To add to what’s already been said, once a brand has become well-established at its price point, the points become largely irrelevant. For example, for the people who buy Rombauer Chardonnay points appear to be irrelevant. Similarly, for the people who buy yellow label Veuve Cliquot, the ratings are irrelevant. If you think about it, I’m sure you could up with your own list of well-established “premium” wine brands where the points/ratings don’t really drive sales. In other words, if you walk into a store knowing what you want to buy, then the points probably don’t matter much.
Bruce
We have scores listed on our website but no longer use shelf talkers.
We have a modest clientele that buy by points and name recognition. They keep us in business.
Another group comes in sporadically, shopping for certain brand names and price is not object but they still feel it is appropriate to haggle. They themselves will never drink the wine as it will be gifted by tradition.
There is the midwest visitors who drop in and notice we have high end wines like Cakebread and ask where is our Peju and Honig. They’ve never heard of Outpost, Seven Stones, Switchback, Karl Lawrence, etc.
Then there was our last bottle of 09 Kosta Browne Sonoma Coast Pinot. It specifically stated on the website that we had one bottle in stock. WS named it wine of the year in the early morning and by the time I got to work, we had orders for over 10 cases made by 20 + people, one of which threatened to sue if we didn’t fulfill her order for one case. None of the orders were from a regular customer.
Personally, I think the points people are about 20% on the average, considering age and geography.
C’mon, a daily drinker from Costco, Bev-Mo or Trader Joe’s for between 4 and 6 dollars. Why bother being a wine geek?? 
That’s hilarious.
First of all we are talking about different approaches here: percentage of buyers? percentage in volume sold? percentage in value ($) sold? The answer would be very different.
In terms of both buyers and volume, I’d say the % of wines sold on points is very small, almost insignificant (5% at most, and I think I’m being generous). For most people buying wine is an afterthought, and $10 is actually a HUGE amount of money to spend on a bottle. $5 is expensive. $2 is regular (including bulk wine).
If we talk about value, then this is a different game, as fine wine sells for a lot more, and I’d say most fine wine is sold on points in the US. If we could get the stat about the % of value represented by fine wine (anything over $15 a bottle), we’d pretty much know the % of wine sold on points, straight up.
This question assumes that your average Joe wine buyer knows how the point system works. (See Steve C’s dad).
When I was first learning about wine, I absolutely relied on points, because I didn’t know better. I had simply tried very few different wines to be able to make an informed decision simply by looking at a bottle. I needed a review to steer me in a direction (I won’t say it was the right direction). Now, it’s a piece of data I consider in a broader scheme. But I certainly don’t ignore the data; I instead try to figure out why the wine received the score it did. I’m also much more conscious of who is giving the score.
And when drinking wine with non-geek friends, if they bring over a bottle, one of the first things they will say is “xyz gave this 92 points,” I assume in an effort to impress me with their gift. In fact, I received 3 gift bottles for my birthday from non-geek friends this year, and each of them made a point (!) to let me know how many points the wine had received.
Lastly, look at WTSO or Garagiste. If the points-data is available, it’s front and center, especially when it’s above 90. WTSO provides next to no information besides the points; and when one of their wines has a true “professional” review (i.e. not Jonathan Newman) with points, that info is in huge bolded font. I can only assume they do this because it helps them sell wine, and thus because the average Joe wine buyer relies on that data.
Speaking for myself only, when I started learning about points, I looked at shelf talkers, which often listed points. Assuming the wine had a favorable description, I would always almost always buy the wine with the higher points all else being equal (i.e., price).
While, I no longer rely on points the same way, I admit that I still rely on points to a certain extent (probably more than I realize). For example, if I want to decide whether to buy a wine I’ve never tried (or decide between two wines), I read the reviews in cellartracker and look at the points.
Real world example, in Commerce Corner there was an offer for 2008 Sequana Vineyards Sundawg Ridge Pinot Noir. Went to cellartracker and read all the reviews. Most of the reviews were unhelpful “drank with friend at Mama Gina’s Italian, was excellent!” but the ratings were positive so I bit the bullet on a case. Note that I would never do that unless there was a critical mass of reviews, though in the case above, it was also a screaming deal (msrp $50 for $10) so the risk was pretty low.
Joe, no, I have not.
Are you saying they don’t?
Sorry Mike, I was simply quoting the two most salient points (to me) of the thread.
I agree with you.
I didn’t work in retail for very long but found that points absolutely sell wine.
With all due respect, Todd, you ask a question that has embedded in it (a) a dozen definitional questions that defy any reasonable answer and (b) is merely another way for re-phrasing your disdain for points.
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You dismiss huge swaths of the wine-buying public, but include as essential a number of bewildering characteristics of people who are the “true core” and are “like our crowd.” For example, people who are “like our crowd” includes those who “like to go to Napa once in a while,” among other imponderables. I’ve been to Napa once, and although it is very pretty and has some restaurants I’d like to visit, I have no present plans to go back. Am I included in the group we should be measuring? I am informed that a not inconsequential part of the wine-buying community buys mostly off mailing lists; scores might have mattered for the initial decision to get on the list (or to drop off), but they are compelled to buy every year; are they in your study? Basically, you’ve tried to gerrymander the population to be studied by defining it in vague ways that makes any meaningful answer to your question impossible. The “true core” is people who are like you, which means they hate points so the answer is none.
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I suspect a very, very small percentage of people hate the use of points the way you do; most, I imagine see it as a type of information like any other to consider or reject as the particular case dictates. I suspect a great many people who regularly buy wine use points to some degree. I suspect that there are very few people – excluding those who buy for investment or to flip – who buy entirely based on points.
A complex question. Here is my opinion…
First, let’s assume that what we are talking about here is Chards over $20, Pinots and Syrahs over $30 and Cabs over $45. Anything under that and I think points have almost zero effect.
