Scoring based on color: My debate with James Suckling

[D_Wirsig]

@Evan Dawson

Evan Dawson
If sunlight is best way to view color, why judge color indoors like you do?

James Suckling
Isn’t that sort of a dumb question? Tasting outdoors doesn’t work. You know that.

Windows would work for this

[gene_keenan]

I don’t see what the big deal is. UC Davis gives 10 points to color or 2pts on their 20pt scale. I don’t understand how you think the wine score could skew so sharply because of a 15 point score. Using Parker for example, all wines automatically get 4-5 points unless they are obviously defective. James is merely making use of the entire 100 points instead of the 50 parker uses. Parker gives 50 to any wine just for showing up for the game. Suckling is using the entire 100 pts (a true 100pt scale) instead of the 50 point scale Parker uses.

Suckling’s measure is:

color 15 pts
aromas 25 pts
body structure 25 pts
overall impression 35 pts

[Evan_Dawson]

@gene keenan

I don’t see what the big deal is. UC Davis gives 10 points to color or 2pts on their 20pt scale. I don’t understand how you think the wine score could skew so sharply because of a 15 point score. Using Parker for example, all wines automatically get 4-5 points unless they are obviously defective. James is merely making use of the entire 100 points instead of the 50 parker uses. Parker gives 50 to any wine just for showing up for the game. Suckling is using the entire 100 pts (a true 100pt scale) instead of the 50 point scale Parker uses.

Suckling’s measure is:

color 15 pts
aromas 25 pts
body structure 25 pts
overall impression 35 pts

These scales are inherently silly, but to think that color is worth 3/5 what aroma is, well, wow.

But instead of saying, “What’s the big deal?”, instead I’d love to hear a good argument for color to be scored.

[H_Wallace_Jr]

Got into a discussion with an old bird in Sacramento last night regarding color and appearance- she loved the flavor of a wine (young, skin fermented SB), but said she could never buy it because it wasn’t clear (unfiltered, unfined, and young)-- But I asked again if she liked it-- “Yes. It is great. But you also taste with your eyes.”

You’ll never find her body.

[Rick_Gregory]

I’m with Evan here, Gene. Color is almost as important as taste or smell? That’s… unbelievable. And, well, wtf is “overall impression”? Isn’t that just an out for “gee I like it?”

[Eric_Ifune]

For me, some wines can score more for appearance than others. How can you not reward a beautiful, glowing robe on an old Burgundy or Madeira? Or a very appetizing color on a fresh rose?

[Z_Hu]

I think what’s cooler is that the next video is the same exact conversation in italian!

http://jamessuckling.com/perche-il-brunello-di-montalcino-puo-essere-colorato.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Larry_P]

@K V a s t o l a

15 points is a lot more. Recall that 50 points is automatic, so it’s really a 50-point scale. That means that for Parker, color is 10% of his real score, while for Suckling color is 30% of his real score.

Ken, if you watch the Suckling video on component scoring, he doesn’t give 50 free points, it was a 15+25+25+35 so 15 points is 15% of the score.

But, from a recent Suckling blog of tasting notes, he gave every wine 14 points for color. I don’t know what it takes to put a wine “over the top” to merit the full 15, but it might be looked at as every wine that has color gets an automatic 14 points on an 99 point scale.

I think scoring color must be an artifact from evaluating aged wines, so that color would be an evaluation of how faded or oxidised a wine is. For a young wine, I imagine color is either ok or wrong, e.g. pinot that’s opaque black or syrah that’s smoked salmon color would tell you something is wrong. I believe however that if a wine is that wrong, it is going to show something wrong on the palate as well, so I’ll conclude I don’t see a lot of sense in scoring color.

[JDonner]

isn’t the correct Pronounciation (Suckling Speak)
Cuilllorrr

[Glenn_L_e_v_i_n_e]

I have no issue with JS and like wine color about as much as he does but how come every time he is challenged about anything we get to hear how he has been tasting wine for 29 years (praise God can this become a nice round thirty soon) as if this is cogent?

I am near 50 and have been tasting for close to 35 years, is that inherently better than 29?

[Lou_Recupero]

@Glenn L e v i n e

I have no issue with JS and like wine color about as much as he does but how come every time he is challenged about anything we get to hear how he has been tasting wine for 29 years (praise God can this become a nice round thirty soon) as if this is cogent?

I am near 50 and have been tasting for close to 35 years, is that inherently better than 29?

As Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) once said in A League of their own, “Well then, this would be more, wouldn’t it?”

[Berry_Crawford]

I guess its kind of neat when a wine has a pleasant color, but it doesn’t really effect my enjoyment in contrast to taste and aromatics. I think its silly to score on it.

I haven’t read the whole thread so maybe someone has mentioned this but color easily manipulated by winemaker with enzymes and soaks. I sometimes worry that maybe some other stuff is being over extracted as well when they do it.

