Lord knows I don’t need anymore influence to buy more wine, but with all the reviews, it seems like it could be helpful to learn more about what’s out there.
What other services do you subscribe to?
Just this board currently. Got any other suggestions?
I would much prefer winehog or inside burgundy over burghound personally.
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I was debating Burghound vs. Inside Burgundy and went with Inside Burgundy as your subscription gives you access to all the back content (which admittedly is not as voluminous as Burghound).
I’m a Burghound subscriber.
Pros:
- wide and deep tasting, including notes on many producers and wines never (or rarely) discussed here. Regular tasting schedule, drumbeat of notes against new releases.
- Huge database of tasting notes going back decades. Very helpful if you’re looking to backfill.
- Very consistent taster. Try some bottles, compare with the notes, and you can quickly ascertain how useful BH’s notes are for your palate.
Cons:
- Limited tasting of wines after initial release (though there some of those)
- 100 point scale. Many people object to this. I don’t, I just adjust it based on my own experience.
- Meadows consistently follows the hierarchy for his tastings. In other words Grand Crus score better than 1er, which score better than village, and the Bourgogne. This doesn’t really bother me, but some see this as overly restrictive, predictive, and likely to generate unhelpful results.
- Only Burgundy (or mostly - there’s a little new world Pinot and Champagne)
Other options:
- Parker/Wine Advocate - William Kelley is a fantastic reviewer, very highly respected. WA covers every major wine region, so it’s very helpful for its diversity,
- Vinous. Also very diverse. Neal Martin mostly covers Burgundy, also highly respected, with some by Antonio Galloni. Vinous is very strong on Italian wine.
I subscribe to Vinous. And dip in and out of WA. There are other Burgundy reviewers but I haven’t subscribed to any of them.
IMHO I don’t know how someone getting into Burgundy could reasonably function without a subscription at least one major reviewer. Tastings are very very limited, and in my experience you have to buy without trying first. If you’re really disciplined, buy a half dozen bottles of Burgundy, drink and take careful notes, then read three or four reviewers. Or do the same with La Paulee. Pick the one that seems to match your palate.
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Other (English language) Burgundy reviewers that are all well regarded: Bill Nanson, Jasper Morris, John Gilman. Jancis Robinson. Maybe others? James Suckling is generally not well regarded by the WB crowd. If you were really hardcore you’d try them all but I haven’t bothered. I’m sure others here will chime in with their favorites or despised reviewers. Others will say you should ignore all reviewers and listen to your palate. Would be awesome if tasting was easier (or even possible at all).
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I subscribe to Vinous and WA, but the two most useful burgundy resources are jasper and winehog; winehog isn’t as useful for tasting notes but has the most vineyard info of any resource.
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I like Allen’s point of view. He does respect the cru differences. If you understand that, his notes are fabulous. They are in general quite structural in character which is my preferred way to taste. FWIW
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Burghound is awesome.
You know the scores he gives out for every wine he reviews before they are published… all you have to do is look at the previous year’s edition.
So it saves you having to read anything.
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Like Meadows but I bought too much 04 red burgundy as he whiffed on the vintage.
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None of these newsletters are worth the cost. Retailers are gonna shove their TNs and points down your throat anyway whether you want them or not.
Respectfully disagree. The whole point of the newsletters is to liberate yourself from the retailer hype. I happen to find winehog useful even if palates aren’t completely aligned. Even Meadows I find useful once I calibrate for his hierarchical bias. Maybe I missed your point.
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One thing I like about Inside Burgundy is that Morris will provide both a point score as well as a star score. The stars are sort of compared between wines of similar classification, so, while a Bourgogne Rouge will routinely score lower than any Grand Cru in terms of points (e.g. 88-90 vs 96-98 points), he will designate certain BRs (or village, PC, GC wines) as 5-star which is excellent compared to wines of similar classification.
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Agreed.
Emphatically not. Furnishing hype for retailers to quote is the whole business model for most of these.
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I also like their vintage reports that often mention the winemaking changes at the domaine. William Kelley does the same, but Inside Burgundy has a bit wider coverage often with more details.
I love these two publications.
To me every publication has information I want.
I use winehog for maps and his sensory information Steen’s palate lines up with mine on this.
I use Burghound for structural information.
For general tasting notes I think Jasper Morris is the best at Inside Burgundy. I think he rarely misses.
I also like Neil Martin at Vinous but I line up better with Inside Burgundy. William Kelly too is helpful here with general tasting notes. His notes are quite good.
There are others that are useful. Bill Nanson’s Burgundy Report from Switzerland being a notable one.
I only buy if I think it suits my taste. Most of the time that means I need to have tasted the wines to some extent or have a multivintage understanding of the producer.
I understand the economics of only using one source of information. .
FWIW.
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I have used both Burghound and Inside Burgundy and I’m finding my tastes align more with Morris and I prefer his content.
Still trying to get my arms around Meadows on some things. I don’t see that he tastes wines after they have been bottled that frequently, which I find a little frustrating. Some of this is just personal preference, so if you find you like his notes, might be worth checking it out.
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