Sorta related to the William Kelly - Robert Parker thread, who these days is like the leading critic on California wines? My preference is a more classical palate, say like a John Gilman or William Kelly. I will admit to having lost touch with California, but would like to peek back in on some old, former favorites, like Dunn, Togni, Dominus, Mount Eden, et al. Perhaps they have all moved more modern for all I know. Curious what they think of the hot new properties as well, like the Ketan Mody stuff (Beta, Jasud). I have noticed that Vinuous seems to dominate the notes/ratings, at least on some of the wines that I have checked out, but I have not really connected with any voice there.
Thoughts? And yes, I know, most often this Board is the best voice.
It feels like thereās been a lot of flux in who reviews California these days and I donāt really have a go-to who fits my own tastes. From what Iāve read of your posts, M. Alfert, I suspect youād not be sad if you added Di Costanzo to your list.
I appreciate Galloni (Vinous) the most. Imo- heās been consistent over the yrs and extremely prolific so itās easy to find notes on most wines. I feel like I get a good sense of a wine and whether Iād like it after reading one of his notes.
Wine Spectator notes are usually very informative. James Molesworth does a good job there, imo even tho he hasnāt been doing it as long. He seems to routinely have lower ratings relative to most critics.
Good question. One Iāve been thinking about lately also. As Iāve been going back to Cali in the last couple of years Iāve looked at a lot of the critics. TBH not many really touch me. Iāve been using cellar tracker mostly for my decisions. Iāve learned the value of crowd sourced opinions especially because of my business. If you get enough opinions that are consistent on a wine (or restaurant) then there is probably some truth there. Now Iām searching for older bottles to try to make sure their style is jiving with me before I commit to collecting in the future.
Honestly as the OP said, this board is a pretty good source of info for California. I mentioned McDonald, Beta / Jasud, Sandlands, Maitre de Chai, Phelan Farms and others here before most critics. And California is not even my main focus.
I lost all respect for AG after the 2020 report - a joke! I believe JM is not too bad even if some of the scores are questionable, in general he tastes blind and assuming you believe this, you will get a good idea of the heroās and zeroās based on his tastes.
I would love for WK to take on California but there are only so many hours in a dayā¦we can only hope
I donāt follow many reviewers for Napa these days but wondering how āold schoolā producers or those doing things in an old school way have done - thinking Chateau Montelena, Mayacamas, Smith-Madrine, Mattiason.
Are all of the 95-100 pt scores being given to only āmore polishedā wines?
I donāt recall any of the critics other than Gilman forcefully expressing a preference for āold school styleā wines. And obviously whatever praise most critics may or may not heap on the old-school wines, they also give plenty of big scores to plenty of āmore polishedā wines.
Gilman, though, generally doesnāt even review those other wines (I just searched his database for Bevan and Araujo and came up empty, and a search for Harlan produced only a few ratings for Bondās 2005 and 2006 wines, as examples).
He does give high scores to the more classically-styled producers. For example, he loves Calluna Estate Cab and praises it as old-school and has rated it between 92 and 96 points in every vintage going back to 2010 (and the 92-93 scores are far outnumbered by the 95-96 scores).
But there are other old-school wines he loves but seems to review more sporadically (Mt. Eden estate cab for example, lots of big scores and one big vertical retrospective, but 2012 is the most recent vintage rated and they just released the 2019).
So that begs the question Mohegan all of the other reviewers have āgradedā these wines, included Collins and Mt Eden - anyone have scores to share to compare/contrast?
