It's The Score, Stupid...NOT The WTN...(long/puzzled)

Or.....of what value is an actual TN???

I'm still trying to figure out this thing w/ tasting scores. The experience last night w/ SteveEdmunds' Syrah only muddled up my understanding (see accompaning TN).

MrParker and other noted wine critics (like Laube & Tanzer) always insist the wine score means nothing w/o reading the accompaning TN. Now I'm not so sure.

I must admit, I don't give scores w/ my notes. I am not qualified to award 100-pt scores. But, nonetheless, I tried it anyway.

When I first tasted that Syrah, it was totally dead. I gave it a 74, as reflected by its performance in the tasting note. When I went back and retasted it and it had evolved in the decanter, I gave it a 90, consistent w/ my note about it. Note...because of my inexperience...those scores are not very accurate. The first could well have been a 73 and the second an 89. But that's a pretty big difference in scores I think.

The hooker here is that when the experts like MrParker award their scores, based on that one-shot taste of that wine; their scores don't actually reflect what that wine is tasting like right then and there...they award the score based on what they project, based on their vast tasting experience, what the wine will receive when it's at it's peak. That is, when they would have tasted that EdStJSyrah at the first pour, they would have awarded it a 90 (or some such) simply because their vast experience would have told them that it would improve greatly in the decanter over time. I've not tasted enough Calif Syrahs in my lifetime to have made that projection, so my original score of 74 was wildly inaccurate.

So...the point here is...if anyone would have just read my original tasting note, they would have rushed out and dumped their remaining '95 EdStJSyrah. However, if they had seen only MrParker's (or some other noted critic's) score of 90, they would have known they had a fine wine on their hands and start drinking them w/ relish.

So...what am I missing here?? It sure seems to me that the score (of 90) tells far/far more about that '95 EdStJ wine than my miserable note tells. Is that not so???

Or, taking another tack. Of what actual value is a TN?? The TN is a reflection of what that wine tastes like on the palate at that point in time. Yet we all know that a wine can vastly change..w/ time as it ages, as it breathes in the glass, as it warms slightly towards room temperature, if we're using a Reidel Syrah or Bordeaux glass...all of these things can greatly impact the wine, especially if it's an older wine. I taste a Syrah in a Burgundy glass at 74F and really like it. You taste that same Syrah at 71F in a Chablis glass and get vastly different perceptions that it's hard & tight... and conclude that I'm a dweeb when it comes to tasting Calif Syrah (which would probably be right). Fortunately, we have expert critics out there we can rely on to give us the score on the wine when it reaches its peak so we can know what we should like.

Anyway...I'm not qualified to give these scores because of my lack of experience and so have decided not to. But I just wonder how my TNs can be of any use to anyone w/o a 100-pt score attached??
Tom

... I'm not qualified to give these scores because of my lack of experience ...

Not sure "lack of experience" is your particular disqualifier.

Tom, I think that might be the most confusing thing I've ever read.

Tom, I think that might be the most confusing thing I've ever read.

I have seen worse but I also work for the Government so.....

Not sure exactly what Tom is saying but if the general gist is no score or TN can acurately represent the wine through all its changes in time, bottle variation, serving conditions, etc. then sure I agree. If I missed the point entirely, remember that I already said I work for the Government so what did you expect?

Yes wine can change, as can our perceptions. Returning to a wine after tasting others can also give a completely different perspective.

Realising this is an imprecise science (sic.) is a really key step. Our tasting notes are imprecise and so is our scoring (if we do it). Too much is made of Parker's so called 'accuracy' in tasting and most wine critics will acknowledge that there are good days and bad, good moods and bad, good bottles and bad, etc. and that's before we get onto personal preferences / prejudices.

So it's all a lottery then? No I don't believe it is.

Tasting notes can portray the style of wine, of aspects that appealed to the taster and those that didn't. Aspects of structure, balance and levels of constituent elements can be drawn out. Two tasters may pick up on different aspects, but there is usually more agreement than disagreement. Do a search through some of the Open Mike's for a compare/contrast exercise.

