[wine] 04 Brdx Tasting, 100 pt scales

From: WineStreet Spirits <winestreetspirits(a)comcast.net> To: winestreetspirits(a)comcast.net Subject: 2004 bordeaux tasting announcement!!!!! Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:07:11 -0500 WineStreet Spirits & Kozlaks Royal Oaks Proudly Present the: 2004 Bordeaux Tasting When: 6:30:8:30 pm Thursday July 12th, 2007 $50.00/person! Seating Limited to 60 people! Reservations requested! Call/Fax Kozlaks Where: Kozlaks Royal Oaks 4785 Hodgson, Shoreview Phone:651-484-8484 Fax: 651-484-7753 “Wine: the final frontier. These are the voyages of WineStreet Spirits. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out great wine at nationally competitive prices — to boldly go where few retailers in Minnesota have gone before." 2004 Bordeaux Lineup! 2004 Chateau Haut-Brion, Pessac-Léognan 2004 Chateau Margaux, Margaux 2004 Chateau Pavie, St-Emilion 2004 Chateau Léoville-Las-Cases, St-Julien 2004 Chateau Cos d'Estournel, St-Estèphe 2004 Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou, St-Julien 2004 Hosanna, Pomerol 2004 Chateau Monbousquet, St-Emilion 2004 Chateau Pape-Clément, Pessac-Léognan 2004 Chateau Branaire-Ducru, St-Julien 2004 Chateau Calon Segur, St-Estèphe 2004 Chateau Certan de May, Pomerol 2004 Clos du Marquis, St-Julien 2004 Pagados de Cos d'Estournel, St-Estèphe 2004 Chateau Giscours, Margaux 2004 Chateau Montrose, St-Estèphe 2004 Chateau Pichon-Baron, Pauillac 2004 Chateau Pichon-Lalande, Pauillac 2004 Chateau Pontet-Canet, Pauillac 2004 Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte Rouge, Pessac-Léognan 2004 Sociando Mallet, Haut-Médoc WineStreet Spirits • (651) 483-1767 • (952) 881-6414 If you would like to be removed from our email offers please contact us at remove(a)thewinestreetjournal.com and include the word REMOVE in the subject line. ----- End forwarded message ----- Are ratings pointless? The highs -- and lows -- of the 100-point scale W. Blake Gray, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, June 15, 2007 Are ratings pointless? The highs -- and lows -- of the 10... The rating systems for (left to right) Wine Spectator, Wi... Robert M. Parker Jr. created the 100-point rating system. Charles Neal, an importer of French wines, chooses not to... In 1999, Chateau St. Jean's Cinq Cepages Cabernet Sauvignon became an international sensation when Wine Spectator rated it at 95 points and named it Wine of the Year. The fuss came because a 95-point wine at a suggested retail price of $28 was considered exceptional -- even if many stores quickly jacked up that price. But if a rating is a statistic, it's a malleable one. Earlier this year, Wine Spectator re-evaluated the very same wine as an unremarkable 88-pointer. "A wine gets rated one time -- a nanosecond in its life cycle," says Sebastiani winemaker Mark Lyon. "From then on, its fate is determined. Aren't wines always evolving? Shouldn't they be rated every year?" The 100-point rating scale, created by wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. in the mid-1970s, was a great innovation that has done a world of good for wine lovers. But as it has become the most-accepted critical standard, the scale may have gradually changed from a consumer's best friend into a force that discourages diversity of styles, encourages higher alcohol levels and inflames price inflation for highly sought wines. It wasn't always that way. The 100-point scale broke the feudal system of rewarding only owners of the most revered vineyard plots, installing in its place a democratic system where wineries everywhere have a chance at high ratings. Small wineries as different as Santa Rosa's Siduri Wines and Spain's Bodega Numanthia have ridden big scores to business success. Loved or hated, the 100-point scale has an enormous impact at every level of the wine business, including retailers and restaurants, says Kim Beto, a vice president for the large distributor Southern Wine & Spirits. "Every sommelier in the world will say, 'I don't care about ratings.' But they won't buy (Joseph Phelps) Insignia until it gets 100 points. Then they beg for it," Beto says. The scale has also punished lazy winemaking and encouraged improvements. Most of all, it gives wine consumers -- particularly beginners -- clear direction in which wines to purchase. "I find the Wine Spectator rating to be a big help," says Diane Jaquier, an interior designer from San Ramon. "While there are many fabulous new wines on the market, a little assistance from the rating system helps us weed out the good from the not-so-good." However, some winemakers, importers and retailers complain that the 100-point scale has become a menace. The main weakness of the scale is the mirror image of its greatest strength: It answers a philosophical question -- is one wine truly better than another? -- with an authoritative, "Yes, this one's five points better." Most major wine ratings organizations now use the 100-point scale, from the two heavyweights, Wine Advocate newsletter and Wine