There was a guy who reviewed Champagne and wrote a couple good books. I found his ratings to be almost spot on for me… Richard Juhlin. Have no idea if he is still in the game?
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Tom Hill is my go to guy
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Phil’s list is spot on. But I like how he closes, it’s really the berserker community as a whole. The collective wisdom on this website is unbelievable. And I love how we have niche players that are just so amazingly gifted in their niche. @Julian_Marshall it’s just but one example, if he recommends a wine from Loire, you know it will be classic, high caliber and generally reasonably priced and his British Bordeaux palette ain’t too shabby either.
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Too much weighted talent - minus my clunky brett-tolerant palate - for one post!!!
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I’m honored but can’t remember scoring a wine since 2011 
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Hahaha 
right back at u
As for the topic…
I think for me the most important thing is to understand the likes and dislikes of any given reviewer. Some regions have a wealth of voices, like Burgundy, Bordeaux, Piemonte and whatever else there is. So many to pick and choose from. For a poor millenial like me who can only afford Jura and Loire it’s a different story.
For Loire I appreciate @Chris_Kissack and otherwise I CT triangulate notes like a madman. For Jura it’s difficult but Nicolas Greinacher of Vinous and Luis Guiterres of WA does a good job. Although some wines Luis scores high I’ve found mousiness issues in, so that doesn’t work too well.
For Champagne I also occasionally check WA for Karklins notes but I don’t find that my preferences overlaps with his very much.
As for me? I can’t really detect TCA so take my notes with a grain of salt, sorry not sorry.
You lost me at Who’s vs. Whose. Oh, wrong thread.
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Same for me…for the last many years.
Your own scores (or at least opinions) matter way more. Never lose sight of that.
The thought that random strangers might deliver ‘reliable scores’ to direct you to the wines you will like most, is bizarre, but sadly remains a popular belief.
Follow your own palate, not that of a vinous pied piper. Have confidence in it.
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Thanks - I’m honoured! I second all the others but I’d add @Keith_Levenberg for Bordeaux. For reviews you’re in my list but not scores as I don’t think you score!
Ha! I’d rather not think about the money you’ve cost me over the years in recs acted on! It always astounds me how you get French unicorn wines in Florida when I can’t find them here!
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It goes to show how much I think about scores. It didn’t even register that this thread is about numerical scoring, my mind went directly to tasting notes.
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Of course. I almost responded to the OP with a snarky “No one’s”.
But, even if you know your own palate, most of us have resource constraints and often debate which wines to buy from a new vintage. So it’s reasonable that some people would look for information about the specific wines to aid those decisions.
Personally, I tend not to worry about it, focusing on producers/bottlings that I know I like, buying more/less depending on vintage conditions. But as people have mentioned above, it is reasonable to look for information about wine before buying, whether or not it’s reduced to a score.
I’d agree that we should remain open to some influence, be that friends suggesting we try a wine, or someone offering a suggestion of a ‘typical’ wine to start an exploration of a region.
However for too many people, including those who have been tasting wine for years and should have developed confidence in their own palate, ignore the best guide to their own enjoyment (their own palate) and instead rely on strangers to build a cellar of ‘high scoring’ wines. Scores are not the easy shortcut to buying wine we’ll like that they purport to be (and too many critics rely on people assuming this and blindly following them).
I value the berating I received from a friend many years ago, when I said the wine “has a medal, so it should be good”. In time I realised he was absolutely right to firmly challenge that assumption. As such I am indelicate in this criticism of people using the crutch of (critics’) points, just as he was to me. The forcefulness was necessary to shake my lazy assumption.
This too. People like @Tomas_Costa for Portuguese wines or @Russell_Faulkner who’s ahead of the curve, @Robert_Dentice and the whole German Spatburgunder thread, @MadsW @Andy_K @patrick_c_albright on vins vivants, @Rich_Brown on old California I will never find, and the list goes on.
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Of course! No one would ever defend that!
I was thinking more about deciding how to allocate purchases across the many wines a producer makes. Even experienced palates might want to know how specific wines fared in a given year, to calibrate purchasing ratios.
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If the use is about insight into how the wine might differ from previous iterations e.g.
- The warm year makes this more immediately appealing, but probably not one for extended ageing
or - Acidity rather spiky, so demands food more than normal
then that’s useful insight for sure
However if it’s simply a higher or lower score, without any reasoning why, then I’ll fall back into my rant about points (with maybe a reference to Suckling and others lauding the 1997 vintage in the Langhe)
None of them. The only opinion that matters is yours. If you like it, it is a good wine. If you don’t like it, it is not a good wine. All the rest - vintages, locations, producers, scores, etc. - is window dressing.
As someone new here, out of the WBers, who are the fans or main people for Burg, BDX, and Barolo?