I saw a shelf talker yesterday with an 84 point score

[Sean_Devaney]

This reminds me of a shelf talker I saw around 1990. The Wine Spectator tasting note made the wine sound like a 90+ but the wine was only 85 points. The shop should of just posted the note without the score.

[M_Meer]

Old Vines?
Hand Harvested?
84 Points?

[Victor_Hong]

Over scored. The wine has a 77 on CT.

Well, Wine Enthusiast…

Oxymoronic, in this case.

[John_Glas]

Sounds a bit high.

[John_Glas]

maybe to people buying this wine an 84 would be a pretty stellar score on a test.

Solid B!

[B_Davies]

This reminds me a bit of my college experience. I had a few friends in different areas of study and they kept chanting “C’s get degrees!” … except If you dropped below an 85 average in business school for us you’d be kicked out of the program.

[Markus_S]

This reminds me a bit of my college experience. I had a few friends in different areas of study and they kept chanting “C’s get degrees!” … except If you dropped below an 85 average in business school for us you’d be kicked out of the program.

You must have been in a fraternity.

[DougS]

The note is hilarious. So negative.

[larry_schaffer]

Here is the real question - why is that wine taking up shelf space when I’m sure there are plenty if others that can replace it and offer ‘better value’ for the consumer?

[Tom_Reddick]

When I worked in wine retail during college, just over 20 years ago, the store owner asked me to write shelf talkers for things I tasted and for which we did not have WS or WA shelf talkers- and sometimes to add my notes as a second opinion on really expensive things.

One time we took a flier on a case of CA wine- I cannot remember what it was- that was a blend from a producer we did not know. Retailed for about $13.

I tried the wine and while the basic underlying material was quite good- the wine was flawed. It had a sharp metallic taste and was just very hard and unyielding on the finish.

For kicks I wrote a very honest note giving it a low 70s score and the owner let me put it on the shelf.

We sold through the case in a couple of weeks. One person actually liked it and bought a few more bottles, and a couple of the other purchasers came up to tell us they were going to buy it just to see what a really bad wine was like because they had always liked the selections we carried in the store.

Two weeks to sell through a case of wine at $13 is not a good use of one slot in a retail rack, so I would not recommend the above as an ongoing marketing practice- but that one time it was a very effective way to get rid of a case of wine we did not like, and do so honestly.

[Marshall_Manning]

The best shelf talker I ever saw was at the old Burlingame Grocery in SW Portland. This was about 1997 or so, and they had an old Congress Springs Chardonnay on the shelf…I think it was the 1983 or 1984 vintage? The shelf talker simply said “More Bottle Age Than Strom Thurmond.”

[Neal.Mollen]

I just got an email offer on a pair of Duboeuf bojos trumpeted as “baby burgundies.” Did I miss the bit about gamay vines growing up to be pinot as adults? It also said one of them had “generous, full bodied bramble fruit and high, toasted oak” and won a “Platinum Medal 2021 World Wine Awards.”

3 strikes on that one.

[Dav3_Dyr0ff]

I just got an email offer on a pair of Duboeuf bojos trumpeted as “baby burgundies.” Did I miss the bit about gamay vines growing up to be pinot as adults? It also said one of them had “generous, full bodied bramble fruit and high, toasted oak” and won a “Platinum Medal 2021 World Wine Awards.”

3 strikes on that one.

But before you say no, what if I told you it got 84 points? Eh???

[Neal.Mollen]

I just got an email offer on a pair of Duboeuf bojos trumpeted as “baby burgundies.” Did I miss the bit about gamay vines growing up to be pinot as adults? It also said one of them had “generous, full bodied bramble fruit and high, toasted oak” and won a “Platinum Medal 2021 World Wine Awards.”

3 strikes on that one.

But before you say no, what if I told you it got 84 points? Eh???

No gamay for me, even if it gets 104 points

[B_Davies]

This reminds me a bit of my college experience. I had a few friends in different areas of study and they kept chanting “C’s get degrees!” … except If you dropped below an 85 average in business school for us you’d be kicked out of the program.

You must have been in a fraternity.

Thankfully no when I was a freshman I briefly was in a coed music frat, but I ended up transferring outta that school.

[Chris_Seiber]

Here is the real question - why is that wine taking up shelf space when I’m sure there are plenty if others that can replace it and offer ‘better value’ for the consumer?

Hey, you’ve gotten low/mid 80s scores for your wines before, and they were really good wines, so I thought you’d be more sympathetic!

[CJ_Beazley]

Here is the real question - why is that wine taking up shelf space when I’m sure there are plenty if others that can replace it and offer ‘better value’ for the consumer?

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[RichardFlack]

I’m not trying to overstate the importance of scores at all, but I don’t deny their effectiveness in marketing wines. I can only recall a couple instances of seeing any 8x point shelf talkers at all… and always 88/89. Never seen anything like this at all…

Also it’s not like this wine was in the corner somewhere … it was chest height in the middle of their wine display.

That equates to Suckling 90, right?

[brodie_thomson]

Getting a D on a test is better than an F. I guess this is the logic here

How is this a D? If this were a $14 bottle with an 87, it would all of a sudden be a screaming QPR buy.
If F means the wine is flawed or undrinkable, so presumably will never actually be put on the shelf, there is an ocean of D before you get to a wine like this, that probably sells quite well.

I mean my point was supposed to taken as sarcasm where anything under 80 points usually has a flaw of some sort and since the 100 point scale starts at 50 it’s understandable why an 84 is not the same score as a true 100 point scale where a scale starts at 0.

Just for amusement; I “recalculated” the score for this. My starting point is that the 100 point scale is really only a 45 point scale as I assume most wines will get their mandatory 5 points for colour/appearance in addition to 50 points for showing up. So this wine is actually scored as a 64 point wine! (29/45).

Points can be so pointless

[RichardFlack]

A former colleague who was a in investment guy used buy / hold / sell. Pretty much covers it.

I have always wondered about points for colour or appearance. To me there are three situations. - expected / unusual / faulty or suspect. On a twenty point scale I’d say they should get 3, 0 and -5 respectively. But what do I know.

At the end of the day aren’t we really just putting wines into three or four buckets.

Agree with most of the comments here about mid 80 pt wines under $15. Coming soon - shelf talkers with a QPR index!