No doubt… Complete agreement on the devilishly hard part and I think the only people surprised would be those that don’t do a lot of blind tastings. Lots of critics taste blind to some degree or another so the answer to your second question is no… in some cases, blind is good, in others, not so good.
And while these games and tests are fun, other than consistency, they don’t directly correlate to being able to taste a wine, describe the wine and tell a reader what they think of it.
I have heard this so many times. ‘You can be consistent but that doesn’t always mean that one can taste a wine. The wine always needs the context so it is necessary to taste non blind.’
How can one speak of terroir of Burgundy or Bordeaux when one can’t tell apart Burg vs Aubert or Bordeaux vs Cal cab. What I proposed is the very basics of wine assessment, if one can’t match the same wines, how can one speak of terroir? I am by no mean implying that that the wines must be assessed blind but completely dismissing the need to check the critic’s palate consistency is totally absurd.
If one can tell you that the wine is 1996 La Mondott or 2005 Mouton in single or double blind, one is certainly capable of tasting wine. Have you met anyone that can’t taste wine who can correctly identify the regions just simply based on technical skills or specific methodology?
While they do not directly correlate, I will take my chances with a guy who can nail a blind tasting over a guy who has not a clue.
Someone who is able to discern flavors, tastes, colors, etc, inevitably should be able to describe a wine. Maybe not to the degree of a wine critic such as Bob Parker, who has tremendous writing skills, but I trust that person could do an adequate job.
Jeb, I’m not so sure that the underlying basis of this type of blind tasting is completely a “game”.
In my profession there is a rigorous academic curriculum followed by a difficult professional licensing exam which you can only qualify for after 5 years of professional experience including direct supervison by another licensed professional. The MW program tries to recreate this but few of the world’s most popular critics are Masters of Wine. It would be interesting to learn more details about their 3 x 12 wine blind tasting exam portion.
There are legitimate unanswered questions about wine critics. What are their limits and abilities in beng able to identify a given wine or series of wines? Can they accurately re-identify the same wine in a group of blind pairs. On different nights? Is a critic’s tasting acumen accurate enough to rate wines on a 100 point scale, 20 point scale, or something less? Are critics ratings reproducible? If not, what is the margin of error in terms of their selected point scale? How closely should the $ value of a particular wine match up with a critics ratings (i.e. if a 94 point wine is really an 89 - 94 point wine)?
RT
You haven’t heard that from me.
I could care less if a critic can identify 1996 La Mondott single or double blind… why do you care? It’s all chest thumping to me. Some Grenache taste like Bordeaux… some Bordeaux taste like pinot. So again, tasting a wine blind and declaring it “Bordeaux!” isn’t important to me. It’s obviously important to you. I care that a note accurately describes a wine. I do that by tasting the wine and reading the critic’s note. End of story. I never said consistency wasn’t important.
Jeb
Couldn’t one argue that consistently awarding 99 point scores is chest pumping?
A person that can tell the difference between 1996 La Mondotte and 2005 Mouton hardly sounds like someone “chest pumping.” It sounds like they know a whole heckuva lot about the wines.
Hey Dan, with regards to your first comment, I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t think consistently liking a wine is chest thumping (pumping? 
) Most critics I know change their opinion on wines all the time… just follow the hedonist gazette or the WS retrospective tastings and you’ll see scores all over the place… and rightly so as I think this reflects reality. Wines/bottles show differently on given days.
A person that can identify double/single blind a '96 Mondotte or '05 Mouton sure does know a heck of a lot about wine… But I don’t consider that skill a requirement for a critic.
Dan,
As I stated earlier, I tried to avoid using color as a factor. Altough it would have played indirectly when paring them.
Knowing heck of alot about wine will not help correctly identify the wine. However Having good memory, palate and nose will do.
If a critic can’t correctly pair wines with reasonable success, which is basically testing once nose and palate consistency, how can you say that he can find anything in wine?
It is like not being able to correctly pair Aubert vs Chambole Musigny Les Cras yet having authority in terroir of Burgundy and discussing Chambole vs Vosne.
This tasting gets down to very basic. There is neither implicit nor explicit statement made that the good blind taster will be a good critic. However, imho, it is valid to state that a good critic should be able to pair the wines with reasonable success, especially when 97 vs 99 pts means very significant consequence to the producers and the consumers.
If one loves coke yet can’t tell it apart from Dr. Pepper, can you say that he truly likes coke?
+1
Absolutely agree.
Not to be a devil’s advocate here, but I don’t believe it is any critic’s ‘responsibility’ to worry about the ‘very signifcant consequence to the producers and the consumers’ when putting forth ratings. They are simply reporting on wines tasted - it is OTHERS who take it from there . . .
Just another datapoint this morning!
Cheers!
Larry
I do not skeap for Kevin, but I took from it, that the critic should be able to tell us that there is a difference between a 97 and 99 point wine, otherwise we could just use a 10 point scale or 3 stars.
Larry,
It is a very valid point. However, it is the critic’s ‘responsibility’ as a someone with the passion for wine to be honest and self-test his or her palate once in awhile to keep it real.
The idea that there is a difference between a 97 and 99 pt wine sort of encapsulates everything that is wrong with wine today. The scoring difference between wines like that is entirely a reflection of personal preference. Any sense that those rankings are “objective” or extrapolate to any real meaning is just nonsense.
On the blindtasting topic, I am sure most critics are at least very good blind tasters but being a good critic has little to do with these sorts of exercises. The person who can memorize the biggest number is not a great mathematician or the person with the greatest sensitivity to light is not the best movie critic.
A great wine critic is someone who deeply understands the given category of wine and knows what elements to evaluate at the different stages of evolution of the wine. Additionally it seems that a critic must also understand the tastes of their intended readership so as to recommend the wines that that group will enjoy.
So, then there is no difference between a 97 and 99 point wine?
How about a 94 and 98?
And I agree, it is personal preference, so shouldn’t the person be able to tell us their preference and why? without just a “nonsense” number.
Yeah, there’s a difference for sure. The taster liked the higher scoring wine more. The score is just another way for a person to say how much they liked it… no different that stars, thumbs up, or even specifying the 1000s of wines the author liked more and/or less. Given that it’s important for a critic to relay his preferences to his customers, a clear, concise scale seems appropriate… and the note and score/rating/whatever complement each other.
Jeb
I agree. A higher scoring wine would indicate “the better” wine in the eyes of the critic or consumer, or whomever is scoring the wine. That goes without saying.
Kevin indicated that there is not much a of a difference between a 97 and 99, other than the person liked the 99 more.
No shit.
Jeb, in the marketplace there’s a profound difference between a 89 and 93 point rating. How concise the scoring system “should reliably be” is a fundamental question.
RT