Great topics for a longer discussion. Briefly I would suggest that advances in the lab and viticultural research (along with decades of winemaking experience and experimentation) have had a mostly positive impact on the overall quality of wines at all price points. Big production 'corporate' wineries and so-called 'supermarket' brands with high volume output are designed to avoid the vagaries of terroir and changing vintage conditions. They aim for reliable consistency year in and year out. Quite the opposite of the wines I seek out and feature here.
Your preface on scores and price quality relationships needs to be more widely discussed . The differences between " experts " scores for the same wines , high scores skewed by price / image etc - lack of objective ranking etc - all contribute to a house of cards which needs to come down !
Thank you Jonathan. I have written on these topics (and will continue to); I agree, they deserve complete coverage and more thoughtful conversation. Regarding blind tasting, I wrote this on my website (under Methodology): BLIND TASTING
"Blind tasting is a tried-and-true wine magazine formula that is supposed to ensure objectivity among wine critics. I don’t quibble with those who believe that to be true, but I completely disagree. Blind tasting eliminates context. In no other field of criticism is a judgment made without prior knowledge about the artist and their prior work or experience. Imagine if book reviewers were given untitled blank copies with no information about the author. Would that make for better book reviews? How does a restaurant get reviewed without the critic knowing the identity of the restaurant? Even at publications that trumpet their “objective blind tastings” the hard truth is that scores are added and/or amended after the bottles are revealed.
More importantly, when I am tasting young wines along with the winemaker (either at the winery or at my home) first impressions often focus entirely on the positive. For that reason I will always re-taste all wines apart from the winemaker in order to re-evaluate and expand upon those first impressions. To be clear – I do not do blind tastings except for fun. It is not in my view the best way to evaluate young wines, and the claims of objectivity are a smokescreen. If all the reviewers who claim to taste blind really did so, do you honestly think their scores would line up so consistently?"
Sadly there has long been an aversion to make comparative judgement about price and quality . This of course can be starkly apparent in tastings where price and provenance are not disclosed . It often seems that a price position pre ordains a high points score ( not to mention other conditioning factors with nothing to do with wine quality)
As a winemaker in the Napa Valley in the 80's it became a very simple process to construct high scoring wines - and indeed Parker points as pointers - aligned whole categories of wines .
Funny how different the expression of terroir might have been appreciated if flavouring wines with oak was taken out of the equation !
Curious about your thoughts on how science and technology have/have not influenced ’score creep’ in recent years?
Also, has wine become more of a ‘science project’ to taylor them to specific palate profiles to garner higher scores?
Great topics for a longer discussion. Briefly I would suggest that advances in the lab and viticultural research (along with decades of winemaking experience and experimentation) have had a mostly positive impact on the overall quality of wines at all price points. Big production 'corporate' wineries and so-called 'supermarket' brands with high volume output are designed to avoid the vagaries of terroir and changing vintage conditions. They aim for reliable consistency year in and year out. Quite the opposite of the wines I seek out and feature here.
Your preface on scores and price quality relationships needs to be more widely discussed . The differences between " experts " scores for the same wines , high scores skewed by price / image etc - lack of objective ranking etc - all contribute to a house of cards which needs to come down !
Thank you Jonathan. I have written on these topics (and will continue to); I agree, they deserve complete coverage and more thoughtful conversation. Regarding blind tasting, I wrote this on my website (under Methodology): BLIND TASTING
"Blind tasting is a tried-and-true wine magazine formula that is supposed to ensure objectivity among wine critics. I don’t quibble with those who believe that to be true, but I completely disagree. Blind tasting eliminates context. In no other field of criticism is a judgment made without prior knowledge about the artist and their prior work or experience. Imagine if book reviewers were given untitled blank copies with no information about the author. Would that make for better book reviews? How does a restaurant get reviewed without the critic knowing the identity of the restaurant? Even at publications that trumpet their “objective blind tastings” the hard truth is that scores are added and/or amended after the bottles are revealed.
More importantly, when I am tasting young wines along with the winemaker (either at the winery or at my home) first impressions often focus entirely on the positive. For that reason I will always re-taste all wines apart from the winemaker in order to re-evaluate and expand upon those first impressions. To be clear – I do not do blind tastings except for fun. It is not in my view the best way to evaluate young wines, and the claims of objectivity are a smokescreen. If all the reviewers who claim to taste blind really did so, do you honestly think their scores would line up so consistently?"
Sadly there has long been an aversion to make comparative judgement about price and quality . This of course can be starkly apparent in tastings where price and provenance are not disclosed . It often seems that a price position pre ordains a high points score ( not to mention other conditioning factors with nothing to do with wine quality)
As a winemaker in the Napa Valley in the 80's it became a very simple process to construct high scoring wines - and indeed Parker points as pointers - aligned whole categories of wines .
Funny how different the expression of terroir might have been appreciated if flavouring wines with oak was taken out of the equation !