Spectator magazine, to others including Wine Enthusiast, Stephen Tanzer and Wine & Spirits. The most influential publications rate all wines -- from first-growth Bordeaux to light and lively Chenin Blancs -- on the same scale. The highest scores go to wines of greater power and complexity -- wines that make you notice them. Major publications don't give 98 points to a palate-cleansing Sauvignon Blanc. By itself, this would not be a problem. But because wines that get higher scores command higher prices, many wineries naturally pursue higher scores, which alters the way wines are made. One frequent argument is that the drawbacks from the scale's hegemony are the fault of the critics doing the ratings, not the scale itself. While many publications use the 100-point scale, many industry people say only the ratings from Parker's Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator actually move the marketplace. Both publications use multiple critics, but both allow one critic -- not a team of critics -- to give each wine its all-important score. (See The Chronicle's four-star wine ratings.) Winemakers and some oenophiles like to complain about the "Parkerization" of wine, implying that Parker's personal taste for dramatic, powerful wines has taken over the world. "The 100-point system makes the supposition that everybody has the same taste, and that wine can be evaluated as if it were a scientific endeavor," says Gerald Weisl, wine buyer for Weimax wine shop in Burlingame. "It's no more scientific than enjoying a pizza, a movie or a book. Some people like a movie and some don't." Parker declined to return phone calls seeking comment for this article. According to Elin McCoy's book "The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker Jr. and the Reign of American Taste" (Harper Perennial, 2005), Parker developed the scale in the mid-1970s as an amateur taster. At the time, many reviewers did not use a scale, preferring prose that often politely masked a famous wine's shortcomings. Parker wanted to recommend a wine for its performance rather than for its pedigree. The most popular ratings scale at the time was a 20-point scale invented by UC Davis enology professor Maynard Amerine, but that scale was meant to expose flaws, not espouse virtues: Wines with no defects got scores between 17 and 20. Parker doesn't really rate wines on a scale of 1 to 100. The lowest score possible is 50, but he has not given a score below 70 in the past seven years. Just 3.6 percent of all wines listed at eRobertParker.com have ratings lower than 80. He used his first newsletter, in 1977, to disparage the 1973 Bordeaux releases, giving the 1973 Chateau Leoville Poyferre 50 points. His highest rated wine in that first issue was the 1974 Sonoma Vineyards Alexander's Crown Cabernet Sauvignon, at 91 points. Consumers immediately liked the 100-point scale; retailers began posting the scores on "shelf talkers" (small advertisements on store shelves). Wine Spectator started using the 100-point scale in 1985 and other publications, such as Wine Enthusiast and Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, have followed suit. "I do it strictly for competitive reasons," Tanzer says. "Most American consumers seem to demand it." In fact, Tanzer believes competition between publications that rate wines is a major reason that scores are getting higher. (See Grade inflation, Page F5.) Yet consumers assume that an 85 from one magazine is the same as another. So what exactly do the scores mean? According to Wine Advocate's official scale, an 80 to 89 point wine is "a barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor" -- vague language that seems to encompass just about every wine in the world. Wine Spectator is more precise: 80 to 84 points is "a solid, well-made wine" while 85 to 89 points is "very good: a wine with special qualities." But who pays attention to 89-point wines? For many consumers, it's all about the 90s, which both the Advocate and the Spectator call "outstanding." A quick look at eRobertParker.com reveals that 36 percent of all wines rated by the Advocate get 90 points or more. Wine Spectator gave 90 points or more to 24 percent of the wines it rated in 2006. "If you don't get a 90, it's better just not to mention it," says San Francisco wine importer Charles Neal, who does not submit his wines for ratings, but whose wines are sometimes rated anyway by magazines. "If a wine gets an 88 or 89, the message is that it's not that good." Wine Spectator Managing Editor Thomas Matthews says his magazine makes great efforts to ensure consistency from its critics. Wines are tasted blind, but each tasting includes a non-blind, previously scored wine to set the scale. Also, the magazine gathers its critics once a year to taste wines together and calibrate their individual scales. "It's important for readers to realize that the score is a summary of a subjective opinion," Matthews says. Regardless of the rater, the scale is not as democratic as it seems. While Cabernet