Meadows provides only a ‘start drinking’ year no?
And he scores as of today (alla Tanzer) I believe.
Yeah I have to agree. Luckily I think he’s lengthened many of his windows in recent vintages.
Tanzer: “Wines are scored relative to their peer group based on their expected quality during their period of peak drinkability.”
Meadows: “Wines are scored based on their expected quality at peak drinkability.”
Parker: “The score given for a specific wine reflects the quality of the wine at its best.”
Seems they all score wines at their best, or peak drinkability (unless you don’t think that means the same thing, which I suppose could be argued). I think I’ll avoid making any comments on specific posts.
I think Tanzer has a good palate and is a tough grader. If he has a wine at 90+ it means more to me. If Meadows has rated the same wine and scored or gives a wine a rating or range 90 or above I’m pretty sure it’s going to have a good chance to be a good bottle of wine and is worth considering. They are both pretty stingy with the high scores. I saw the transcipt Adam Lee posted of the recent Meadows interview and he has only given out 1 100 rating ever - 1945 DRC Romanee Conti. And I think he said 1 99 pointer and it was also at apex age.
I few years ago I read a (I think it was from Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Management School) study rating the raters (I think it was based upon scores on the same bottles of Bordeaux) and Parker averaged 1.5 points higher on average (more likely 1.5+ 
) than the others. Suckling was then above by .5 and Tanzer was the toughest. When I see a Parker 91, I automatically adjust it 89. YMMV.
I bought a few bottles of 2003 Guigal CdP that he had rated 95. Molesworth at WS gave it an 87 (I like him too- pretty consistent). In the end Molesworth had it right and it has gone just like he described. I rated it about the same and so has the CT community. I could go on, but this example comes to mind since I’m out some money on it that could have gone to some good stuff.
Interesting that Tanzer said that though.
I’m surprised this is getting this much airplay. It was an off-hand somewhat tongue in cheek comment on his forum in response to someone joking about how many 100 pointers would be in his next newsletter. Most of his subscribers know that he has been on record a number of times stating that he doesn’t think any young wine should be given a hundred points right out of the blocks.
Precisely, John. If I recall correctly, you can count on one hand the number of 100s that Tanzer has passed out in his entire career, and there may be fewer 99s. “98(+?)” is typically as high as he goes. I did take the offhand comment to be a direct slap at Parker’s 19 100s, however…
Well Berry I believe he tries to write taking many different palates into consideration. Obviously you like your wines with more age.
Exactly. It was hardly a cry for attention; he’s actually quite careful about being seen to run down other writers in public, and he’s said at other times (I have the 2003 Pavie tiff in mind) that some of the Parker-bashing is overblown. Thanks to all for making sure he’ll be even more circumspect than he already is about participating in his board.