Is there a "size bonus" in wine scores?

Has anyone else observed that “big” wines (huge fruit, ripeness, extraction, etc.) seem to get a significant boost in critical and drinker scores as compared to lighter-weight and more elegant wines? I always sort of suspected this was true for critics, but where I really have observed it is on Cellartracker. If you look at the scores given for wines and compare them to the writeups, it is very rare for lighter-weight wines to get scores of 95+ no matter how much people rave about them, and “big” wines can get huge scores even if the writeup seems sort of indifferent.

You really see this in scores for Burgundy vs other regions. If you were to go by CT you would think California Syrahs are better wines that Cotes de Nuits Burgundy, even though no one really believes this. Part of that is the selection effect on who drinks what, but when you look reviews it’s hard to escape the feeling that there is some tendency for people to just award the size of a wine in how they assess it.

A few examples of what I’m talking about –

reviews for 2013 Shafer Relentless (CT average 94 points) –

95 points – “Big tannin when opened up. Smoothed out with air and food. Big pepper, meaty but not quite on par with Cayuse territory. Dark blue fruit territory. Like it, but again fruit profile wise Paso is just more my jam than Napa.”

93 points --“Purple and blue in the glass. Tasted over two days. Bouquet of ripe muddled blueberry, effusive purple fruits, magic marker, (oak imparted) thick coconut oil, hints of pepper, and strong, almost ether-like, alcohol. The wine tastes exactly like it smells, each element coming forward separately, other than the omnipresent alcohol, in tsunami-like waves. The 15.8 reported abv was especially obtrusive on the second day. A higher proportion of Petite Sirah would have made the wine more interesting. Inky, fruit drenched oak aficionados, who have no qualms with exhaling fire after each taste, might swoon over this now. Otherwise, it needs time to settle, evolve, and hopefully, develop into the sum of its component parts. Recommend holding for 15 to 20 years; the alcohol alone will preserve it for that long.”

These people are pretty meh about the wine but they are giving it 93-95 points!

Now look at some notes for the 2010 Bertheau Charmes (CT average 91.7 points):

92 points – “This was really good! Deep dark fruits, cherries, pepper, cardamom and other spice. Very smooth and lovely to drink now. It will probably shut down soon.”

92 points – “Gorgeous floral aromatics married with a light, smooth mouthfeel. On day 2, the nose gained greater depth, while the palate picked up weight without losing its elegance. The wine’s specific flavors became almost an afterthought as the experience was dominated by the fragrant nose and the incredible, silky mouthfeel. Superb.”

These people LOVE this wine but it’s not sniffing 95 points.

Obviously I’m cherry-picking these examples but I see this pattern over and over again.

I don’t mean this just to be a comment on CT which as we all know has a ton of idiosyncracies and taster prejudices. What I’m wondering is if it speaks to something more generally in how people assess wine, just being impressed by WOW IT’S BIG and paying less attention to other things. It’s harder to trace this out for critics (although obviously Parker had a severe case of it), because critics don’t tend to comment across regions as much, but I think it is very much operative for professional critics as well.

Interestingly, it is not so operative for market prices. There are plenty of gorgeous lighter-bodied wines without outstanding critical scores that go for much higher prices (much higher market demand) than bigger wines with bigger scores. Ironically, sometimes the critical scores follow when the wine goes through the roof in price.

Wait. This is something new? Been going on for 15+ years!

I just read two big scores notes by Galloni, and he was fixated on “unctuousness”. Big jammy yummy low acid new oak crap. I had one of them tonight and moved on.

Well, there was this guy named Robert Parker…

LOL. Definitely wasn’t claiming it was something new, more like a universal human tendency based on palate cravings for sugar and fat.

The interesting thing to me about CT is how you can observe this tendency “in the wild” with ordinary drinkers. A striking thing on CT is how people will be like “big and bold! ONE ZILLION POINTS” but then “exquisite, charming, stunning, precise” gets like 91 points.

E.g.

2007 Shafer Hillside –

98 points – “Big and bold. Excellent wine from Shafer. Only will get better with time. Tannins still very much in place in this very structured wine. Truly enjoyable experience.”

2010 Barthod C-M Cras –

93 points – “Very tight and mineral, wonderfully perfumed and floral, great tension and acidity, very linear and precise, perfectly integrated oak, radiant, transparent, wonderful expression of terroir, very good length.”

93 points – “Beautiful elegant wine with sublime fruit and minerals. Quite rich even if its so elegant. Very long finish. Love it.”

