Useful, but mainly to myself to remind myself what I’ve liked and how much in the past. The caveat to myself that conditions change.
Carrying the logic out to it’s conclusion, what is the use of having someone say “I like this wine”?
Something 90-95 means the person liked it. If it’s 95-100 it means they really liked it.
Whether they use words or numbers, the message is the same.
If anyone cares what someone else thought about a wine, that’s about as useful as it gets. You can walk into a wine store and the sales clerk can say “I really liked this one but I liked that one more,” and that’s more or less the same thing. Someone else tasted it and they’re offering an opinion.
Personally, I think the numbers are far more useful than most of the tasting notes you come across. (See John’s thread.) I have no clue what white flowers are, or cast iron pan, or many of the other descriptions. And people talk about violets but how many people have gotten down on their knees and smelled them? I have just to see what the hell people were talking about. If I like a wine that someone else liked, and the person gives it a score of somewhere in the 90s or tells me that they liked a specific wine, I may look at it because I trust that person. If they tell me it tasted like cast iron pan I think they’re daft because they like oxidized wine.
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Am not a big fan of assigning points to a wine…Am pretty simplistic in my approach to wine…I enjoy drinking it,not evaluating it…I have been drinking wine for over 60 years and have experienced numerous phases of palate shift as well as dietary changes that changed my focus on what wines now went best with the foods my wife and I are currently eating…I went through the “gotta have the great Boredoughs of the 80’s, super Tuscans, OZ monsters and Great rhones”, phases, to name a few, before calming down and getting off the trophy wine train…Currently, I put wines into 3 categories…I like it, I don’t like it, and I haven’t tried it as yet. If I like it, how much am I willing to pay for it? what foods does it go with? Does it require/reward cellaring? if yes, for how long? If I didn’t like it, I don’t buy it again, too many wines out there to “give it another shot if I didn’t like it”…For ones I haven’t tried yet, curiosity is a big factor…Comments on this wine board by members whose palates seem to align with mine , have led me to try wines that I had no prior experience with… Goodfellow is an example of a winery that I had never heard of prior to WB… They are now in the “wines I like” category…
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I really don’t care for the point scale. However, I do like Ray Tuppatsch scale of Killer, Staggering, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor ®
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Scores are eternally useless.
Like you I don’t hold with wine notes that are merely an avalanche of descriptors, but there’s no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Descriptors can absolutely be helpful clues as to the character of a wine, and their vague, associative nature just comes with the territory. Also spending quality time with a La Nez du Vin set can really help ground one’s perceptions; I recommend it: Le Nez du Vin - The Masterkit 54 aromas - Editions Jean Lenoir
When I saw the thread title, I actually expected this discussion to be a joke. Turns out I was wrong. This, again? Really?
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I was just going to say how nice it was to see a fresh topic here.
I’m 93 points on this thread.
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Agree almost completely. People have brains that are wired differently – some people want words and some people want numbers. I actually find the scores to be more useful than the words, though, because the value of describing phenolic compounds that evoke aromas and tastes of different things (whether it’s raspberry or river rock) are necessarily only as useful insofar as I/the reader have the same sensitivity to those compounds (or potentially the other compounds that I’m sensitive to that they’re not) as the reviewer. They might smell blackberries, graphite, cedar, and spice and I might stick my nose in the same glass and smell nothing but VA.
I’m on the side of finding scores (potentially) useful. I like what AndyK and JonathanR wrote.
For critics, I expect their scores to be consistent, related to their palate/idea of what makes a good wine, and a wide enough band to provide differentiation (i.e. scoring all wines between 95 and 100 is not useful). A critic that fails these tests is one I ignore. Sadly most fail. But there are quite a few I find useful (I read Burghound, Vinous, and MFW, and like what I see from William Kelley). I look for a combination of scores and testing notes and find the information in both, together, to be most useful. Certainly a score by itself is likely to be useless. I am often influenced by critics to buy things I have never tasted (there!!! I admitted it!) and try to think back to why I bought a wine when I’m tasting it to update my critic sensors.
For amateurs, I use the data more cautiously until I have read enough discussion to understand something about their palates. Lots of folks on this board, for example. You guys are really helpful! And I like when you provide scores, though I do think carefully about using them.
With my friends, whose palates I understand: scores plus notes, plus conversation is really useful, the most useful data I have other than my own tasting. Sadly my friends don’t get to taste and score thousands of wine a year (um, except maybe Ashish!).
For myself, I score wine, and write up notes. I worried about scoring for a long time. So I wrote down my own scoring system, documenting exactly what each score means. I find my own scores and notes really useful. They also clearly show how inconsistent I am, and I accept that. But looking back on, say, all my scores for 2016 Barolo is really helpful to remind me what to buy more of.
On the 100 point scale - yea I agree it’s dumb. Most people don’t really use much more than 10 or 15 gradations. But it’s what people use, so I use it. Mine is about 13 gradations but really 5 or 6 would be good enough.
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I am also on the side of finding scores useful.
I rather have them then not. I pretty much know the wines I like and buy them every year.
That said if I am purchasing a wine from a wine list and I am not familiar with the wines I like to see a score and who made the score.
This is(was) particularly helpful when traveling abroad. Drinking wine in Poland and Hungary with some scores is better than nothing. Of course a smart sommelier can be helpful.
My question is how are the reviewers using the 100 point system.
The Wine Advocate has a very specific method. I think some other reviewers just say I like the wine and give it a 93.
As with most topics the devil is in the details.
Haha, didn’t you drink a $200 wine tonight!?!
Not tonight. Not last night. Not the night before.
The 2016 Corison Cab Sav Sunbasket that you just posted on is running around $200 right now. I guess you got it for less. Sounded really tasty, until I saw the price, you elitist snob! ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
I don’t love scores, but it does (or at least should) let me know whether the person that drank the wine enjoyed it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a note describing the flavor profiles, the color, the legs in the glass, etc. and come away having no idea whether the person actually liked the wine. Sure, sometimes that information is helpful, especially if a note talks about balance, ripeness, heat, oak, but for the most part “hint of brambly bush” doesn’t really tell me much. It clearly does not need to be a number but some expression of how much the taster liked the wine would be helpful.
- As in 100%.
And yet, I like the 100-point scale notwithstanding. For those of us that grew up with a 100-point grading scale in school, it’s intuitive and speaks our language. It allows for more granularity than a 20-point scale, even if the rationale for scoring a wine a 98 versus a 99 is probably bullshit. It is highly subjective, and anyone that thinks otherwise is delusional. It is subject to so many vagaries to make it ephemeral at times, fleeting. But it works. When I see you score a wine, and I know you and I share some similarities on Bordeaux, I perk up and take notice. I grabbed more 98 Magdelaine precisely because of your post. Scoring is one factor in making a purchase decision, just like the more detailed note, the history of the producer, who gave it the score, are critic’s with whom you share a palate similarity aligned, etc. It’s just one of several factors some of us think about.
Occasionally I get emails/texts from you, or Keith, Fu or Todd saying, “you need to get this.” Score becomes irrelevant at that point.
Unless reviewers actually give out scores that range from 1-100, it isn’t a 100 point scale. Just sayin’
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Club price. Elitist club price. 