Quantifying community recommendations

Hello,

People often ask for wine recommendations. It could be best Cab < $50 or Tempranillo with less oak or modern vs traditional Bordeaux. Responders are quite generous with recommendations. However, sometimes the threads are quite long and sometimes one poster will recommend a producer and another will copy that message and add +1 under it as their post. I often create a Google spreadsheet and note the number of times a given wine or producer is recommended in a thread. I then look to try those that are most recommended if I can.

Has anyone found a quicker way to summarize the knowledge provided by the community in a long thread?

Thanks in advance,

Lonnie

I’m much more interested in who recommends a wine than in how many people recommend it. When I see a trusted taster make a strong recommendation I make a mental note or, if really organized, jot it on the back of an envelope.

FWIW I would urge some caution in counting recommendations.

As a group I think we are vulnerable to slipping into a groupthink mindset e.g. person A recommends a wine, so person B tries it and likes it, later posting their support of it. Person C sees two people recommending it, so thinks it must be good, suggesting it to person D who is looking for wines to try… and so on. Meanwhile there are also some very good wines that barely or never get a mention.

There are most certainly ‘board darlings’ here, and thus the counting of these recommendations will probably show their popular recognition in the group.