Help Me Understand A Wine Critic: James Suckling

The goal of this thread is to better understand a critic’s palate and how to interpret their wine tasting notes. These are related, but not the same, questions.

Instagram @james.suckling

[u]Abbreviated bio from https://jebdunnuck.com/about/[/u]
Suckling spent nearly 30 years as Senior Editor and European Bureau Chief of The Wine Spectator, and as European Editor of Cigar Aficionado. On his departure from the magazines, Forbes called the Los Angeles-born writer “one of the world’s most powerful wine critics.” In late 2010, Suckling launched JamesSuckling.com, a site that evolved from him seeing a need for wine to be communicated in a more modern way.

Since he started his career as a wine critic, Suckling estimates he has tasted close to 150,000 wines – and many of the greatest ever produced. It all began in 1981 when he responded to an ad in the Los Angeles Times where the fledgling Wine Spectator was looking for an assistant editor. He was hired, and four years later, Suckling moved to Paris to establish Wine Spectator’s European bureau, which put him in the center of European wine production and cemented his relationships with a variety of vintners, as well as contributed to his expanding knowledge of wines throughout the continent.

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Why not make THE ENTIRE FIRST PAGE posts like this. WHAT FUN!!

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No you help me! neener

I’m a hundred points on that

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is he the critic who lives in TUSCANY?

Is it wine?

100 points!

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It’s most useful to think of him as an “influencer” now rather than a critic.

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just subtract 8. Makes Buzz’ scores look conservative.

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Are you referring to Crutchfeld’s post? The site says I had him on ignore but I did not recall why. I displayed the post. Now I remember. ZERO substance and ZERO meaningful contribution.

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In some ways Suckling is the most interesting of the critics. He scores wines higher than most others, and it is hard to see a point of view as he himself does not seem to differentiate between various styles of wine. Having tasted many of the younger Bordeaux wines he has, without ever getting any real sense of a really discerning palate, so his scores are for me useless.

In the days when 100 point scores were rare enough that when a wine did get one, it immediately doubled or tripled in price. Suckling famously gave the 1988 Mouton, a wine that showed a lot of oak and burnt wood flavors (coffee) and lost a fair amount of credibility.

Produces more heat than light, and totally a fop, but self-aware enough to intentionally poke fun at himself… so there is that in his favor.

^This. I think of him like a sort of vinous impresario.

His reviews seem to exist to generate ‘churn’ for his events and various cross-promoting opportunities.

I don’t think there are necessarily conflicts of interest, but his reviews certainly function to reinforce his brand and name recognition. And he is unlikely to piss off any producers, distributors or importers with bad reviews.

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Wow, and I always think of him as having the Jay Hack “palate”. neener

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+1

Hopefully somebody is currently making room in the HoF thread for this post.

To actually answer the question, I do think it’s more helpful to think of him in the ambassador/influencer role as opposed to unbiased critic who would “advise you” how to buy. He’s allowed to make a buck like anyone else, so fair play IMO, but I do shudder to think how many people take home a $22 wine with a big cardboard “JS97” around the neck hoping for a transformational wine experience only to think to themselves “eh…I mean it tastes like wine, but…”

I cancelled my Wine Spectator subscription largely because of the Suck. Circa 1999.

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It’s all about the scarf.

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