| What’s In A Wine Rating? |
Simply stated, a wine rating is one person’s opinion about a wine.
There are many factors that go into this person’s opinion and these
factors should not be confused with your taste buds. When you pick
up a copy of Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, The Wine Advocate,
insert your favorite wine magazine here…there are determining
factors that you should know about before you accept these wine
scores as the gospel.
For starters, wine magazines make their money two ways. Obviously
they make money from subscriptions and sales, but a large portion of
their money comes from advertising dollars. Hmm, any lights turning
on over your head yet? So let’s say big Brand X wines spends a
couple of million dollars in advertising with your magazine a year,
would it make sense to trash one of your largest advertising customer’
s wines? Talk about biting the hand that feeds! I hear some people
that work in the Wine Industry complain about this often, but I don’t
necessarily see it as a bad thing. You just need to take it into account
when you see a budget wine made from a giant wine company, or
fairly large one anyway, rated rather highly in the latest issue.
Sometimes the wines are rated high because they are good and
sometimes they are just decent, but they spend a lot of money on
advertising.
The one thing us consumers have going for us here is that these wine
magazines have high reputations to live up to and if they rate a real
clunker of a wine too high, it could tarnish the magazine’s reputation.
So what a magazine might do is give the wine a decent rating and
refer to it as a “Best Buy” selection. It doesn’t happen often, but
sometimes you find lightning in a bottle for under $10.00. By all
means, wines like these should make these lists, others however, well
they are just okay. You’re the judge!
The most important thing you need to take into consideration when
buying a wine is your own personal taste. Quite frankly, your tastes
are more than likely very different then one of these supposed wine
critics. I’ll give you a personal example. One person in particular
who is a wine critic at a large, highly circulated wine magazine, rates
wines from a couple of different countries and states. This person
reviewed a Pinot Noir wine that I would swear was liquid heaven in a
bottle and gave it a so-so rating. This same wine critic then
proceeded to review a Pinot Noir from another winery with a much
higher case production volume and gave it a very good score. I
bought this wine, based on this person’s recommendation, because if
this Pinot that I think is brilliant, is only so-so to him, I’ve just got to
see what a great Pinot tastes like according to this guy, right?
Personally, after tasting that Pinot, I thought this wine critic needed to
lay down his crack pipe and start reviewing something else. Over and
over again, I have found that my tastes are quite different than this
wine critic’s taste and therefore, I take his ratings with a grain of salt.
Then there is the opposite experience with wine critics to consider. If
you find one that you seem to really agree with, use he or she’s
opinion as guide to help you pick out good wines. After all, they have
much greater exposure to a vast array of wines then you ever will, so
seek out the ones they like and go for it. Life’s too short to drink bad
wine, right? This is probably the most beneficial relationship between
the average wine consumer, the wine critic and their scores helping
you to determine which wines you should seek out. If you like
Australian wines and the person in the magazine you buy doesn’t
seem to agree with you, buy a different magazine and try out their
person’s reviews.
Now supposedly, wine critics base their scores on a number of
legitimate factors that all have to do with quality. In no certain order
they are; viscosity in the mouth or weight if you will, the length of the
finish (the impression a wine leaves in the tasters mouth after it has
been swallowed), the overall balance of tannins, acidity and fruit, of
course there is consideration of the wine’s overall taste and in some
cases, the wine’s ability to age. These are important factors indeed,
but if you are someone that never intends on keeping a wine for a
long period of time, then these may not be the wines for you. Wines
that have great structure often need time in the bottle to mature to
their best. You may be a buy today, drink today type of wine
consumer and you want to buy a wine that tastes good now. In this
case, wine scores may play less of a role for you in your purchasing
decisions.
Now my friends may think I am a hypocrite for telling you to consider
wine scores with a grain of salt, but I am the type of person that falls
into a different category than the average wine consumer. I am a
collector and these wine scores are a good indicator in determining
the wines ability to cellar for years and it’s odds of increasing in
value. In this regard, wine scores are an important part of my
decision on what wines to buy and what to pass on. I would caution
those that use this approach not to put all their eggs in one basket.
See what wines all the trade magazines seem to agree on. Those will
be the big-ticket items in auctions down the road. Of course, how rare
the wines are (in terms on number of cases produced) does play some
major importance there too.
Here is my overall advice to you and it is something that I did myself.
Find a notebook or excel spreadsheet, whatever works for you and
keep track of what wines you drink. Assign them a score, 1 to 100 or
whatever system you are comfortable with. Then take some of those
wines that you have drank and rated and locate the professional
reviews of the same wines in the wine magazines. See how your
scores compare with the wine critics. Do you tend to agree with them
or are you way off? Either way, you will become a more informed
wine consumer when it comes to buying wines and isn’t that the
ultimate goal? You also might find out a little something about
yourself that you didn’t know, like maybe instead of Cabernet
Sauvignon’s being your favorite wines, you are closet Zinfandel
drinker!
