Alan, are you being facetious or ironic here? William uses a 100 point scale, itās not a rabbit hole. Do you expect him not to rate any wines 100 at all?
Was at this local Italian restaurant Friday with a group a friends that we frequent. I know the owner there and his wine markup is insane, 3x plus normally, so I bring my own frequently but not this time.
This owner has some wine āconnectionsā that one doesnāt ask many questions about. Iāve been there when he has gotten a list of offers via text and has let me pick and choose some he isnāt interested in, or not enough qty for the restaurant. For example I got a few ā14 Dunn HM for $80ea a little while back.
Anyhow, so we are there Friday and was looking at his list then I usually walk around the restaurant looking at his wine racks for stuff he has gotten ādealsā on but not worth reprinting the wine list for. I noticed a shelf of Penfolds 389 that he normally doesnāt have. I asked the waiter for a price and he had no idea what I was talking about, so I had to show him, then he asked around and somehow they came up with $75 a bottle. Done, just a little over retail and by far the best value in the place. Had a few with dinner but here is the kicker, they run a 40% off special all wine bottles for take out. That comes to $45 a bottle, so between me and a few of others at the table we cleaned out all they had.
It used to be that gymnastics had the magic perfect 10, which was unachievable - just because perfection in a subjective judgment cannot be obtained. And because you always need to leave room for something better. Now we see perfect scores all the time, which just devalues perfection.
So yeah, I think the magic 100 should never be awarded; or if so, it should be for a truly special bottle, that has managed to reach some rarely attainable heights at its peak of maturity. If I were a critic, my high score for newly released or immature wines would be 95, leaving room for the rare examples of unique and superb wines. But I get the pressure on critics to attract attention through the awarding of high scores.
I think the gymnastics example isnāt a great one, where thereās direct competition and very specific technical points. Those scores also use decimals, and I donāt think awarding a 99.731 rather than 100 is much better.
I also think William is both aware of the effect his scores have (heās talked about it) and seems judicious with how often (or how infrequently, depending on your perspective) he gives them out, so I donāt get the sense heās reacting to any kind of pressure here. Obviously he can respond for himself, but I would think he simply found the 2016 Pichon Comtesse to be a great wine in a great vintage.
Iām just expressing an opinion, nothing more lol. It came up because I have thought William has been one of the most interesting and useful reviewers over the past few years, frankly the one I will read regularly. Iām not sure I had ever seen a score so high from William, so it caught my attention. I would hate for him to edge more toward Suckling, who I find completely useless.