Roy, I actually think the opposite. I know at least for myself if I buy a $50+ bottle of wine I want to know something about it, or have a recommendation from someone whose palate I trust. On the other hand I might take a flyer on an $8 bottle of Borsao because WS gave it a 90.
Neal, your post matches your current avatar well.
Just to add a few cents -
When the big publications come out, they can move product. In order, they’d be NYT, WA, WS, then nobody. If you have a wine that gets 94 or 95 points, you start getting calls from distributors. NYT probably has the most influence but also the shortest-lived influence. People see the article on Wed and go to the stores to pick up what they just read about.
WA comes out with huge scores, you get some traction. WS less so except for their year-end list.
A lot of those distributors are selling to retailers and they want to mention that their wine got X points. Some retailers don’t care, many do, esp if they’re going to use the points to sell, in email or shelf-talkers.
As far as the percentage of total wine buyers who care - I think that’s a really great question actually. At the lowest end it kind of doesn’t matter where the points come from - the shelf talker moves product. I’ve seen it often enough and I’ve even told people that a wine got X points and seen them take it once they rec’d that info. Even sometimes after they’d tasted it and rejected it!
At the higher end, it matters a lot more than some people might think. In fact I think it may matter more, but those people actually care where the points come from. That’s why so many Bordeaux prices went up when Parker released his scores - many buyers like wine, like expensive wine, and they don’t want to spend a lot of time learning about who’s writing about what. They know RP, that’s sufficient.
One of the best known NYC stores famously used to hire part-time students during the holiday season; they’d tell customers that some wine got X points and the guy would walk out with a few bottles or a case. Sometimes it really had rec’d X points - from the store buyer, sometimes that was flat out untrue. Customers were happy, wine was selling, who cared?
This describes nearly all of my wine drinking friends. Based on numerous conversations I’ve had in the past, here are some of the biggest influences on their buying habits:
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Previous experience. Most of them have 4-5 brands that they stick to. Two buck chuck, Barefoot, Yellowtail, Woodbridge, and Beringer are the most popular brands. They’d also look for wines they had at a restaurant or a friend’s house. They’ll try something new now and then, but they mostly stick to what they know and like. “Why spend $10 or $15 on something I might not like” was a pretty common question. Needless to say, they think I’m nuts for (A) paying $40 for one bottle of wine and (B) spending it on something I’ve never tried.
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Price. This works in two ways. People had a set maximum ($10-15) that they’d consider spending. They would also take a flyer on wines that were really marked down. So, if Layer Cake “normally” sells for $19 and it’s on sale for $11.99, they’ll pick up a bottle.
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“Something that catches my eye.” This was usually based on either store placement (e.g. wooden bins, cases stacked on the floor, manager’s selections, “Dave’s” picks) or labels on the bottle.
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Word of mouth/name recognition.
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Points. These are reserved mainly for two situations, and even then they aren’t much of a factor. The first is if they’re buying an “expensive” bottle ($20-30) to treat themselves. The second is if they’re buying for someone else (mostly gifts, but also bottles for a dinner party). In both situations, they’ll usually ask a clerk for help, but if nobody is around (or they’re all busy), they’ll grab the bottle with the biggest number on the shelf talker. Most of my friends don’t really know where the points come from. Some have heard of “that Parker guy,” but the vast majority don’t distinguish between WA, wine spectator, wine enthusiast, IWC, or wine & spirits (“How can 2 different wines both be Wine of the Year?” “Well, there’s a lot of different critics and magazines. It’s like movies, not everyone agrees on the best one.” “Yeah, but it only costs me $9 to see a movie.”
![[scratch.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/42a16863a8714da3c1604419e3eb9206bb87aa50.gif "scratch")
). Some also figured that they were assigned by the store, which I guess some stores do.
They all buy most of their wine at the grocery store, Trader Joe’s, or Costco/Sam’s Club. They only go to a LWS “to get something special,” and that’s a fairly rare occurrence. Most have 3-12 bottles on hand and purchase 2-3 bottles at a time, though they’ll buy 6 if the store is running a 20% or 30% off sale.
The police? That’s fraud, brutha.
And they’d actually be right to think so!
It’s only fraud if they said who gave it that many points, and it turned out to be false. But if you say “that’s a 90-point wine”, there’s no fraud. It could well be 90-point according to them, as Greg pointed out. I actually think this is still being used by at least one importer in NYC ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
GD, it has an obvious potential for being fraudulent, and is at best smarmy and misleading. And in the post GregT said “sometimes that was flat out untrue,” meaning no one ever gave it those points. That is fraud.
To be specific… it’s called fraudulent inducement. “The substantive elements of fraud under . . . New York law: (1) a representation; (2) which is material to the transaction at hand; (3) made falsely, with knowledge of its falsity or recklessness as to whether it is true or false; (4) with the intent of misleading another into relying on it; (5) justifiable reliance on the misrepresentation; and (6) the resulting injury was proximately caused by the reliance.” Wall v. CSX Transp., Inc., 471 F.3d 410, 417-418 (2d Cir. 2006).
Again “no one ever gave it those points” doesn’t exist. Anybody could have given it those points, even the store clerk. Still no fraud unless there’s a “according to…” attached. If people are dumb enough to buy on points, that’s all they deserve.
So you’re saying it’s not fraudulent for a store clerk to have the authority to assign points to a wine, perhaps without ever even having tasted it, in order to make a sale? We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.
I have to disagree. I know our firm’s buying for events was driven pretty much directly by Spectator scores in the north of Yellow Tail and south of collectible range. It’s not just individuals, but organizations where the person putting together the event just wants not to blow the budget or get yelled at for buying crappy wine. That person may not even drink.