I just find it amusing that judging by peoples’ descriptions there is basically NO level of elegance and balance that can get you the scores that “this wine punched me in the fucking face with all that fruit man, wow!” can get you.

Burgundy drinkers are Always looking for and expecting upward mobility in their scores? Whether it’s from further evolution or from a different more exalted vineyard there is almost always a reason to believe your not drinking 100 points.

When people drink something like HSS they know they are drinking top shelf cab and can’t see cab getting that much better really so the scores will be huddled towards the top.

Just a theory off the top of my head…

Who trained Galloni, who became unctuous squared!

(1) When tasting small pours of a lot of wines, wines with concentration, ripeness, and yumminess factors are more likely to stand out positively than subtle, delicate ones.

(2) When tasting small pours of a lot of young wines, wines which are designed to show well young will often outshine ones that need many years to develop.

(3) Notwithstanding the fashion on WB, most wine drinkers out there in the wine drinking world prefer ripeness, extraction, lush textures, etc. over dried autumnal leaves, tobacco leaf, bell pepper, tar, beef blood, and things like that. I’m not saying that makes them right (or that there is a “right”), but there are a lot more people out there who lean that way. So, if you’re a critic, it depends some on who your audience is, in terms of how you ought to rate wines of different styles. Laube probably has a pretty good palate for the majority of Wine Spectator subscribers, I would guess, even if he wouldn’t for this board, or for me personally.

(4) Along the lines of the original post, I have always found that sweet wines like Riesling, Sauternes and Port also get way overscored by critics.

1990 La Tâche was a 100 point wine from Parker, AFAIK. Burgundy on the ripe side?

I thought he meant CT scoring? I see he said not exclusively at the finish though. Not much upward room left in your mind when your drinking La Tache though, your kind of expecting a top notch experience going in I’d imagine.

In addition to scoring methodology being quite inconsistent from one taster to the next, I don’t think that it should be surprising that different people have different tastes. There are people who value huge body and boldness tremendously and much more than other things like complexity, elegance, acidity, etc., so you’ll see them give very high scores to wines that really exude those attributes. It also makes sense that these big, highly extracted wines are more likely to be consumed and scored by people who love big, highly extracted wines. Maybe they actually enjoy those big Napa wines more than a lot of people enjoy the Burgundies you’re looking at, maybe their scoring methodology is different, or perhaps a combination of both. Regardless, I don’t think it’s much of an issue for me on CT because I try to compare apples to apples – to me, the CT score general gives me an idea of how much fans of that type/style of wine enjoy that wine; I’m not trying to use the scores to see if a Burgundy is better than a Central Coast Syrah.

This. Most of my friends who are not wine geeks view wine as the bigger the better. One friend does not like pinot noir because he prefers “a mouthful of flavor.” We AFWE are in the distinct minority, thankfully. I would hate it if more people like the good stuff - then prices would go up even higher.

Also, I think most Burgundy lovers tend to be more sophisticated wine drinkers. We know just how good Burgundy can get. It is hard to rate an excellent premier cru 97 points when you have tasted the truly great (and unfortunately now unaffordable) ones. Also, Burgundy has a hierarchy that is well-known. How can I give a 95 point score to a Hudelot-Noellat CM Charmes when I have tasted his Richebourg and Romanee St. Vivant.

yes, the whole aspect of enjoying a bottle over an evening or over a few days, versus across a panel for comparison is a big part of this.

its like music - louder is not always better even if it more noticeable.

Mahler fanatics are the Robert Parkers of classical music, and second in annoyance only to Shostakovich fanatics.

I think there’s self-selection in who rates which kind of wine. So it’s not big wines win higher scores; it’s that bigger wines tend to be drunk by people who both like them and like to give out big scores. From what I’ve seen on this board over many years, folks who like more restrained, less ripe wines tend to be more stingy with points.

I suspect there is for many reviewers. Size isn’t important its how big it is!

It seems that fruit sweetness, or a perception of mid-palate sweetness adds a few points. Dessert wines tend to consistently rate higher than say a deliciously flinty 1er Cru Chablis.

This takes me back to the pre-Berserker days.

I spent part of college in music school studying trumpet performance (classical focus) and I am now working in the wine industry. My favorite wines are those with finesse, elegance, subtlety, and freshness, yet being a brass player, of course I loved Mahler and Shostakovich…so I have mixed feelings here haha but you’re definitely making some sense. I’ve thought about such comparisons myself.

I think some of it is how wine education systems ask you to evaluate wine quality. Assume a balanced wine with a good finish (not a given, of course, but just stipulate for the sake of discussion), those with higher intensity of aromas and flavors will “rate” highest.