Sauvignons from any country might get 100 points, lighter, food-friendly wines simply cannot. When asked which varietals might get scores above 95, Tanzer and Matthews listed the same ones: Cabernet, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay and Riesling. Matthews added that the best Nebbiolos and Sangioveses from Italy might score that high. Both said Beaujolais could not. And while Sauvignon Blanc is widely popular, Matthews could think of only one Sauvignon Blanc-based wine worthy of 95 points: Chateau Haut-Brion Blanc, which sells for more than $200 a bottle. That's a potential reward for wineries that garner stellar ratings: the ability to charge far higher prices. Once a wine hits 99 or 100 points, they almost certainly sell for more than $100; some cost more than $1,000. Bob Golbahar, owner and wine buyer for Twenty Twenty Wine Merchants in Los Angeles, says clients come to his store from as far away as Tahiti and Japan because he specializes in this rarefied sort of wine. "Money is not an object" for these customers, Golbahar says. "Everybody always wants to try one 100-point wine in their lifetime." In theory, 100-point wines set the standard for all other wines, which is one reason Tanzer says he's never given that score to a new release. Bouchaine winemaker Mike Richmond says it's unfair to judge daily drinking wines against 95-point ultraconcentrated luxury products. "Wines that get 87, 88 and 89, those are wines that people should lust after in their usefulness," Richmond says. "Wines in the 90s are caricatures and conversation pieces." Matthews says that to get above 95 points, a wine must have structure, complexity, typicity and some personal characteristics. The Wine Advocate's Parker has written often about how he enjoys regional differences. Yet there are the words, and there are the scores. Several winemakers who did not want to be quoted said the way to get higher scores is to let grapes ripen longer on the vine, which produces more intense fruit flavors but also leads to higher alcohol and the absence of distinctive differences between wines of different regions. Wine consultant Barry Gnekow says it's always important to improve scores. "I say to winemakers all the time, 'You're only as good as your last score,' " Gnekow says. "You've got to follow the basics. Number one, you've got to make a good-quality wine. "The first entry into the venue is expensive French oak barrels. You're not going to get the scores with American oak. That's what (Wine Spectator's) Laube and Parker taste all the time -- wines aged in expensive oak barrels. The next step is letting those grapes get really, really ripe. That gives the wine power, oomph, really big body. The consequence is high alcohol." "We've gone from 13 percent alcohol to 15 percent because of this," says importer Neal. "For some people in the wine business, if a wine gets a 95-point score, it's a tip that the wine will be disgusting to us." Winemakers might also use more new oak, which adds toasty complexity but can block the flavors of the grapes. Why would a winemaker make a wine he or she wouldn't personally drink? Because the wine business is a business. "We've moved away from people making their own artisan wines with their own vision to people saying, 'I thought I was doing pretty good until I got an 87 on this Pinot Noir,' " says Sebastiani's Lyon. Matthews responds: "If Americans didn't like the style of wine that got high scores from critics, the critics wouldn't stay in business." It's tempting to blame Parker's and Wine Spectator's California critic James Laube's personal love for big-bodied, high-alcohol wines for those wines' proliferation. But Leo McCloskey, founder of the Sonoma wine consultancy Enologix -- which advises wineries how to get higher scores -- says that's wrong. McCloskey frequently conducts blind tastings with winemakers, some of whom complain about their ratings. McCloskey says winemakers' ratings usually parallel Parker's and Laube's, which he says some winemakers are embarrassed to discover. He also says that 4 to 6 points is the margin of error for most tasters, so that a 91 may not be so different from an 89, even if they're priced very differently. Still, McCloskey is a big fan of 100-point ratings. "Discrediting the critics is discrediting quality," he says. "When winemakers slam the ratings, that's the culture of the cover-up. That's not useful to the consumer." Moreover, while some wineries complain about the scores, those that get high ones aren't complaining. Adam and Dianna Lee founded Siduri Wines in 1993 with just $24,000 and no land. A 90-plus rating from Parker on their first release allowed them to sell futures on subsequent wines, giving them the capital to buy grapes from more vineyards. There are dozens of examples like these: Little guys uplifted over big players by virtue of a good score. The downside is that a bad score -- fair or not -- can leave a winery with cases of difficult-to-sell wine. "I'm working with the best vineyards and