Overall TN's and (IMO to a lesser degree) scores can help bring out one persons perception. I wouldn't mortgage my house on the opinions of anyone's palate (not even my own ), but I'm happy to hear opinions and enjoy reading notes on wines I've tasted myself or have made a previous mental note to try sometime.

... and as for the specific scenario of a wine like yours opening out after a poor start. Well many here do argue that giving a wine a quick 30 second slurp and spit is a pretty rough and ready way to judge a wine. Drinking the same wine before/during/after a meal, over an hour or more, can lead to a significantly different opinion. Having been at a big 'scrum' tasting this saturday, I know not to read too much into my notes for the event, yet I will write them up, and indeed plan to post them here. The setting of the tasting is an important aspect to acknowledge and I'll try to remember to flag up the context alongside the notes.

regards

Ian

Tom,
Do you know if 1995 was pre or post-low brow for ESJ?
(BTW, I asked this same question over on that "other board" and the post lasted less than 10 minutes...guess their skin is even thinner than I imagined)
Bill

Tom,
After 2 reads I think I understand what you are saying but do not agree. I was under the impression that RP et al taste the wines several times with time in between gulps and I am sure that the wines are decanted. If that is true their experience would have been similar to yours and you both would have given it about 90. In the years when I was tasting wine in the back room of the local wine store with a bunch of like minded wine geeks it was amazing what 20 minutes would do. This is why I have trouble with large tastings and prefer to try just a few wines over a long period of time.

I still think the rating is useless and the tasting notes are more important. My preference for wine is 180 degrees from RPs but I find his descriptions worth reading. IMO he is consistent and acurate, just likes over ripe and high alcohol wines where I like only lightly oaked wines with some acidic base for aging and complimenting food. You can usually determine the style by reading the description and trashing the score.

Walt

Tom,
Do you know if 1995 was pre or post-low brow for ESJ?
(BTW, I asked this same question over on that "other board" and the post lasted less than 10 minutes...guess their skin is even thinner than I imagined)
Bill

Pre-low-brow. Seems to be the post is still there when I look.
Tom

Tom,
After 2 reads I think I understand what you are saying but do not agree. I was under the impression that RP et al taste the wines several times with time in between gulps and I am sure that the wines are decanted. If that is true their experience would have been similar to yours and you both would have given it about 90. In the years when I was tasting wine in the back room of the local wine store with a bunch of like minded wine geeks it was amazing what 20 minutes would do. This is why I have trouble with large tastings and prefer to try just a few wines over a long period of time.

I still think the rating is useless and the tasting notes are more important. My preference for wine is 180 degrees from RPs but I find his descriptions worth reading. IMO he is consistent and acurate, just likes over ripe and high alcohol wines where I like only lightly oaked wines with some acidic base for aging and coplimenting food. You can usually determine the style by reading the description and trashing the score.

Walt

What I'm questioning, Walt, is how a highly-regarded critic can go into a wnry, or sit down before a tableau of btls, take a one-shot taste of
the wine, and come up w/ an accurate 100-pt score, accurate to 1 part in 100. The wines change, the temperatures change, all sorts of things
change. I don't think there's any palate that can taste that accurately. My tasting last night was a good example of how drastically a wine
can change. How can you possible hit a moving target to an accuracy of 1 in a 100??
And we have been told that that 100-pt score reflects not the wine at that snapshot in time, but what that taster knows it will be at peak
drinkability. How can you predict a wine unless you had some experience w/ it on how it evolves. There was nothing in that first tasting
of the '95 Syrah that gave me any clue that it would make such a dramatic improvement over 3 hrs time and I'm very suspect of any
authorative critic being able to do that w/ a 1 in 100 accuracy. Especially if it's done blind.
I just think there's a lot of smoke&mirrors involved in that 100-pt scale. It always amuses me when Parker re-reviews a Chateau DogPiss
and drops the points from a 98 to a 96 and all the brohouha that errupts from that change in score. Back in Kansas, we say "BFD". But there are
soo many people who live&die by those 100-pt scores.
Tom