There are many factors that go into this person’s opinion and these
factors should not be confused with your taste buds. When you pick
up a copy of Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, The Wine Advocate,
insert your favorite wine magazine here…there are determining
factors that you should know about before you accept these wine
scores as the gospel.
For starters, wine magazines make their money two ways. Obviously
they make money from subscriptions and sales, but a large portion of
their money comes from advertising dollars. Hmm, any lights turning
on over your head yet? So let’s say big Brand X wines spends a
couple of million dollars in advertising with your magazine a year,
would it make sense to trash one of your largest advertising customer’
s wines? Talk about biting the hand that feeds! I hear some people
that work in the Wine Industry complain about this often, but I don’t
necessarily see it as a bad thing. You just need to take it into account
when you see a budget wine made from a giant wine company, or
fairly large one anyway, rated rather highly in the latest issue.
Sometimes the wines are rated high because they are good and
sometimes they are just decent, but they spend a lot of money on
advertising.
The one thing us consumers have going for us here is that these wine
magazines have high reputations to live up to and if they rate a real
clunker of a wine too high, it could tarnish the magazine’s reputation.
So what a magazine might do is give the wine a decent rating and
refer to it as a “Best Buy” selection. It doesn’t happen often, but
sometimes you find lightning in a bottle for under $10.00. By all
means, wines like these should make these lists, others however, well
they are just okay. You’re the judge!
The most important thing you need to take into consideration when
buying a wine is your own personal taste. Quite frankly, your tastes
are more than likely very different then one of these supposed wine
critics. I’ll give you a personal example. One person in particular
who is a wine critic at a large, highly circulated wine magazine, rates
wines from a couple of different countries and states. This person
reviewed a Pinot Noir wine that I would swear was liquid heaven in a
bottle and gave it a so-so rating. This same wine critic then
proceeded to review a Pinot Noir from another winery with a much
higher case production volume and gave it a very good score. I
bought this wine, based on this person’s recommendation, because if
this Pinot that I think is brilliant, is only so-so to him, I’ve just got to
see what a great Pinot tastes like according to this guy, right?
Personally, after tasting that Pinot, I thought this wine critic needed to
lay down his crack pipe and start reviewing something else. Over and
over again, I have found that my tastes are quite different than this
wine critic’s taste and therefore, I take his ratings with a grain of salt.
Then there is the opposite experience with wine critics to consider. If
you find one that you seem to really agree with, use he or she’s
opinion as guide to help you pick out good wines. After all, they have
much greater exposure to a vast array of wines then you ever will, so
seek out the ones they like and go for it. Life’s too short to drink bad
wine, right? This is probably the most beneficial relationship between
the average wine consumer, the wine critic and their scores helping
you to determine which wines you should seek out. If you like
Australian wines and the person in the magazine you buy doesn’t
seem to agree with you, buy a different magazine and try out their
person’s reviews.
Now supposedly, wine critics base their scores on a number of
legitimate factors that all have to do with quality. In no certain order
they are; viscosity in the mouth or weight if you will, the length of the
finish (the impression a wine leaves in the tasters mouth after it has
been swallowed), the overall balance of tannins, acidity and fruit, of
course there is consideration of the wine’s overall taste and in some
cases, the wine’s ability to age. These are important factors indeed,
but if you are someone that never intends on keeping a wine for a
long period of time, then these may not be the wines for you. Wines
that have great structure often need time in the bottle to mature to
their best. You may be a buy today, drink today type of wine
consumer and you want to buy a wine that tastes good now. In this
case, wine scores may play less of a role for you in your purchasing
decisions.
Now my friends may think I am a hypocrite for telling you to consider
wine scores with a grain of salt, but I am the type of person that falls
into a different category than the average wine consumer. I am a
collector and these wine scores are a good indicator in determining
the wines ability to cellar for years and it’s odds of increasing in
value. In this regard, wine scores are an important part of my
decision on what wines to buy and what to pass on. I would caution
those that use this approach not to put all their eggs in one basket.
See what wines all the trade magazines seem to agree on. Those will
be the big-ticket items in auctions down the road. Of course, how rare
the wines are (in terms on number of cases produced) does play some
major importance there too.
Here is my overall advice to you and it is something that I did myself.
Find a notebook or excel spreadsheet, whatever works for you and
keep track of what wines you drink. Assign them a score, 1 to 100 or
whatever system you are comfortable with. Then take some of those
wines that you have drank and rated and locate the professional
reviews of the same wines in the wine magazines. See how your
scores compare with the wine critics. Do you tend to agree with them
or are you way off? Either way, you will become a more informed
wine consumer when it comes to buying wines and isn’t that the
ultimate goal? You also might find out a little something about
yourself that you didn’t know, like maybe instead of Cabernet
Sauvignon’s being your favorite wines, you are closet Zinfandel
drinker!
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