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Is 93 the new 90? I don’t put much weight in Robert Parker’s wine scores; my palate doesn’t coincide with Parker’s much, and I don’t like to read tasting notes. But flipping through an issue of his newsletter The Wine Advocate can be casually entertaining in the way a gossip rag is: It’s fun to see which wineries will be riding high or down in the dumps. After perusing the current issue—and several other issues over the past year—there seems to be a definite creep toward higher ratings.
It used to be said that, while technically just one point apart, the difference between an 89- and a 90-point score for a wine was huge. One retailer told the New York Times that if a certain wine had scored an 89, “we would have sold a tiny fraction of what we’ll end up moving.” But because it got a 90-point rating in Wine Spectator (which also uses Parker’s 100-point system) he was confident he’d sell out his entire stock. The difference between an A and a B is drummed into us from school age, and there has always been speculation that the 100-point wine rating scale mirrors that grading system a little too closely.
The Advocate’s ratings explanation says: “As you will note through the text, there are few wines that actually make it into this top category [90–100] because there are not many great wines.” But a cursory tally of scores in the three biggest sections of the most recent issue showed that 68 percent of the wines scored 90 or higher. In Jay Miller’s survey of Spanish wines, which rated approximately 640 bottles, not counting the “best buy” list, a whopping 90 percent scored over 90 points, with half of those scoring 93 or above. Now, there have been some good vintages in Spain lately, but that’s a lot of “great wines.”
Greg Linn, owner-winemaker of Ambullneo Vineyards, told me: “Ninety-three doesn’t mean shit anymore. You’ve got to get a 96 for the phone to ring.” The Advocate rains acclaim down on a wine, and the world answers with a big, fat yawn.
The end of 2006 brought several changes to Parker’s staff of critics, with two well-known writers being replaced with relative unknowns. In issue number 175, the two new critics seem rather ratings-happy, giving the highest percentage of 90-plus scores. By comparison, Parker’s reviews seem restrained. And on many wines, Parker gives a range (e.g., “90–92”), whereas the new critics give solid, absolute numbers almost all the time. Because of this, Parker’s reviews seem somehow more human—it is actually very difficult to assign a number to a wine. Simply because of these lower, less specific scores I find myself instinctively believing more in Parker than his colleagues.
I take all this as a sign of the end of the tyranny of wine scores. They’re inconsistent, reductive, misleading, and one-dimensional. And the less the numbers matter, the less superficial and more independent the world of wine becomes.
It's information. Certainly not perfect information by any means. But in an area that's highly confusing to consumers with tens of thousands of bottles to choose from -- that no mere mortal can rationally afford to evaluate -- some potentially guiding information is better than no information. So thumbing your nose at the difference between someone's "93" and "90" seems more than a bit misplaced.
...+READ
It's information. Certainly not perfect information by any means. But in an area that's highly confusing to consumers with tens of thousands of bottles to choose from -- that no mere mortal can rationally afford to evaluate -- some potentially guiding information is better than no information. So thumbing your nose at the difference between someone's "93" and "90" seems more than a bit misplaced.
And while there are no absolute standards for something as subjective as one's taste in wine, I would be shocked if "93" wasn't the "new 90". To suggest otherwise would mean that consumers don't lend any value to these numbers (and they clearly do), that winemakers are oblivious to the feedback these numbers provide on the quality of their wines, and/or that winemakers are fools to ignore the fact that catering their wines to the palates of the tastemakers won't result in greater consumer interest and therefore profits.
In short, if the "new 90" was the same as the "old 90", that would imply that winemakers have learned nothing about how to improve their wines -- or at least nothing about how to better cater them to the influencers that improve the sales of their wines. Winemakers would be stagnating, not evolving, in that case.-COLLAPSE
I don't pay attention to "scores"; that's an area for retailers and collectors who buy wine for show, not to drink.
However, tasting notes are valuable coming from a critic who writes consistent reviews. Perhaps in my dreams I'd be able to taste every single wine I'm interested in, but that's not reality.
Jordan, dude, you gotta read the tasting notes!
How else can you qualify what the "score" means?
But, sadly, most people probably do just drink (&, more importantly, buy) by the numbers so the difference between a 9 handle and an 8 handle on the score even if it's only 1 point apart is HUGE in terms of the viability & marketability of a label. Ridiculous!
Here's to your being correct about...+READ
Jordan, dude, you gotta read the tasting notes!
How else can you qualify what the "score" means?
But, sadly, most people probably do just drink (&, more importantly, buy) by the numbers so the difference between a 9 handle and an 8 handle on the score even if it's only 1 point apart is HUGE in terms of the viability & marketability of a label. Ridiculous!
Here's to your being correct about the end of the capricious point system but I'm not too optimistic about it, after all, most Americans when they go to a museum to see an art masterpiece spend more time reading the little placard underneath that explains what they're about to view than looking at the painting itself! Pathetic!
Oh well, as long as someone tells them they're having fun....
Cheers-COLLAPSE
It might also be helpful to address the impact of new world grape growing and wine making improvements that were picked up by the major French regions ages ago but are still filtering into the more backwater Spanish and Italian winemaking regions. Wine on average is much better today than it was 20 years ago, world wide.
There's also an element of "if you don't have something nice to say, don't...+READ
It might also be helpful to address the impact of new world grape growing and wine making improvements that were picked up by the major French regions ages ago but are still filtering into the more backwater Spanish and Italian winemaking regions. Wine on average is much better today than it was 20 years ago, world wide.
There's also an element of "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all." Consumers reading these magazines aren't going to spend time reading the reviews on 70-85 point wines--they want the 90+ point wines for their cellars, and then some 87-89 point wines for everyday drinking if they like to drink wine outside of special occasions.
Lastly, in the case of my parent's winery, a wine reviewing magazine that is not Parker's gave us an 89 one year and then a 78 the next. The two vintages were very similar, it was the same estate vineyard, the same barrel program, the same winemaker/grape grower, and there is no way they were that different; they probably reviewed a corked bottle but somehow didn't identify it as corked. We've never submitted wine to that publication again, because the risk of a 78 rating for a small producer is just huge.-COLLAPSE
Uh, Jordan, if you're going to criticize Parker, it's helpful to know that the range (90-92) usually means it was a barrel tasting and not out of the bottle.