Don,
I understand it will take time to get who’s scores fit and who’s to ignore, but between the winery fan boys, the people who’s scale seems to start at 90 and the ones that just parat there favorite publication (sometimes word for word) it has to skew things, evan the average.
I like that Part 1 and Part 2 could be an answer and someone chose them.
I post notes and score on almost all the wines I drink. I’m not sure they are an help to others but I pretend people read them.
[quoteUse CT tasting notes quite a bit, particularly since I dropped some of the paid critic sites.][/quote]
Just put the wine in Cellar Tracker and go to Wine Searcher and someone will have the critics score.
David,
I read the new notes on wines that I own nearly everyday and quite often queue up a bottle based on the note.
I definitely use the notes features to both determine if I might like something that I might purchase, and to get a sense of when to drink wines I already have. I tend to look at the notes rather than the scores and pay attention to those that have a good track record.
I also tend to write notes for most wines I drink, except for daily drinker types.
Thanks for doing this – interesting set of answers.
CT is a great resource, no matter how one uses it.
I write notes in batches of 50 -250 at a time with many months between posting.
The notes are on all wines I taste regardless of whether I have them in my cellar or not.
I have discontinued providing scores once I realised I did not need to include them AND once I looked at the top TN posters and saw that few did. For me, it`s really a matter of did I like the wine or not as to any assigned rating. The meat is in the description and then others can decide if that profile is to their liking.
I write notes on every wine I drink. I enjoy looking at notes from the same wine years later to see the wines evolution in a good or past peak way. I think it helps to get others perspective as mentioned on drinking windows.
I only write notes if they are going to add something. That usually means that I haven’t written a note on the wine, or haven’t recently. The notes are for me first, but I do try to make them useful for others.
occasional notes on interesting wines.
This. My notes are geared toward letting others (and myself if I have more) know when it’s time to pop the wine.
I too use CT as a resource when looking to buy, as well as when to open what’s in my cellar. I try to post notes whenever possible - probably 75% of the time if I’m opening something from the cellar; but for restaurant purchases or when it’s someone else’s bottle only when a wine stands out.
The other feature I like to use is the private notes. For wines I buy from mailing lists, I like to paste the wimemaker’s notes - often good info about production method, drinking window, etc that I like to refer back to.
93 points for this practice.
I try and be as helpful as I can with public tasting notes w/r/t style and openess, even if I don’t like a wine, others might. So no scores, not any more.
There have literally been times when I was considering buying a wine — perhaps I was in the store — and I looked-up the wine in CT to see what others thought of it. Then, when I get to that wine’s page, I see that I already had it and had a note posted on it — my TNs have always been helpful in those situations (usually saving me the expense of making the same mistake twice!)
There’s a ton of selection bias in my own tasting notes. I tend to only post a note about a wine that was memorable.
Here is a good example that goes to the heart of the issue with crowd sourced ratings.
2016 Bedrock Wine Co. Cuvée Karatas
5/3/2018 - **** DOES NOT LIKE THIS WINE: 88 points
I am generally a fan of Semillion (and, separately, Bedrock), but this is not particularly good. Unbalanced, with all the overweight and heaviness that Semillion has sometimes. Didn’t improve much over an hour+ of breathing. At $38, not a good value.
This was pulled directly, I only removed the name. How do you read this review and think B+ wine? The two seem at odds but this holds as much weight as any other review.
I am not trying to pick on this person, their scoring methods are their own and may start with 85 being the worst, but that is the flaw, without a set scale this is meaningless.
It seems odd to me too, but if * * * * recognizes 88 as the mark of an unbalanced wine, then the taxonomy works for him (or her), even if its external value is nil. For all I know, the guy’s (assuming) scale goes from 88 to 93.
I write notes for most wines I drink from my cellar, but I put them in the personal consumption note, not the tasting note. I usually note who I was with and/or where I was as well as some terse tasting notes. No scores, but I usually try to say something about my enjoyment level.
When I encounter a tasting note which seems discordant like that on a wine I like, I go look at that members other tasting notes to get a better read on where his tastes lie and how he scores wine.
It may be that he overstates his position on the perceived flaws, yet uses scores more in line with consensus.
It sounds like you could split your notes into two parts, with the tasting and enjoyment portions being made public to add to the database.