I searched for this topic and couldn’t find a lot. If it’s been done recently, please point me to the thread, otherwise…
After the death of their BB, I am letting my WA subscription lapse. The thing I miss most (after the BB) is the shear volume of scores. Back in the glory days, almost any wine I could think of was reviewed on WA. I especially appreciated early reviews of wines I was buying directly off mail lists. WS was never helpful in this regard. Also I like hearing about vintages in general: load up on Oregon 2014s, 10s from Paso, avoid 13 Bordeaux, etc. I’ve heard most about Jeb Dunnuck and I did enjoy his reviews when he was at WA, but I wonder about what else is out there. Unfortunately, most sites won’t let your sample their content without subscribing.
I enjoy Vinous. My palate seems to align with them for the most part.
I do have Jeb but I will not renew. His scores seem high and my palate just doesn’t agree with his scores. Also, understanding that he’s just branched out on his own but the amount of reviews/content is drastically different. Jeb is good for one piece of content a month where as Vinous puts out multiple pieces a week. Jeb is a one man show whereas Vinous has multiple contributors which gives them the ability to produce all this content.
Depends on what you drink too. Vinous has the whole spectrum covered it seems. Jeb reports mainly just on California, Washington, Bordeaux and Rhone. And focused more on Reds than Whites.
Well, in terms of sheer number of reviews, TWA (speaking as a reviewer) publish more than ever before. Indeed, the volume of reviews has almost doubled since the same time a decade ago: we published 17,910 tasting notes in 2009 vs 29,090 last year.
Of course, there have been several changes in personnel and the editorial calendar has shifted around a bit for certain regions; and every reviewer has their own way and pace of doing things. But, speaking for myself, I can say that for Burgundy and Champagne, the two key regions I cover, we are both very timely and very thorough—I live in France half the year and spend most of that time tasting.
If you have any particular issues feel free to drop me a PM and I can mention them next time the reviewers get together.
Vinous is great unless your focus is Loire wines. TWA is great for regions William and Luis have IMO, which likely isn’t a great value based on other major regions needed, and they have atrocious customer service.
The one region every publication now misses though is under $25, they are all trying to out trophy taste eachother to some extent and highest score wins with retailers and general consumers.
This is a great call out- easy to find reviews on the big names, well established names, and ultra expensive flashy newcomers, many of which are sold out by the time the score is published, but the value or under the radar wines you have to het via word of mouth.
I guess I would wonder what the OP is looking for. Is it just a lot of reviews of a lot of wines or validation of his choices or will he actually make decisions to purchase based on what someone else has to say? If the latter, why not just go to Cellar Tracker or use Google? There are hundreds of reviewers out there and you can probably find someone who wrote about just about any wine made.
Based upon this post, I would say your best bet would be either Vinous, Jeb or continuing on with the WA - noting that you are looking for early reviews of mailing list wines (assuming domestic here) and overall impressions of vintages. I think all three of these would do - it really comes down to either aligning your palate with one of these reviewers OR having the opposite palate, which can be just as helpful
I would agree that wine criticism as a whole could do with more discovery and less validation-of-the-unobtainable, but I don’t think it’s entirely like that. I’m just writing up some 500 reviews of Beaujolais wines, for example, and Josh Reynold at Vinous does a large and excellent annual Beaujolais report, too. I have 300 reviews of wines from the Côte Chalonnaise and less heralded villages of the Côte de Beaune coming out in a few days, including several producers never reviewed in English before. John Gilman’s annual Loire report is always a value treasure trove. It would be easy to go on, and on non-partisan lines.
Vivino is the 800lb Gorilla sitting over in the corner of the room.
Somehow they materialized out of nowhere [at least from my vantage point], and now they dominate the marketplace.
I use a mix of Berserker searches, Cellar Tracker, Vivino, and Free Wine-Searcher [for price comparison].
I’m very fortunate, though, in that I often get to taste the wines before making a purchase.
Although, even there, I’ll buy just one bottle of a wine which I enjoyed tasting, and then bring that one bottle back home, and watch its oxidation curve for about a week, before committing to a full case purchase.
I don’t disagree William, except the fact that Beaujolais, Cote Chalonnaise, and Loire tend to be dominated by wines under $30, many under $20. Same with Chianti/Classico, Fronsac, and other regions, whereas finding many sub-$25 Pinot Noirs in Oregon is near impossible.
It would be great to see a compendium of all sub $25 or $30 wines from review teams regions quarterly or bi-yearly, many seem to think, and I may be incorrect, that it devalues their publication having a report of 85-91 point wines.
Jeb Dunnuck bet the farm on the 2016 Southern Rhones & Languedocs.
I hope for his sake that he’s correct, but every bottled 2016, that I tried, tasted like a premature barrel sample [dating to the very day the wine was moved from the vats to the barrels] which couldn’t possibly be ready for human consumption prior to about 2116.
Maybe 2091, but that’s probably too optimistic.
PS: On the other hand, I strongly agreed with Mr Dunnuck’s assessment of the 2015s - they should be drinking fabulously throughout the lifetimes of everyone on this board.
You guys who are curious about $15 or $20 wines really need to head on over to Vivino.
Vivino has a monopoly on that market, with sample sizes which dwarf Cellar Tracker’s.
You go to Cellar Tracker for the long-winded commentary on the obscure AFWE wines that only us crazy people are aware of; you go to Vivino for what’s actually sitting on skid-row/low-brow/middle-brow store shelves.
Quite a few subscribers have mentioned that to me, so it’s clearly something we should look at. We published value-focussed reports in the past and I think it’s simply something that has fallen through the cracks, rather than being consciously abolished. The idea is very much on our radar!
To beat Vivino, you gotta be fast & concise & very accurate, and somehow publicize the hell outta your speed & brevity & reliability.
And good luck trying to figure out how to make money from giving away information for free - I don’t know what Michelin’s business model is these days - but obviously Vivino is doing it by trying to get in on the sales action…
I don’t fully agree with your assertion Nathan, I think the Vivino demographic is looking at it for a different reason than someone subscribing to Vinous/TWA.
They are more curious than passionate, looking for confirmation, and shop in the most common wine group: under $10, purchased at grocery, and consumed within 24 hours.
I think both can exist and offer a unique consumer product to both collectors and casual wine drinkers.
It would be great to see a compendium of all sub $25 or $30 wines from review teams regions quarterly or bi-yearly, many seem to think, and I may be incorrect, that it devalues their publication having a report of 85-91 point wines.
Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, and Wine and Spirits do this regularly. And WS does it every time they do a review of an entire region, which is every issue, breaking their list down into “best values” and “top wines”. If you understand the specific reviewer’s palate one way or another, you’re good.
But as a retailer, you would never put “85 Points!!!” on a shelf-talker or an e-mail blast. It’s very easy to find a 90+ point from one of the hundreds of reviewers and crowd sites. For people who buy from retail citations, it makes no difference at all who the points are from.
Great points as usual. The publications you mentioned do oftentimes list best value and top XX point wines under $ oftentimes, as does the WA (or at least they have in the past).
And yep, there is no shortage of ways to get a 90 point score - and thus for retailers to advertise them. In fact, I recently saw a winery advertising their 94 point score - from a wine competition! Interesting indeed . . .
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