, to give a score based on the wine itself, then separately to comment about how strong or poor the value is relative to the cost, is a good way to bridge the two issues.
The only downside there is that Otto gives the purchase price of the wine by the person who brought it, which may or may not have much to do with the cost or value of that wine now. But I totally get it if he doesnāt want to have to look up the current valuation for all the notes he posts, plus the current cost could be a lot different in Finland versus Continental Europe versus the United States.
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100% this.
And this. Although quality is quasi-objective - there are certain things we can more or less objectively associate with quality, but when it comes to taste, a large part of it is also very subjective.
Itās just the actual price that has been paid - and most likely me, or whoever else has brought the wine are not the only ones who have paid the price.
I canāt give the prices to all the markets around the globe, or just one global price, because - as you said - the prices can vary wildly. For example I paid 28ā¬ for Herediaās Tondonia Gran Reserva Rosado while it was selling for three-figures in the US. I think the only solution to this problem is just to use the actual price that has been paid for the wine, because at the moment when that particular wine is tasted, it is the only factual number I can get my hands on.
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Utility is a log function. Adjust accordingly.
I agree with Adam here. I think people boost the scores of the higher priced wines. On the other side people refuse to give the < $20 wines that are outstanding good scores.
Using Cellartracker with wines Iāve had, adding a point or two has seemed right for wines like Barolo and BdMs for example. I think they are harder wines to judge (vs California) and to find in the better part of its drinking window.
On expensive or culty wines the bias is to add points imo.
Subconsciously I think itās impossible to take price completely out of the equation when scoring a wine, hence why people should blind more wines. I also think itās important to spend time with a wine - like a few hours minimum to properly asses a wine.
All that said, I do my best to keep price out of the equation. Having tried a lot of expensive wines and having scored many cheaper wines highly when they surprised me I like to think I am pretty honest with myself, and scores are for just thatā¦ Myself. They are a personal tool for benchmarking wines. Ultimately the wine has no control over what it costs. QPR does play a role in my purchasing decisions, but it is far from the most significant factor and I am very rarely bummed out that I paid for and tried a wine with poor QPR as long as I learned something.
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Itās an interesting concept for sure, and I agree with Adam re score bias based on price.
Ive also noticed score bias based on how highly rated certain wines are - a bit of āif others rate it highly I should as wellā . . .
Cheers
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Thereās also a ābig wineā bias, where people have been conditioned by reading Laube and Parker notes and correlating accordingly. People will describe a wine they donāt particularly like, but give it a good rating anyway, because they feel they feel they should like it. They bought it because of the rating, prestige, perceived high value confirmed by the high price. They taste the over-the-top stereotype, find it near undrinkable, but give it 95 points because it seems to them thatās what 95 point wines are like.
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It doesnāt impact the score.
The disappointment is related to price and the expectation that a ā¬200 bottle shouldnāt drink like ā¬10 wine. I feel robbed. On the other hand if a ā¬10 bottle drinks like ā¬200 wine then my excitement is on the other end of scale.
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If price affects scoring: wouldn t a 85-point Vin de France for 1.99 get 95 points - and a 99-point Musigny/Leroy for 25.000 get 89 points or less?
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Very easily. I rarely score wines with points. It is fine and useful for a wine writer to do so but does not make any sense for me to do so. Points are a shorthand that are useful for a reader but not for me when I am thinking about the wines I drink. I think more about how suitable the wine is for an occasion.
For example, last year, I can remember a dinner outside on the patio of my Country Club on a beautiful night. We had a Bourgogne Rouge from Nicolas Rossignol that was beautiful and perfect for the occasion. What difference would it make to me that that it might have fared poorly against a premier cru or grand cru that was bigger, longer and more powerful in a blind tasting. That other wine would not have fit the occasion while this one did to a tee.
On another night, in a more formal dinner, I probably would have preferred the premier cru or grand cru, but is that relevant. Do you rate an omelet vs. a steak on points? A hot fudge Sundae vs. a more complex dessert?
Same thing with wines. How do I rate on points a German Kabinett against an Auslese. A simple Beaujolais vs. a 2nd Growth Bordeaux. Etc., etc., etc. What does āthe quality of the wineā mean?
And, frankly, tasting blind does not really compensate for any of this. It is really about learning about wines and having some sense of what goes with what.
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Yeah, agree
What if you donāt know the cost or it was free?
The QPR would result in a ādivide by zeroā error.
BTW - great name for a wine!
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That makes sense. As my ācellarā has gone from 40-50 bottles to 200+ in the last year, Iām struggling to organize my thoughts. I think Iāll do private notes about āQPRā and continue my habit of noting what the wine paired well with.
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