I rarely giving scores with my tasting notes. I may acknowledge that the wine improved from about an 85 to an 89 or 90 in my estimation when paired with a complementary food rather than sipped on its own. Or I may say that I found it too tannic or too oaky for my pleasure but it seems to have the potential for integrating and improving with a couple years in the cellar. I won't give an inflated score for future potential because I don't have enough experience with aging wines to feel confident that it will improve dramatically. Basically my tasting notes say what I am experiencing at the time and may hint at potential for future improvement. I may also say that I liked a particular Pinot Noir better when it wasn't too chilled or that a Champagne was chilled to the point where it numbed my taste buds or that it was hard to evaluate the wines at an outdoor tasting because they were almost all at too warm a temperature. Noting the circumstances of the tasting experience can provide clues as to the validity of the tasting note.

But there are
soo many people who live&die by those 100-pt scores.

Indeed, but even Parker has a rude name for them... the "points whores"TM

The tasting note only has meaning to the person who wrote it. A trained wine critic or judge should be able to judge a wine fairly and not necessarily like it. So this might be reflected in the tasting note. But whether or not the wine is extraordinary, excellent, above average good, good, below average good, commercially acceptable, or deficient a trained individual should be able to tell us. Now whether you want to judge the wine on how it stands immediately, or by its “potential” this should be noted.

Salute

The tasting note only has meaning to the person who wrote it. A trained wine critic or judge should be able to judge a wine fairly and not necessarily like it. So this might be reflected in the tasting note. But whether or not the wine is extraordinary, excellent, above average good, good, below average good, commercially acceptable, or deficient a trained individual should be able to tell us.
Salute

Victor
I'd disagree on both counts... sorry.

Some of the tasting notes written here offer great interest and insight - particularly when one starts to align against the palate of the author. Perhaps it's full meaning is only there for the author. That I might agree with, though I'm not sure I understand my own notes at times

Robert Parker is probably what we'd call a '*trained individual', yet there are wines he calls excellent that I'd call unpleasant jammy fruit bombs. He can tell me, yes, but I'm not obliged to agree.

* maybe experienced winetaster is a more apt description

regards

Ian

Tom,

For me - numerical scores are worthless. I always get a better idea about a wine by reading someone's TN than by trying to gauge a number. The reason for my position is that I do not believe that universally consistent quantification of pleasure/worthiness is possible across the diversity of palates that make up humankind. A scoring system might have merit if used among calibrated palates - those that share the same tastes - but oh, how much richer prose is to describe a wine than a mere number.

Well the problem here is not with the 100 point scale. It's a great way to capture a snapshot of the wine's excellence in light of how the very experienced taster expects it to develop. The problem is that it only reflects the wine's excellence in light of how the very experienced taster expects it to develop. It doesn't capture how well the wine is drinking that day, how well it goes with food, etc. So what we need is something like a ten-100-point scale. Points for how the wine tastes that day, points for how it will taste at its peak, points for how it would taste with food, points for how it would taste if you were drinking it at a picnic in a secluded meadow with Catherine Zeta-Jones, and so forth.

Just imagine the price hike you'd see on the first-ever 1000 point wine!!!!

With all due and proper respect to all the respondents above (and no doubt those that will follow), this subject and the plethora of permutations it always raises, just never goes away.

Whether one uses a numerical or verbal rating system to describe a wine, I would have thought the most important function of a tasting note (apart from compiling your own tasting note inventory - an integral part of my personal wine portfolio) is what other’s can gain from it? Why do we drink wine in the first place? We like it. Why we do like writing about it? Other people who like wine might gain something (whatever that might be!) from reading about it and might just get a chance to try it and like it too!

