On Wine Ratings and Objectivity

November 16th, 2008

In WSET class we learned that there is in fact, a right and wrong answer when it comes to reviewing wine. If you describe a Chardonnay as having rose petal and petrol aromas, you were wrong. If you thought a soft, expressive Pinot Noir could age for 30 years, you were most likely wrong as well. Not everyone in class enjoyed this strict code, but it’s how we were taught. A good wine has balance, complexity and depth, and we were all to agree on the quality wines, without room for interpretation.

I’ve only been trained in the WSET code, but I would guess that this tenet is universal. It’s impossible to learn a subject if you’re taught that any answer is correct, and the opportunities for flexibility are endless. But the problem comes in, when people expect this to work perfectly in the real world.

People get upset when they see Wine Enthusiast giving a wine 92 points and another magazine giving it 85. How can the difference be so big? It is expected that critics are trained to make wine objective, to even the playing field so that there is a digestible right answer about each wine.

Last week, my Google Alerts popped up with a blog post on a site called Wine Rocks

Which wine would you rather drink?

Wine A: 81 points. Shows muted black cherry and spice aromas, with tightly wound plum, medicinal and herbal flavors and dry, papery tannins. Drink now.

Wine B: 90 points. This is a vigorous young Cab that will reward aging. It’s bright and savory in cherry-berry, herb, new oak and spice flavors, with rich, sweet tannins. Better after 2008 and through 2012.

You could see the punch line coming — this is the same wine, a 2004 Salvestrin Estate Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Wine A is the Wine Spectator review, Wine B is the Wine Enthusiast review.

I would suggest that anybody who finds this upsetting, picks up a bottle of 2004 Salvestrin Estate, taste it, and decide whether you agree with James Laube or Steve Heimoff on this one. Wine is a living thing and there is so much room for variance. Though people should typically be in agreement on certain aspects, ageability being an important one (like above), it doesn’t always happen that way. In the end, the key is to find someone whose palate you respect be it magazine critic, blogger, friend, or local wine shop owner, even if the reviewers aren’t all in sync with each other.

Would you agree?

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Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (9)

9 Responses to “On Wine Ratings and Objectivity”

  1. dhonig on November 16, 2008 10:27 pm

    A swing from 81 (yeah, I know it theoretically means it’s good, but in reality you might as well put a skull and crossbones on the label) to 90 (the magic number, watch it fly off the shelves) should never happen. It means one of the following, or a combination of them:

    1. Heimoff got a special “wine reviewer’s bottle.”

    2. Laube got a bottle that was slightly flawed, but not in an obvious enough way to announce itself.

    3. Someboy at Sylvestrin pissed Laube off.

    4. Somebody at Sylvestrin blew Heimoff.

    5. One of them tasted it at the end of a very long day of tasting and it lacked in comparison to other things on the line-up.

    Bottom line? They can’t both be right. A range of 88 to 90 is relative. A range from 81 to 90, though? Just wrong.

  2. Lenn on November 17, 2008 12:25 pm

    I’m not as familiar with WSET…why is rose petals and petrol wrong? Because they aren’t ‘approved’ for use describing chardonnay?

    I think that Honigs comments are right on…especially #4.

  3. Erika on November 17, 2008 12:30 pm

    @Lenn just giving an example of typical aromatics of a very different white, Gewurztraminer. I think if I said I got petrol in a Chard they’d definitely tell me I was wrong.

  4. Lenn on November 17, 2008 12:32 pm

    I’ve gotten hints of petrol on an steel-fermented chard with several years of bottle age before.

  5. Erika Strum on November 17, 2008 12:34 pm

    And if you were in class with Linda (WSET Nazi) and she didn’t get it, she would ask the rest of the class if they got it.. and if nobody was brave enough to say Yes, she’d say it wasn’t there.

  6. Glenn on November 17, 2008 9:24 pm

    dhonig, why CAN’T they both be right? One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right?

    And I’m wondering if the correct for this post is subjectivity or objectivity?

  7. Dirty on November 18, 2008 5:05 pm

    I think huge swings in scores are the reason why it is really important to get several opinions on a wine. Though hopefully not life threatening, this is like getting a 2nd opinion on whether or not I really need that lobotomy.

    Though I read many of the critics, I trust no one more than my preferred wine merchant. Usually they have tasted the wine closer to my purchase date than the critics.

    (dig the new layout btw)

  8. Steve Heimoff on November 20, 2008 11:23 am

    Actually I can assure Lenn and dhonig that nobody at Salvestrin gave me a blowjob. Or vice versa. I’ve always tried to point out the subjectivity of wine reviews and ratings. You say po-TAY-to, I say po-TAH-to. We’re both right. Moreover, I’ve also tried to point out the transient nature of tasting. If someone tastes the same wine, blind, at different times, they’re going to give it different reviews. Sometimes quite different. I’ve been to M.W. events where they didn’t agree among themselves — and they’re supposed to be the most superbly educated palates in the world, right? Anyhow, Erika is absolutely correct when she advises finding someone you trust and sticking with them.

  9. Wine Rocks on November 24, 2008 5:38 pm

    Thanks for reading my post! As to Dhonig’s potential reasons, I’d say 2, 3 and 5 are possibilities.
    I’m sorry to say that about #3, but Laube does have that reputation in the industry.

    #4 cannot be true: I’m not going to defend Heimoff’s honor, he can do that himself, but I suggest that if he had sold out for some service, the score would have been higher than 90.

    #1 isn’t true because (sorry Steve) Enthusiast doesn’t have the sales clout of Spectator, so if there was a special reviewer’s bottle, Laube would have gotten one too.

    Ultimately, though, Heimoff is probably right on with his own comment. I have sat in on many professional tastings where people never came to an agreement. That’s one of the things that make wine great — but it also shows that definitive statements about any wine are just about impossible.

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