My new favorite CT tasting note

[ChrisBeacham]

@Rick Gregory

@ChrisBeacham

@Rick Gregory

eh, the scores on CT are worthless and always will be.

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.

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.

So basically we agree.

[Cris_Whetstone]

@A. Christiansen

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.

Unfortunately, this is what it is in practice. Everyone wants to think a wine they enjoyed needs to be a 90 pointer. I find the scoring useless on many levels but this is a huge one. You have to read the notes and find people you would agree with more than not or at least have palates you trust.

[Rick_Gregory]

@ChrisBeacham

@Rick Gregory

@ChrisBeacham

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.

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.

So basically we agree.

Yes. But what fun is that?

[Marc_Frontario]

after I tasted the '02 alter ego, I went all over orlando purchasing every alter ego I could find. It was steller juice. The '04 rocks too, really solid bordeaux.

[Scott_Silton]

[quote=“mike pobega”]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.

To recap:

Parker came up with the 100 point scoring system.

Parker also came up with the lazy rubric language cited above.

Therefore, anyone who uses points has tacitly agreed to use this poorly designed descriptive scale for the rest of time [!!], even though none of the professional critics use it in practice, which leads us to the conclusion that

anyone who thinks a lousy vintage of Bordeaux/wines he doesn’t care to drink is still an above average wine in the grand scheme of things is a complete moron who should be publicly mocked, because no one on this board is completely accustomed to drinking good shit and enjoying a bit of hyperbole time and again.

Yes I’m making this issue my personal but scolding people for not using someone else’s badly designed rubric is really beneath the informed discussion I expect at WB.

Now, I have never had a 2002 BDX and could care less if the CT note writer has a clue or not. Steve’s original post WAS amusing, but teasing someone for calling a “very good wine” a “disaster” – a point about their exalted frame of reference – is not the same as re-asserting the Parker scale when it isn’t relevant to the discussion.

I wonder why this keeps happening, and while I love him and his product to death, it’s Eric’s fault for leaving the scale on CT when the community clearly doesn’t follow it. I think it would be helpful if CT took that rubric language off the site entirely. The community standard conformed to the professional model as actually used in the WA, WS, IWC, and elsewhere. This is a good thing because the de facto scale has fewer gradations and far better validity than adhering to the text above could ever create.

[Scott_Silton]

I see others already addressed this while I multitasked before posting my rant. Oh well.

@Cris Whetstone

Unfortunately, this is what it is in practice. Everyone wants to think a wine they enjoyed needs to be a 90 pointer. I find the scoring useless on many levels but this is a huge one. You have to read the notes and find people you would agree with more than not or at least have palates you trust.

The 93-88 point scale posted above is amusing but not quite true. I’d say the de facto scale is something closer to a 10 or 12 point scale.

A good scale will have a number of meaningful gradations approximately equal to the plateaus of quality that can actually be discerned by an attentive, experienced taster. And while I do not trust Parker’s palate, always look for corroboration, and try to read for context clues to distinguish subjective palate preferences, the de facto scale seems about right in terms of the number of meaningful levels in play. We will never be able to agree on how various criterion should be exactly weighted (how much more important is balance than complexity? etc.), but we’ll have fun debating those choices at the margins. I hope we can agree that 5 grades is too few and 50 far too many to be valid.

I’m going to try and write a useful modern rubric and will post it in a new thread someday.

I’m sorry if I obsess over this but I teach the most grade-obsessed group of people in the country (ambitious college bound HS seniors) and it rubs off after a while. It is much harder to be consistent and transparent if you attempt to distinguish too many levels of quality. Fairness and useful feedback are better achieved when you care less about minute differences that even you might not always observe, and acknowledge some margin of error without getting soft and abandoning all pretense of objectivity.

Too few gradations in your scale, on the other hand, is worse, because readers cannot translate a score into a range (e.g. a B+ should be different from an A- even if individual 88s and 89s aren’t always clearly distinguished). Too few gradations will mush together demonstrably different products and be less valid, and still have problems of arbitrariness at the cut points.

To my students, the difference between an 89 and a 90 is the difference between night and day because at the end of the semester it becomes a difference between a 3.0 and 4.0 being averaged into their GPA. That’s a bad policy beyond my control, and it makes my students mental and less able to see how an individual piece of work fits into the bigger picture of their academic growth. Similarly, just because a lot of wine buyers place inordinate stock in the 89/90 frontier doesn’t mean we have to start acting like CT users are the gatekeepers of meritocracy.

[Steve_M_c_C_a_l_l]

@John Liotta

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?

Well, John, as the original poster, I guess it’s up to me to defend the post, huh? I found the note amusing (not necessarily “interesting”) for two basic reasons:

1. Its rapid degradation from objective tasting to rant.
2. The apparent inconsistency between the author’s assertion “This was a disaster” and his 89 point rating.

YMMV, and clearly does.

[dteng]

@Rick Gregory

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

If it helps you bag a chick you’ve been pursuing…then yes.

[Keith_Levenberg]

Great posts Scott.

[Patrick_C]

I have heard that in the last 30 years or so, the quality of wine has increased dramatically in every single price point. I would bet that when Parker started a lot more wine deserved to be and was in the 70-79 point range. Today I just don’t think it makes sense. I think I like Decanter’s or Gambero Rosso’s scale better than the old 100 pointer.


This guy gave the wine 89 points and called it garbage, which is contradictory, but if he spent big money on a wine and was expecting a 95+ point experience I understand.