Over the last decade or two I have received innumerable requests from clients and acquaintances, who, in the main, have very little idea about wine, for a good example of this or that wine that would go with this ….? A very difficult question to answer unless you know the person asking the question likes and dislikes, price range, setting etc. You have to ask questions and assess the information fed back to you and make a judgment/recommendation based on your own knowledge and experience of all the possibilities that might fit the bill. Whether it is that wine that meets the above request, a wine tasting note, a vehicle appraisal, restaurant review or whatever, everyone has the right to react in a particular way to that particular report/recommendation, form opinions to the relevance and worth of such and use it in any way that suits that person’s agenda. If you like it or lump it, so be it. But to harp on about the methodology, incessantly, when there is, in my honest opinion, really no point in doing so is way too negative subject matter for me. This is why I have no interest in another board that shall remain nameless that practises this form of anal retention (let alone the annoying personal innuendos, degradation, insults, defamation and the demeaning and sickening sycophancy!) on an all too regular basis. I see very little of that here and hope it will stay that way.

If a wine note is deemed to be sound or flawed, too brief or long-winded, technically challenging or user-friendly, there is always that alternative point of view, a dissenting voice (vis-à-vis protagonist) or a personal preference that needs to be espoused on boards like this all over the world. So why do we/they keep harping on about it? Nature of the beast, I can only assume. Everyone has their own opinion on what's good/bad, right/wrong - and AFAIK, ther'll never be a resolution, or should there be, of the issue. We are all different, let's hope it stays that way!

I don’t mind what wonderful words, technicalities, grades, stars, points or systems anyone uses; as long as I am allowed some explanation of the formula/system in use and can make some degree of valued judgement on what is before me, I’m happy reading as many wine tasting notes available as time allows. Having, over the (many) years, used a verbal rating system, the 20 point Wine Show system, a 1-5 Star rating (utilising quality and value) and more recently the 100 point system, I'm well acquainted with the trials and tribulations of each one, however, seeing I have nothing to sell at the moment, i.e. myself as a professional wine writer or wares (I'm not ITB), I really don't think it matters a hell of a lot what I say or write, but only would like to relay to anyone, who does care, as much relative information as possible. People like Parker, Meadows, Robinson, Halliday etc. would not attach numerical values to wine if the demand for it wasn't there. If words are all you need - disregard the points. I always do my best to provide as best a note as the circumstances allow. But, of course, without the (accurate and astute) words, the score is totally useless.

BTW, I just saw Paul B's eloquent handle on this "delicate" subject - nice post!

Somewhere in this mess, Tom mentioned rating wines on the 100 point system as a score representing 1 in 100.

I beg to differ.

It seems to be basically a 1 in 15 system with an 85 point bias. I don't think I've seen more that two or three ratings ever with a value below 85. The lowest I can remember was 78 which was, according to the description a DNPIM. Which, if it were a true 100 point system should have been rated somewhere below 5. Maybe even 0.

I guess it's grade inflation in action - all wines are above average, if average is supposed to be 50 out of 100.

John

Somewhere in this mess, Tom mentioned rating wines on the 100 point system as a score representing 1 in 100.

I beg to differ.

It seems to be basically a 1 in 15 system with an 85 point bias. I don't think I've seen more that two or three ratings ever with a value below 85. The lowest I can remember was 78 which was, according to the description a DNPIM. Which, if it were a true 100 point system should have been rated somewhere below 5. Maybe even 0.

I guess it's grade inflation in action - all wines are above average, if average is supposed to be 50 out of 100.

John

John,

As far I know, Parker invented the 100 system and 50 is the starting point. I've given many a wine a score of 50. The fact I don't publish/write many notes about wines that are ruined by cork taint etc. is a hard decision, just like to publish the good ones to avoid all the dramas. A wine that scores 75 points is Acceptable to me, 80 - good, 85 - very good, 90 - Excellent, 90+ - Outstanding and above 95 - Exceptional. Works very much in the same way as the 20 point system and most people's verbal/star rating systems, IMHO.

I'm not big on scoring wines and try to avoid it whenever possible..I also try not to form an opinion re a wine until the end of the evening as I have seen too many wines improve dramatically over the course of an hour or more..That being said, it is easy to do this while drinking at home or in a controlled environement but basically impossible to do when you are at a mass tasting where ,even if you cd revisit a wine,it probably wd not be the same bottle so your first impression is probably your only impression..

