My new favorite CT tasting note

I love the way this reviewer really gets into it, working himself up from relatively cogent and objective to a complete saliva-spewing lather over the course of 10 sentences.

…Slight nose of Kirschwasser, burnt rubber, and newly dry-cleaned cotton shirts. After 1 hour decant, a light palate of cranberry, maraschino cherry, and brown rice. I am not going to resort to the “wait another 3 years it will get better” fiction. The jig is up and the verdict s in: 2002 is a hopeless vintage for BDX. A totally hopeless vintage, whether it is Branaire Ducru, or Pontet Canet, or any of the 1st growths or super seconds. This vintage should go down in history as a total failure. Being that Branaire Ducru"s main value is “pleasure” they should have dumped this pleasureless pile into the Gironde river and have forgotten about releasing any wine in 2002. Simple $15 Cru Bourgeois in better vintages are better than every single Bordeaux wine in 2002. 2002 = no go. This was a disaster.

But the topper was his rating of this wine: 89 points.

89 points for garbage … I wonder what he/she would give an decent quaffer?

Given that 2002 Mouton is one of my best wine experiences ever, I find his opinion a bit suspect…

Steve,
If this guy wants to get rid of some 2002 Latour at a good price, I am very interested.

If he’s listening:
96-100:
An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase, and consume.
90 - 95:
An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.
80 - 89:
A barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor as well as character with no noticeable flaws.
70 - 79:
An average wine with little distinction except that it is a soundly made. In essence, a straightforward, innocuous wine.
60 - 69:
A below average wine containing noticeable deficiencies, such as excessive acidity and/or tannin, an absence of flavor, or possibly dirty aromas or flavors.
50 - 59:
A wine deemed to be unacceptable.

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Wait. I thought 90 was average.

Lucky for me, I have never written anything less than a perfect tasting note on CT (add self deprecating smile here). Anybody here ever wake up, head spinning from the night before, look on CT, and thank his Maker he didn’t post a note last night.

I don’t disagree with his assessment of the 02 vintage - rather charmless IMO although I am sure there are a few wines that will drink well - I do have that single bottle of Lafite. Doesn’t sound like an 89 point note…

Sure, but try using any of those ranges and you get hate mail.

True, especially when the 50-59 point ‘wine in mention’ is actually a real good wine, just not in the ‘tasters’ wheelhouse, which means, quite possibly the ‘taster’ should not have been rating it numerically or even noting that it was ‘badly made’. That’s just bad form. That ‘taster’ is always free to note and score the sh… I mean wine he drinks 51s on a regular basis, since that is what he knows.
Look out!

Of course, the average wine should get a 75, just like the average student gets a C.

– Matt

Fixed your post!

+1. I don’t think you’d say that 2002 was a bad vintage if you’ve had a 2002 Latour . . . granted, it’s not 2000 or 2005, but for what most would say “off vintage” the Latour is particularly good. Unless my young palate is just out of whack . . .

I haven’t had an 02 yet that I thought was “terrible”… In fact, most of them have been really great values and are showing pretty well right now.

eh, the scores on CT are worthless and always will be. That’s not a fault of CT, it’s true of any site like that - people vary too much in how they use scores for them to retain meaning.

The notes are usually useful, esp if you friend the people who seem to have palates like yours. And notes like these are great - can you imagine a pro critic doing that note? It’s awesome…

PS: 2002 Latour is over $300 per bottle. Be honest, is it even vaguely worth that?

I don’t agree. The scores of 1) tasters you know and trust in combo with 2) reading the notes of those you trust is a pretty reliable test IMO.

I’m guessing the guy with the 89 above is not on my favorite taster list!

Agreed (with Chris). I find CT to be far more useful than any Pro Critic - especially as the data matures and notes are available for a specific wine over years as it develops in the bottle. Using notes to gauge the current evolution of a specific wine is absolutely priceless.

I also disagree with the assessment of the '02 vintage in Bordeaux. There are some gems.

On another note I am left to wonder exactly why this note is even worth a “favorite note” kind of post. What’s interesting about it?

But Mike, he’s probably using the more commonly accepted 93-88 point scale:

93:
An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase, and consume.
92:
An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.
91:
A barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor as well as character with no noticeable flaws.
90:
An average wine with little distinction except that it is a soundly made. In essence, a straightforward, innocuous wine.
89:
A below average wine containing noticeable deficiencies, such as excessive acidity and/or tannin, an absence of flavor, or possibly dirty aromas or flavors.
88:
A wine deemed to be unacceptable.

Couple of things -

Last first - Mike, I’m specifically talking about the SCORES, not the notes. Like you, I find the notes can be interesting, especially on bottles that people open regularly so that you get a picture of how the wine is evolving.

Next, yes, if you take the time to get to know a taster or a group of them the scores can be useful. However, this is true regardless of the source, i.e. it’s just as true of a pro critic or a publication with a relatively stable, er, stable of writers.

However, scores from the CT community at large aren’t useful since people define the scores so differently. The problem is that you have to do just as much work to make CT scores useful as you do from any source and the variability if you don’t do that work is MUCH wider.

This isn’t something that Eric or anyone can alleviate - it’s up to the reader to do the work. My comment was more that, absent that work, the scores are much LESS useful because of the lack of a consistent definition.