The Paradox of Wine Tasting
W. Blake Gray contemplates wine score inflation while judging the Concours Mondial, and makes an interesting observation:
I was cautioned twice by the head of my jury on our first group of wines — Muscadets-Sèvre et Maine — that my ratings were too high…I don’t care what he said: I like Muscadet, and I wasn’t giving them scores in the 90s anyway (I checked). A little later that same day he told me my ratings on some red wines that I hated were very low; he didn’t say “too low,” but he said, “That is your style.” Then I noticed that other judges on my panel, who were keeping track, were scoring EVERY wine between 81 and 89 points; an even narrower range than Wine Spectator. I think this is a natural consequence of thinking holistically about a rating, instead of about its components.
Emphasis mine.
A long time ago I noticed an interesting phenomenon. When scoring wine using a scale like the 20-point Davis system, the wines I like best are not necessarily the wines that score highest. This is a natural outcome of tasting methodically — considering wine as a set of components rather than holistically. Lose a half point in color or clarity and another point in the amorphous “quality” category and you’ve got a second-tier wine on the scorecard that nonetheless may be a rock star in the drinking.
So here’s my question: is this a good or bad thing? Is it a condition of objectivity, or an expression of the artificiality of wine scoring. Or, perhaps, I’m just an inconsistent taster. Do other people have this same experience?
UPDATE: From comments, Steve from Winthropology links to his earlier contemplation of the soul of wine. It’s worth a read, as are the comments below.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:20 AM
Other people have the same view, indeed.
If you can get your hands on it, read Maynard Amerine’s dissertation on evaluating wine. The whole idea behind scoring (the 20-point system) was to evaluate wine by its components for quality. That can only be done when 1. standards are imposed 2. the judges are trained to those standards.
Scoring wine for aesthetic reasons (holistically) has little to nothing to do either with evaluating universal standards or quality. This is why people “calibrate” their palates to critics, which is a concept that I understand yet that escapes me at the same time.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:23 AM
As an addendum to my comment: these comments made by Gray tell it all, “…that my ratings were too high…I don’t care what he said: I like Muscadet, and I wasn’t giving them scores in the 90s anyway (I checked). A little later that same day he told me my ratings on some red wines that I hated were very low…”
He’s not evaluating the wines; he’s evaluating whether or not he likes the wines.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:26 AM
Which is yet another reason of why scores are useless. Blake and I have had a related discussion about this, in which he insists that those of us who oppose scores miss the point. And I insist that the confusion that Tom notes makes scores irrelevant.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:28 AM
Most of my wine buying decisions carry the additional onus of financial responsibility. Not only “is this good?” but “will this sell?” Plus, the concept of bringing up a numerical score when I’m talking to someone about which wine to serve with a bolognese that took them three days to make seems to me insulting on some level; if not to the cook, certainly to the wine maker. So, in addition to my notes on aromatics, texture, flavors and tannic structure I will star those I should investigate further, those I should buy and those I would crawl across Sarah Palin’s jagged syntax in order to purchase. It’s worked for me and my clients for 26 years.
That said, last week I was thinking about some of the buying mistakes I’ve made in the last two decades. Maybe sometime we could talk about wines we shouldn’t have bought so much of.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:47 AM
Hell yeah.
The techniques taught to aspiring sommeliers provide a tool set for deconstructing a wine – a structured way to learn about many wines’ components. These so called standards are about as close to objectivity as wine appreciation gets, but the truth is that they are merely yard sticks and have nothing to do with appreciation.
As we become more experienced (older) at drinking wine, appeal is driven less by a wine’s measurable components than by its character.
Quality does not necessarily equal drinking pleasure. (The temptation to use women as an analogy is awfully strong, but perhaps a bit cliché.)
This topic occupied enough of my thoughts that I wrote a long winded, high brow piece (with analogy) on it last year http://tinyurl.com/soulofawine. Sorry for the shameless plug.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:49 AM
Wally, your point is spot on.
The problem with scoring extends to the reason behind making an evaluation. When the judge does an evaluation for personal reasons, the value of the proclamation often won’t carry over to many others.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:06 AM
Steve,
Quality can never equal drinking pleasure, because drinking pleasure is completely personal, which is why I still can’t understand how critics can believe that their “score” has anything to do either with quality or with someone else’s drinking pleasure.
Wally’s evaluation is closer to objective than moist systems: he has the consumer track record to go by. He tries to meet the consumers demand by what he has learned about their overall preferences. He also tries not to put his stamp on the evaluation–not too much.
As a retailer, I used to pull my hair out (I succeeded at that job) trying to make wine salespeople understand why I bought wine for my shelves, and it had little to do with the shelf talkers and all those useless numbers.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:07 AM
moist–a nice pun, considering the subject, but I meant most!
May 17th, 2011 at 10:12 AM
First of all, I’m not against shameless plugs. Thanks for the link, Steve.
I cut a paragraph out of this that referred to an annual essay contest that I judge. The phenomenon is largely the same as judging wine. I score according to the agreed upon scorecard, and invariably the essay that wins is not the one I liked best. I prefer writing that has some quirks of personality, and that is not necessarily technically the best writing.
Maybe “objective” judgment of any aesthetic experience is the same.