MrParker and other noted wine critics (like Laube & Tanzer) always insist the wine score means nothing w/o reading the accompaning TN.

Has the Wine Advocate policy changed? Seems so by the list of scores only on pages 78, 79 and 80 of WA176. Disappointing from this end of the earth, especially with the WA's first ever extensive review of NZ wines. It seems you are indeed right when you say "It's The Score, Stupid...NOT The WTN...". I too am puzzled

MrParker and other noted wine critics (like Laube & Tanzer) always insist the wine score means nothing w/o reading the accompaning TN.

Has the Wine Advocate policy changed? Seems so by the list of scores only on pages 78, 79 and 80 of WA176. Disappointing from this end of the earth, especially with the WA's first ever extensive review of NZ wines. It seems you are indeed right when you say "It's The Score, Stupid...NOT The WTN...". I too am puzzled

Yup....that's something I noted too in the last WA issue. This big/long list of scores seems to imply a change of emphasis.
But Parker (and is minions) have always insisted, both on eBob and in print in the WA, that the scores are to be used only
in conjunction w/ the TN.
Tom

Somewhere in this mess, Tom mentioned rating wines on the 100 point system as a score representing 1 in 100.
I beg to differ.
It seems to be basically a 1 in 15 system with an 85 point bias. I don't think I've seen more that two or three ratings ever with a value below 85. The lowest I can remember was 78 which was, according to the description a DNPIM. Which, if it were a true 100 point system should have been rated somewhere below 5. Maybe even 0.
I guess it's grade inflation in action - all wines are above average, if average is supposed to be 50 out of 100.
John

Very valid point, John. You don't see scores below 85 in WA because they don't bother to publish them in order to save space.

My point is that can Parker or Laube or anybody distinguish between a 98 and a 99 wine?? I really think not. You could easily put this to the test
by taking a 98 and a 99 pt wine and giving them to 100's of people to taste blind and rate. Then do the statistics. I seriously doubt that
the 98-99 distinction would come out in the wash. Really doubt it. But claiming you can make that distinction, as Parker does, between
a 98 and a 99 implies to me an accuracy of 1 part in 100.

So what do you rate a wine that is seriously/badly corked, so bad you don't want to smell it or DNPIM?? A 0? A 50? Seems kinda irrelevant...
neither one you're gonna want to drink. Maybe a 50 you'll PIM just to see how bad it tastes. Maybe a 0-pt is one that will cause convulsions??
I don't know.
Tom

Tom,
For me - numerical scores are worthless. I always get a better idea about a wine by reading someone's TN than by trying to gauge a number. The reason for my position is that I do not believe that universally consistent quantification of pleasure/worthiness is possible across the diversity of palates that make up humankind. A scoring system might have merit if used among calibrated palates - those that share the same tastes - but oh, how much richer prose is to describe a wine than a mere number.

Well, Paul....very well said. I don't think score are useless. A Parker 98 pt wine will probably taste better than a Parker 81 pt wine. But not
necessarily so. If his 98 is a Harlan Napa Cab and his 81 is a NewYorkState Niagra.....it's probably going to be the Niagra that I'm more interested
in trying.
Tom

So what do you rate a wine that is seriously/badly corked, so bad you don't want to smell it or DNPIM?? A 0? A 50? Seems kinda irrelevant...
neither one you're gonna want to drink. Maybe a 50 you'll PIM just to see how bad it tastes. Maybe a 0-pt is one that will cause convulsions??
I don't know.
Tom

You don't rate a corked wine, You just say it is corked. You get a replacement bottle. If it is corked in the first but not in the second, you rate the second.
If a second bottle is corked -and even a third, the winery has a serious problem and should switch to Diams or screwcaps.
If it's a DNPIM, then a second bottle should be checked to see if that is also that DNPIM bad. If it is, the winery has a serious problem and needs to either do some serious cleaning up in the winery and/or get a new winemaker and the wine gets a shocking score.