making what I think are really, really good wines," says Jeff Cohn, owner and winemaker of JC Cellars in Oakland. "Then somebody takes a half minute out of their life and gives it a score. That score affects my whole life. The score system is crazy. Winemakers, we live by it and die by it. That doesn't mean we believe in it." Of course, Cohn could stop submitting his wines for ratings, as Bouchaine's Richmond did. But that would make selling his wines harder. "If it gets 90 points or more, the wine sells faster," Cohn says. Because wines with higher scores sell more rapidly, wine stores are more likely to stock them. This alters the choices of which wines people can buy, and the very culture of wine appreciation in this country. Why drink an 85-point Chenin Blanc or Muscadet with your oysters when you can have a 94-point Chardonnay? Isn't that better? "A bad Montrachet will get 94 points out of 100 and good Muscadet will get 88," says Berkeley wine importer and merchant Kermit Lynch. "A perfect Muscadet should get 100. But the graders will say, 'No, it's not rich enough.' But that's not its duty." The irony is, even some of the raters themselves acknowledge that they don't drink only highly rated wines. Matthews, who rates the wines of Spain for Wine Spectator, says, "If I could drink only 90-point wines, would I? Probably not. The wine world is so diverse and gives different kinds of pleasure. If I'm opening a wine on a weeknight with dinner at home, I'm probably going to open a wine that's rated 80 to 88. A great wine demands serious attention. Sometimes you don't have the energy to give it that attention. It's like with music: sometimes you want to listen to a pop song, and sometimes you want to sit down and hear a Beethoven symphony." Grade inflation In the first issue of Robert M. Parker Jr.'s Wine Advocate in 1977 -- the publication that introduced the 100-point scale -- the highest rating awarded was just 91 points. Earlier this year, Jay Miller, a new rater hired by Parker, reviewed nearly 1,000 wines from Spain and gave five of them perfect 100-point scores. There's little dispute that Wine Advocate scores have trended upward over the past 30 years. Of 78,252 wines listed in the eRobertParker.com database on Monday, 36 percent have scores of 90 or above -- and a score of 96 or more is hardly a rarity, with 2,080 wines listed (2.7 percent). But the underlying reason for the big scores is unclear. Parker posted the following on his eRobertParker.com bulletin board: "Hard for some of you to believe, but the goal posts have not moved ... wine quality is dramatically better today ... and there are at least several thousand producers making very good to outstanding wines that were ... 1. not even producing wine 15-25 years ago...2. their fathers or mothers or some third party was producing industrial/innocuous swill...I suspect few of you even remember how appalling much of the wine world's products were in the '70s." Parker was responding to a poster who pointed out that the 1978 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cask 23, which Parker called "the finest Cabernet of that very good vintage," got just 92 points in 1985. That score would hardly motivate oenophiles to buy it today; to name just one example, Oakville's Harlan Estate has received 100 points from the Wine Advocate for its Cabernet Sauvignons four times in nine years. Stephen Tanzer, who also rates wines on the 100-point scale for his International Wine Cellar newsletter, says that giving wines ever-higher scores is a competitive advantage for a ratings publication. Wine stores display only the highest scores on shelf talkers, so that if Wine Advocate gives a wine a 98 and other publications give it scores in the 80s, the consumer is likely to see only Wine Advocate's name. Eventually, that leads to brand recognition for the ratings organization. "With ever higher scores in the Wine Advocate, 90 means nothing anymore. Now it has to be 95," says Tanzer, who says he has never given 100 points to a current release. Wineries also tend to highlight only their highest scores; who can blame them? The 2002 Tablas Creek Cotes de Tablas Paso Robles red Rhone-style blend got 90 points from Wine Advocate and 78 points from Wine Spectator. Naturally, the winery publicized only the Wine Advocate score. "High scores have more staying power than low scores," says Tablas Creek general manager Jason Haas. "The good scores get repeated multiple times down the supply chain." Despite multiple factors driving scores upward -- better winemaking and competition between ratings organizations -- at least they can't get any higher, right? Well, actually the Wine Advocate awarded "100-plus" points to the 2003 Domaine du Pegau Cuvee da Capo Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The 100-point limit on the 100-point scale may soon become as much a relic as the "perfect" 4.0 grade-point average. -- W. Blake Gray -- ------------------------------ * * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *