WS moves a lot of wine. It’s the most widely read wine journal. And the WOTY is always going to spike in price and then become really hard to get. The top 10 move too, but the number one is the most dramatic.
But whatever anyone says, their scores move wine. If you get a 91 or 92 from them, it helps sell it to retailers and they put up shelf talkers and it moves. And while a shelf-talker from pretty much anybody will help move a bottle, because the WS has a much higher circulation than any other wine-reviewing journal, it has people who know it when they see a shelf talker in a store.
But most people don’t know ANY wine reviewers and most really don’t care. A score from Jancis Robinson has the same effect as a score from the little old lady down the street - if someone buys a wine based on a score, it helps. But the name doesn’t move anything. Sherry Lehman in NYC used to be famous for hiring college kids around the holidays. They’d tell the kids to tell customers this or that wine was 90 points or 93 points. But they never bothered to mention who the points were from. They were usually someone’s points in the store, but sometimes they were just made up when the store got a deal on some product that had to move.
There are some people on this board who say they never worry about points, and that may be true. But there are others who can’t wait to post when some favorite wine gets a high score from this or that critic. So as Larry pointed out, it’s a large audience here. Some people even started with wine based on Gary V. With that kind of diversity, it’s a certainty that a WS score is going to influence some people here to pick up a bottle. And frankly, why not? If you know anything about the critic’s taste, it’s as useful as a rec from anyone else.
In my own case, I had a bottle of a cheap Bordeaux yesterday. I wasn’t sure if I really liked it or not, so I needed to find out. After a couple glasses I looked up the score. Whoopee!! Big 92 from James Suckling. Suddenly the world was a finer place, the wine was transcendent, and I felt an inner serenity that melted my cares away. Why? Because it turned out I was drinking the good stuff!
A couple of examples that show the limited duration of the Top Ten halo. 2015 Volpaia CCR landed at #3 a couple of years ago. It disappeared quickly. The 16 came out and it actually scored a point higher (97), but it was easy to find at the same price as the 15. Last year 2015 San Filippo Brunello was #3 and it also disappeared. Again, I was able to buy the 16 at the same price as the 15 and it also scored a point higher (98!). So maybe the best use of the list is to identify consistent quality producers
I will say this that the majority of people buying wines over $50 still look at ratings. Maybe not the regulars on this board but the shelf talkers are abundant at all the wine shops I frequent in the Twin Cities. I will still look at them but Cellar Tracker is more useful for me especially for the users I follow.
I remember back in the day walking into wine shops with my Wine Spectator Top 100 issue and pointing to wines I wanted to try. Some of the workers would roll their eyes at me.
Then I would Xerox the list so I could fold it up and hide it in my pocket and not be so obviously looking for the WS Top 100 wines. The workers still knew what I was doing.
Back when I had no ability to visit wine country, my only wine exposures were the wine shops and publications like WS. I live in the Midwest, so my wine shops don’t have the extensive and sometimes boutique selections many of you in larger cities or wine regions have access to.
The early (for me) WS Top 100’s spurred me to search out Viader, Swanson Alexis, BV Tapestry, Justin Isoceles, Paloma, Saxum, Kosta Brown, Merry Edwards, Rochioli, Tignanello, Avignonesi. The most recent list caused me to hunt down Hall’s Sauv Blanc.
The WS Top 100 had a pretty big impact on my early wine buying. Much less so now, but still a bit.
They also gave it a 90 score. It’s a NZ suav blanc at what appears to be a fair price point made by a large wine company. So one shouldn’t assume it’s plonk and not worthy of making this kind of list.
It’s of course impossible to tell, but one of my my first year’s wines got 91pts from WS, which was nice. But I can’t say it moved the needle one bit. Hard to track, of course, but that was my feeling. I think unless you hit 96+ in points, scores don’t matter. There will always be the high score-hunters at the top botanizing, but I don’t think they’re necessarily very loyal customers.
I’ve had a break from submitting wines for printed reviews as per the above, I wasn’t sure it made any difference. Vinouos and Galloni got sent some wine, but never reviewed it. Same with Asimov. I’ve had much better luck with the online/internet reviewers - I do know that some of the Insta reviewers do generate sales (like Wine1Percent etc), so I send a few that way when I have a release. But I just sent some 2019’s to John Gilman again, which is more printed/traditional. Not sure sending anything to Suckling/Dunnuck would do much good - they seem like pretty tuned towards the more prestigious Napa/Sonoma big names and not really into the smaller producers.
That may be true for wines that are mostly sold DTC, but if you’re selling a $15 wine that gets strong national distribution, that shelf talker emblazoned with a 90 point score is going to be very useful to most people browsing the wine section of a grocery store with zero sense of how any of those hundreds of wines are different.
this is the thing that seems the most strange to me about these “top 100 wines” lists. they dont call it “Wine Spectators Top 100 Values” list… (and they make that list too!). so how does a 90 point wine even end up on there? if the list isnt made up of mostly top-point-getting wines, then either the list is bogus or the scoring system is. shouldn’t a 100 point wine always be a “top wine” over a 90 pointer, regardless of price?
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