Best wine scorers

I know this is a tough question, but which critics do you tend to respect their wine evaluations. I’ve enjoyed Molesworth and Tim Fish from WS. I never regard Sucklings reports.

Is Galloni a credible scorer? I have not followed him in the past,

I think you’ll need to define “credible.” I suspect that most reviewers you might encounter are giving you their honest reaction to the wine they taste, and as an expression of their enthusiasm, they are all credible. Whether those results correlate meaningfully with your own tastes (or mine or anyone else’s) is another question, which you’ll have to answer for yourself.

How is meadows from Burghound?

If your palate aligns with Allan then I find him a good source for wines that you might not get a chance to taste before buying.

I am worlds best scorer. There is 100% correlation between the wines I score highly and the best wines available.

YMMV

I’ve always felt that the best wine critics are the ones with the most neutral palates. One’s that don’t lean towards weight over finesse, one’s that are truly knowledgeable about every major and minor grape and the way they are made in each country. You shouldn’t have to ‘align’ yourself with any one critic just because you think you have similar palates. A great critic has no prejudices or preferences.

JSTONE4 on Cellartracker.

I remember jay miller from WA-everything got 90 or more points, Suckling also a high scorer. Many don’t like Laube for cabs because he likes the new world, big fruit, heavier wines.

Craig (NZ) on a couple of Aussie forums.
Scored out of 109 and to 3 decimal places.
Best wine scorer.

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I know there’s going to be a lot of “it depends” or “you need to find someone who aligns with your palate” responses, and there were (and will continue to be).

That said, I absolutely think most avid wine drinkers come up with their own benchmark for what they consider an 88 point wine, a 90 point wine, a 95+ pointer, etc. Then you can see who aligns ROUGHLY with you. Not on every wine, but which reviewers tend to generally agree on wines you’ve tried?

In general, I think there are only a few sources that I find even credible: Parker, Vinous, and WS for big publications. Meadows for Burgundy. Vivino for review aggregation (to me a 4.2+ wine with 100+ reviews has shown to be at least “good-to-very-good”).

Wine Enthusiast, James Suckling, Wine & Spirits, James Halliday, etc. I don’t view as sources I want to use because too often my own notes/score aren’t even close to their scores (these reviewers are often much higher in my experience). That doesn’t mean their scores are bad, just means they aren’t good for me.

The use of ‘scorer’ rather than ‘critic’ or ‘taster’ or somesuch is interesting.

I value John Gilman’s observations. Also those of many on this and other wine boreds (chapeau to Chris Coad) including but not limited to: TomHill; Dan Kravitz (scores to 2 decimal points with tongue firmly in cheek); Jeremy Holmes; Jay (the good Jay) Miller; Oswaldo Costa; John Morris; Chris Kissack; and many, many others that I’m sorry for insulting by omission.

I trust the Prince of Pinot, WS, Robert Parker’s people, and Vinous.

Me. I am never wrong.

John Gilman, for the pros.

For the amateurs, I would direct your attention to my “Favorite Tasters” list in Cellartracker, as well as many folks here.

That person does not exist.

This is like asking what the best wines are. It depends on what you like, what you prize in a wine. I do think it’s possible to find some critics whose opinions generally line up with yours, at least for certain regions/categories. I think equal, sometimes greater, value can be found in following certain non-professional reviewers places like Cellartracker and here. I almost always completely agree with Gilman on dry Riesling and certain other whites, but there are quite a few other people (not wine critics) I trust equally for a broader spectrum of wines.

Of course, this is the best answer:

but it is nice to not have to taste every wine you might want to try to figure out if it’s worth buying.

I loved Clive Coates and his 20 point scale. 14 points still a great wine, genius.

I’m a big fan of Wine & Spirits reviews and scoring, although I think it starts with a blind panel tasting and then recommendations go to the reviewer to score. I also tend to pay attention to their Top 100 Wineries issue, especially for domestic producers. I’ve gotten turned on to a lot of good producers through Wine & Spirits.

(disclosure- Zaca Mesa occasionally appears in the W&S reviews)