[M_Dildine]

I note, reflect on and appreciate a wine’s appearance. Color has value to me.

But 15% is too much.

[Tom_Lee]

@Evan Dawson

James Suckling
What do you do? Do you have anything better to do today…or is it a slow news day?

\

Have to give him a little credit for that line.

Tom

[gene_keenan]

@Evan Dawson

@gene keenan

I don’t see what the big deal is. UC Davis gives 10 points to color or 2pts on their 20pt scale. I don’t understand how you think the wine score could skew so sharply because of a 15 point score. Using Parker for example, all wines automatically get 4-5 points unless they are obviously defective. James is merely making use of the entire 100 points instead of the 50 parker uses. Parker gives 50 to any wine just for showing up for the game. Suckling is using the entire 100 pts (a true 100pt scale) instead of the 50 point scale Parker uses.

Suckling’s measure is:

color 15 pts
aromas 25 pts
body structure 25 pts
overall impression 35 pts

These scales are inherently silly, but to think that color is worth 3/5 what aroma is, well, wow.

But instead of saying, “What’s the big deal?”, instead I’d love to hear a good argument for color to be scored.

I think this is a bigger issue regarding the way wines are scored. Parker uses a 100 pt scale but every wine he rates gets 50 pts just for showing up. So now were at a 50 pt scale… Now Parker does not publish scores for wines less than 80 points meaning he is effectively using a 20 pt scale. As far as I am concerned the whole notion of subjectively reducing a wine to a numerical score is a joke other than to tell me someone liked it or they hated it. Without a written note the score is meaningless. The exception for me is when I look up a wine on cellar tracker and there are lots of scores for a particular wine. I can quickly see what the group consensus is regarding a wine being palatable or not. Curiously, wines almost never seem to score as high on cellar tracker as they do with critics…

But back to sucklings 15 pts… I view this with a large grain of salt in the same way I view the Parker “100 pt” scale, so no big deal to me. That said, I think the wine rating system is ripe for revolution and the suckling system is just another data point to underscore that.

[Marcu_Stanley]

@Evan Dawson

Forgot to include the link to free video on the color of Brunello.

http://jamessuckling.com/why-the-best-brunellos-have-color.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It astounds me that Suckling has lived so long in Italy without picking up more of a feel for fashion. Compare the winemaker’s haircut and clothing to Sucklings.

[gene_keenan]

@Marcus Stanley

@Evan Dawson

Forgot to include the link to free video on the color of Brunello.

http://jamessuckling.com/why-the-best-brunellos-have-color.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It astounds me that Suckling has lived so long in Italy without picking up more of a feel for fashion. Compare the winemaker’s haircut and clothing to Sucklings.

Your kidding right? That blue velvet/corduroy coat and slacks he has on?

[Randy_Sloan]

I’ve never been so analytical in my wine evaluation to break it down to different scoring components, but for those that do that, more power to them. 15 points (basically 30% of those possible 50 points) does seem like an awful lot to attribute to color. Oh well.

However, to me, color does matter. It starts with the package and and ends with how it finishes, but every element builds or subtracts from the total experience.

[gene_keenan]

@Randy Sloan

I’ve never been so analytical in my wine evaluation to break it down to different scoring components, but for those that do that, more power to them. 15 points (basically 30% of those possible 50 points) does seem like an awful lot to attribute to color. Oh well.

However, to me, color does matter. It starts with the package and and ends with how it finishes, but every element builds or subtracts from the total experience.

Randy,

It’s 15 out 100 not 15 out of 50 on the suckling scale.

On another note, I looked at the UC Davis scoring system again and it actually ascribes 4 pts out of 20 to color and appearance which would be 20/100 when converted to the 100pt scale. Point being 15/100 is within the parameters of some other scoring method(s).

[Robert_Thornton]

I have never received a straight answer about why to include color. I really don’t understand it. To me, it’s like adding points because the label was pretty, because I think wax capsules are cool, etc. I have never heard a good argument about how color is related the the quality of the wine. Suckling defends the practice by saying others do it, but why is it such a core thing? If you served a great wine to him blind, he’d be unsure if it was an 85 or 100 point wine because he hadn’t seen the color?

Also, if he’s giving color on a 15 point scale, that means there’s a perfect color, a 14 point color, a 3 point color, etc. Assuming this is based on variety and age, we should be able to point to the 15 point color, the 12 point color etc, for say young pinot. Is there a chart for this? How does one learn it? What does a 9 point (color wise), 1985 Bordeaux look like at this point?

Aren’t we at a point when we can admit that color doesn’t matter, as both Suckling and Parker do when they both explicitly say that they basically just give 90% of the color rating to all wines (Suckling almost always given 14, Parker almost always given 4 or 5). So color is important, but there’s basically no variation in how they score it?

So again, why is color important independent of things you’d get off the nose, palate, etc?

Cheers,
-Robert