[Victor_Hong]

@TimF

…

Wait. I thought 90 was average.

Only on retail store shelves.

[Scott_Silton]

@Keith Levenberg

Great posts Scott.

Why thank you Keith.

Now all we have to do is get you to conform to the de facto scale…

But on 2nd thought I ought to just take my own advice and read your notes in context…

[Andrew_Christiansen]

@Scott Silton

I see others already addressed this while I multitasked before posting my rant. Oh well.

@Cris Whetstone

Unfortunately, this is what it is in practice. Everyone wants to think a wine they enjoyed needs to be a 90 pointer. I find the scoring useless on many levels but this is a huge one. You have to read the notes and find people you would agree with more than not or at least have palates you trust.

The 93-88 point scale posted above is amusing but not quite true. I’d say the de facto scale is something closer to a 10 or 12 point scale.

The use of the range of 93-88 was chosen because (1) it conveniently fit the number of descriptions available, and (2) because it does seem that most (but not all) scores provided on tasting notes seem to actually be in that range. Definitely low-hanging fruit for a smart-ass like me.

Humor aside, I think the valuable point is how flawed scores can be if there is no perspective.

I’d like to be pure and claim that I find scores worthless, but the reality is that I do pay attention to them. It’s often the only clue provided as to whether someone liked the wine. When I read notes by Jeremy H., FMIII, Cris W. (which I much prefer), I get a vivid understanding of their experience with a wine. With others, it’s simply a list of vital statistics, such as flavors, acidity, tannins, finish etc., and I find myself noting the score (if provided) to try to simply figure out if they enjoyed the wine. These types of notes are certainly not my preference, but there’s some value if taken in perspective. If no other data points are available, why not? Either way, I’d prefer scores were avoided and we challenged ourselves to author a descriptive note.

[Chris_Bero]

@Guillaume Deschamps

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

+1 Had an 02 Mouton a few months ago. It was absolutely A-mazing.

[J_e_r_e_m_y_Hannah]

@Rob MacKay

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.

+1

Stole the words out of my mouth. The 02’s are my “go to” when looking to pick up aged Bordeaux to drink right now and not break the bank.

[ChrisBeacham]

@A. Christiansen

The use of the range of 93-88 was chosen because (1) it conveniently fit the number of descriptions available, and (2) because it does seem that most (but not all) scores provided on tasting notes seem to actually be in that range. Definitely low-hanging fruit for a smart-ass like me.

I guess nearly all of the scores I post here are in the 85-93 range. Why? I don’t usually post on a wine that I’d score below 87 or so except if it was a great deal (very good 85 point $6 quaffer) or a disappointment for the expectations. Frankly I don’t really end up drinking much wine that is below what I’d score 85 – life’s too short.

I rarely score wines above 93 or 94 because I consider 95+ wines to be extraordinary and rare, something that comes along in a blue moon. While I don’t drink cheap wine I also can’t afford much of the highest end stuff. Yes there are truly great 95+ wines that cost $25-$50 (where most of our spending goes) but they are unusual. I’ve had enough 74 Heitz Martha’s level wines to know that very few bottles reach that level of ethereal beauty. When I score something 95+ it means I think it one heart stopping bottle of liquid magic. If I drink a couple of those in a year I’m happy.

So guilty as charged. Personally my favorite scoring method is probably the grade school A-F. Under that scenario most of the wines I drink and post on are A to B- with most A- to B+. I also believe that scoring has value even with all of its faults. I don’t consider scoring to really be cardinal but I do think it works as an ordinal structure.

[Daniel_H]

Even anonymous CT posts can be invaluable. If considering a purchase I check notes for any mention of oakiness (a negative for my palate) or green-ness (a negative for my wife’s palate). For wines in my cellar I look for indications that the wine is closed up and too young or else is on the decline. Most wines never get a rating from a major wine writer and vanishingly few get published re-tastes as they mature.

[Larry_P]

I found a vintage chart online from a well-known magazine which scored each vintage for every region using a 100-point scale. The key was given as:

96-100 - Extraordinary
90-95 - Outstanding
80-89 - Above Average to Excelent
70-79 - Average
60-69 - Below Average
Below 60 - Appalling

Unlike individual wines, this chart was not afraid to score overall vintages below 85, there were actually several, though I don’t know how one would differentiate, for example, between a 58 and a 57 vintage. Out of curiosity I dumped the entire chart into a spreadsheet, and found:

The overall vintage score for every region 1970-2008 averaged to 86.9; the median was 88. So… yes 86 would indicate pretty close to an average bottle or vintage.

A rolling average of the data also shows a steady score inflation over the past 25 years. This could be explained by overall increase in quality practices, large regions playing to the critic’s tastes, or by… inflation. Today’s average isn’t really 86, it started out 84 in the early '80s and has since climbed to about 89. Therefore the score for the '02 Bdx should have been…
88

[Frank_H_Herfjord]

“Alan Partridge” is my favourite taster on CT.

Insightful and… varied… Don’t stop reading after the first two notes.

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[Steve_M_c_C_a_l_l]

@Frank H Herfjord

“Alan Partridge” is my favourite taster on CT.

Insightful and… varied… Don’t stop reading after the first two notes.

Tasting Notes from 'Alan Partridge' - CellarTracker" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I ran across Alan’s '00 Lych-Bages review before and loved it… 1/5/2010 was a good day for him.