The particular scoring methodology has an influence as well. On the Davis scale, there is a one point difference between wines that are judged “noble, elegant, grand, distinguished” and wines that are merely “charming, stylish, fine, graceful.” That seems to me to be more of a measure of style than quality, and presupposes scale as a quality in its own rite. It’s like assuming a Town Car is better than a BMW because it’s bigger.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:17 AM
Thomas, I’m uncomfortable with your use of “Wally” and “moist system” in the same comment.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:30 AM
Thomas is spot-on here for me. Personally, when I taste wine I am trying to minimize the subjective/personal-preference aspect (min., not eliminate, because that’s NOT possible) and rate a wine based on its quality, typicity, unique expression and mostly WSET-evaluation-type stuff.
That does NOT equate to what I’d prefer to drink. I’ve given wines low marks that I like to drink at home, and vice-versa.
Of course, my opinion is totally inconsequential, so I can afford to do this.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:31 AM
OK, so if Thomas is right — and I’ve learned that Thomas is basically always right — then how should consumers use objective wine scoring to help them pick wines?
May 17th, 2011 at 11:56 AM
Stirring the pot, Tom. Well done.
How should consumers use objective wine scoring? Or how do consumers use popular scoring publications? These are loaded subjects, so let me jump into the fray.
First, we got to acknowledge/reiterate that the concept of objectivity is elusive and nonstandard. Ratings are given by some based on evaluation of quality of winemaking, faithfulness of varietal representation, yadda, yadda, yadda. Let’s call those objective, not because they are, but because they purport to exclude personal preference (as Joe works hard to). Other reviewers don’t even pretend to espouse this approach, instead basically rating based on “What I like”.
Problem is, neither is branded as such, leaving consumers with no guidance as to which is which – further making the well-trodden argument that consumers should find outlets with similar tastes to use as signposts.
That’s how consumers should use wine scoring to help them pick wines.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, the variation on your question (how do consumers use ratings?) is simple and can be summarized in what is likely a fair generalization: They look at the score, combine that with price and anything else they know about the wine (which is sometimes nothing, but other times may include pedigree, history, reputation, celebrity, region, etc.), and determine whether they should seek it out or ignore it completely.
And that, friends, is how so much pleasurable wine goes undiscovered.
May 17th, 2011 at 12:42 PM
Far be it from me to make such a claim, but I can envision that a trained and passionate retail trade could do more for consumers than any aesthetic evaluator.
The retailer would have pleasing the consumer in mind (to maintain viability for the business). Pair that incentive with the retailer’s passion, and you have the makings of a beautiful relationship that relies not on a far away view of what is in any particular bottle; rather, it is an up-close, personally responsible transaction between two parties, which can be so beneficial as to allow for occasional lapses and mistakes.
I fully understand that one major critic built his career on the concept, and rightly so at the time, of a woefully deficient retail trade. But that doesn’t necessarily hold completely true today, and it need not be the norm, provided people with passion get into retail.
Of course, we speak of these things from the luxury of thesis. Out there is reality, and because reality is what it is, answers to the conundrum that Tom brings up hardly exist.
As a side note: it’s only the past two decades when wine evaluation began to take on the mantle of marketing tool. Before that, evaluating and scoring wine was largely the domain of those who sought to recognize winemaking achievement rather than to provide a promotion device.
May 17th, 2011 at 12:58 PM
And here’s another thing: could it be that one of the reasons wine bloggers irritate the establishment so is that they (the bloggers) rely too much on their own tastes, and not enough on recognized standards of quality?
May 17th, 2011 at 1:02 PM
The best wine retailer I know started his business with the policy that he would not tout critical scores in his business. He stuck to it for about a year, but customers demanded to know the scores of the wines he was selling.
Steve says rating, prices and whatever else people know about a wine are balanced and considered. I think it’s rating, price, variety and label design. Take away any one of those four, and the average wine consumer is utterly helpless.
May 17th, 2011 at 1:05 PM
And why is Tom’s average wine consumer utterly helpless? Because he and she has been taught to look for scores.
Having said that, we must acknowledge that the vast majority of wine sold in the U.S. is sold without scores. Which raises the question of who is the average wine consumer?
May 17th, 2011 at 1:10 PM
Allow me to revise and extend my remarks. In the absence of ratings, the other three work just fine. Also there is the matter of brand. So it’s more complicated than what I said. But still, I reject the notion of careful consideration in most wine buyers. They just want something to drink, and they don’t care if it’s good, as long as it’s good enough. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But yeah, I oversimplified.
May 17th, 2011 at 1:15 PM
Tom,
I’m crushed. i thought I was the best wine retailer you know.
WC,
So much wine is sold at mass market outlets simply because people are there and buying stuff is what they do at stores. If Rex Goliath, Yellowtail, Little Black Dress and their cohorts are to be believed, this vast group makes their decision solely on price, label and shelf placement. Yikes!
May 17th, 2011 at 2:34 PM
Wally,
I believe Rex Goliath, et al.
Why?
Because I have seen the process up close for the majority of my wine industry life. Price is king, and that’s because most people have neither the income for the “best” nor do they have the interest in learning what may be “best.”
It’s a plain fact that a product that scores in the mass marketing kingdom has reached the pinnacle of mediocrity. The rest of us function on the margins of the curve, and that’s just about how all of life on earth measures up.
Seems to me that I just placed all of us in obscurity…where we probably belong.
May 17th, 2011 at 4:37 PM
The explanation for folks buying mediocre wines was printed in the St Cleve Chronicle in 1972 (The album cover for Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick)
In the Prof. Panglos and Rabbit comic, the Rabbit states, “I’m geared toward the average rather than the exceptional.”
This pretty much sums up American consumer behavior.
I thank the FSM every day that I live in a town full of weirdos rather than “normal” Americans. Talk to you guys in a week, I leave for Tuscany in a few hours and I won’t be reading blogs : )