^^^^^
I would rather read this person’s honest assessment of a young wine, then fanboys gushing about wines from their favorite wineries that are either way to young to enjoy (that much anyway) or just not that good, but are still scored in the mid 90s.
It seems clear from this post people use CT for many different purposes. Personally I use it for myself. I write the occasional note and wondered whether to make public or not. I decided to let other see them in case my notes were helpful. I bet many do the same for the same reason. I certainly do not think about what others may think about the notes of how they may get used.
Some people use CT info as a replacement for how many of us (I include myself in the past) used to use professional critics. While I think that may be helpful it is mis-guided if the same expectations and professionalism are expected. Not to even mention thorny issues such as standards for evaluation and bench marking.
As with most things in life to each his own or let a 1000 flowers bloom. I think CT is designed so anyone can use as they see fit which is great.
News Flash! There is no consistency in how people review and score wines. To me the usefulness of CT rests in reading the notes, understanding the limitations of the scores, and getting to “know” the raters. If you do these things I believe that CT will prove to be very useful indeed.
How is posting an honest assessment of where a particular wine is at this point in time “blaming the winery?”
I don’t think there’s an option to record a score that is searchable by the user but not visible to the community. Is there?
The note is an honest assessment. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with that. The note essentially says “I think this is a 90+ pt. wine that isn’t ready to drink, showing about 87 pts. right now.” The tone of the note indicates the writer suspected the wine wouldn’t be ready, but was checking in on it anyway. Plenty of wines aren’t ready on release, many people taste them and write notes on them prior to their drinking windows open. The issue is: Should a score be entered into the system in this case? If so, should it be how the wine shows now, or an assessment of its ultimate quality? No one is compelled to add a score.
Professional wine critics make that choice all the time. Their scores project the ultimate quality.
A person just tasting a wine that isn’t showing so well, describing it and explaining why, and giving a corresponding rating is fine. That wasn’t the case here. The person knew why the wine wasn’t showing well, and had a good idea how much better it would get and when. Then gave it a score that denotes a lower quality level anyways.
God forbid someone have an unpopular opinion.How will “we” ever get over this? The horror…
Can you mention any, besides LdH that does not? E.g 2012 Latour is way too young when released in 2022
I really don’t care. Just looking at the CT number and not reading multiple notes is IMHO a mistake.
Well, Larry’s own winery, Tercero, for one!
I see nothing wrong with the note. Isn’t this what so many folks here gratefully call, “taking one for the team”?
A poor reading on my part. In my mind, I inserted “is greedy enough” between “winery” and “releases” ![[oops.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/1/1f129ddad071ffe5db6c99817c3cab666035a70a.gif "oops"){kind=small}
Apologies to Michael
Don’t most non grocery store wines release before their prime drinking window? I’d expect to see reviews like this for those.
Interesting that Matt has decided not to participate in his thread
Apologies, Neal, for not religiously check WB over the weekend. I have 2 small children and my wife was out of town.
Of course scores in and of themselves don’t matter. That’s not the issue. AND opening now and leaving a note is not only fine, but frankly encouraged - thanks for opening the bottle and letting me know it’s not ready!
The (very small) issue at hand is entering a score into the “official” (using quotes so hard here i almost fall down) CT system when by your own admission you didn’t think the wine was ready, and it wasn’t. You can’t ‘unskew’ it later, as CT includes scores with no notes in the average score - not that i would ever do this.
However to the extent you find scores useful in the least (and if you don’t find scores useful, feel free to, yannow, just not comment on threads regarding scores), giving “score today but it’s going to improve” isn’t that useful. Imagine if Spectator said, for an expensive Napa cab, “86 today but better later”. Surely you don’t think En Premier Bdx ratings reflect the wine in that state? I guess I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think that’s what they reflect.
I freely admit I’m picking lint off a $1000 suit here, but that’s my thought process. As you were.
Pretty sure you can block a taster on CT, no? Some people also record TNs solely for their own reference, which could be the case here.
That said, seems somewhat odd to single out an actual TN like this one when there are literally thousands upon thousands of so-called TNs which are comprised of brief text like “tastes good” or worse, only just a score.
Matt,
This really begs the question: what is a wine’s score supposed to be? How it’s presenting on the day it’s tasted? or The anticipated peak?
Either is fine (and helpful), but without any global agreement from CT users, you’re always going to have a mix of the two. And that is one of many reasons why the “CT ave. score” is worthless.
Of course; that particular subject has been beaten like the proverbial dead horse around here, and I am not completely innocent in participating. This one stuck out to me precisely because of the “I think it’ll get better later but I’m going to score it as it is today” nature.
I will also note: I actually really like the CT average. It has plenty of issues; find me a scoring system that doesn’t. But on balance I’ve found it to be more reliable than most other indicators. This makes sense to me as well - the consensus opinion should be pretty good. This again is why this inclusion of “not representative” score stuck out to me.
I will now return to issues which have more pressing importance, such as doing preventative maintenance on the kitchen sink drain.
I actually think it’s a good score.
it’s not that great NOW - 87… but he notes he expects it to get better… great… it reads to me as HOLD.
what should he score it? 91 based on what he think it MIGHT be in 5 years? i rather he just score it as is when it’s opened.