Understanding Wine Ratings

Lately, my thoughts have drifted towards wine ratings and how exceedingly arbitrary they are. With that being said, they do serve one function, by assigning a number to a wine, there is a delineation created between levels of quality. To the average consumer, this helps to indicate what is good, great, or crap. In my opinion, that is where the benefits end.

Since I originally wrote this piece, Dr. Vino (aka Tyler Coleman) referenced a column written by Jonah Lehrer (a contributor for Wired magazine). The topic of this column referred to a tasting of 2007 Bordeaux wines by the renowned Robert Parker. For those who are not aware of who Robert Parker is, let me explain. Simply put, he is the most influential wine critic in the world.

Lehrer quoted Dr. Vino in his piece, stating:

A final issue is about points and the nature of blind tasting, a capricious undertaking is there ever was one. Although Parker did not rate the wines yesterday, his top wine of the evening (Le Gay) was the lowest rated in the line-up from his most recent published reviews... For all the precision that a point score implies, it is not dynamic, changing with the wines as they change in the bottle, nor does it capture performance from one tasting to the next.

This posed a serious issue that I addressed when i first started writing A Wine Odyssey. In that piece, I said it is exceptionally important to know yourself and what you like. It also addressed some of the issues that presented themselves when assessing a rating.

The following is from an earlier post entitled What exactly do wine ratings mean? From back in July:

First off, there is the analysis of the wine. When the taster is assigning a rating, it is based off the quality of the appearance, aromas, taste, balance and complexity, among a few other considerations.

Second, each of these ratings and descriptions are based off of the tastings of typically one person who happens to be covering the wine region that the bottle you are considering falls under. These tasters work for any of a number of wine publications (i.e. - Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate, etc.). These wine experts who report are by no means amateurs. In fact, they have some of the most discerning palates in the world. They can tell the difference between mediocre and good, as well as outstanding and truly great. However, in the end, everyone is going to have their own unique experience with wine.

Third, it is widely assumed that there is a certain amount of politics involved. I am not saying that tasters are going to overlook obvious flaws, but there are sometimes some suspect ratings issued. Just remember, the wine community is a tight group that you do not want to find yourself on the outside of, especially if you are a publication that relies on their access.

Finally, if the tasting is not done blindly,which means without seeing the bottles and labels from which the wine is poured, this may have a significant impact. If a professional taster views the label prior to tasting, they will know the winery, the vineyard it came from, the reputation, and the price range. These bits of information may lead to bias either for or against a certain producer/vineyard.

These points are illustrated very clearly in the above example of Robert Parker's blind tasting of the 2007 Bordeaux vs. his published ratings which were not done blindly.

So, what should you take away from all this nonsense? I feel the most important thing you can do is be yourself. It is important to have wine ratings to help navigate through the vast world of wines. I would not, however, take these ratings as word of God. Know your palate, know what you like and build off of that. If you are trying to decide is a certain bottle is going to be as good as advertised, I would recommend you use Cork'd or Cellar Tracker. Both of which offer a collection of ratings and tasting notes from people who have actually tried these wines. The scores are then pooled to give, in my opinion, a far more accurate rating.

100 Point Scale & Meanings:
100-95: A classic, truly great wine
94-90: An outstanding wine that is superior in character and style
89-85: A very good wine with a few special qualities
84-80: A good wine
79-75: A very mediocre, but drinkable wine that may possess a few flaws
74-50: A wine that is not recommended for consumption

Understanding Wine Ratings

Broadbent: victim of a tarnished industry?

Editor’s Note: For those of you who follow wine and wine industry news, this may be old news; however for those of you who are growing in interest for this fascinating field, this is interesting stuff and something that has electrified wine publications, message boards and blogs everywhere.

The figure of Michael Broadbent has long represented the studious, thorough and expert voice of one of wine’s most prestigious auction houses, Christie’s. He has accumulated achievement awards so numerous that it would become laborious to list them all and he still represents a figure in the wine world worth respecting. With all this said, his reputation and unwillingness to face the true problem has tarnished this great giant of wine.

The main issue has been around since fine wine began to garner any sort of premium. There will always be certain elements looking to make a quick buck, or in this case fortune, off counterfeiting wine. The riveting book The Billionaires Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace primarily focuses on the story of Hardy Rodenstock (real name Meinhard Görke), a man with a knack for procuring suspicious yet exceptionally rare bottles, including the renowned Jefferson Bottles. These bottles were then sold at auction to numerous bidders, including Bill Koch, whose suits and story were the driving factor in this text.

One of the victims in all of this is in fact Michael Broadbent. I am not passing judgment as to whether he had a knowing role in moving these mysterious/fake wines. Personally, I do not see why he would; everything I have ever read about him leads me to believe he is an honest and passionate connoisseur of wine. With that being said, he was in charge of Christie’s fine wine department and in some ways failed to do his job in protecting the bidders.

This is where my true problem with the legend Broadbent exists. Ever since the book has been released, he has been fighting to clear his name of any sort of guilt. The fact that he cannot dispute however, is that he was in charge of Christie’s wine house and was a close friend (or at the least a close aquaintance) to the mysterious Rodenstock. Why he doesn’t simply admit that he got caught up in the excitement and it may have skewed his judgment is beyond me. The same should be said of Acker, Merrall & Condit in the case (click here for the PDF, I would suggest reading this it is juicy!) regarding Rudy Kurianwan. This lack of acceptance truly bothers me and the way he and his son are going about badgering anyone who has an opinion on the issue is infantile.

The text following is accredited to the popular wine blog DrVino (aka Tyler Colman)

In July, Michael Broadbent brought legal action against Random House, the publisher of The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery Of The World’s Most Expensive Bottle Of Wine. News of the settlement broke on Decanter.com, which called it a “victory” for Broadbent.

Author Benjamin Wallace has just sent this public statement to DrVino.com:

This statement is authorized for publication in the U.S. only:

It is unfortunate that Michael Broadbent has chosen to blame the messenger, and doubly so that he is blaming the messenger for something the messenger is not actually saying. I have never felt that Mr. Broadbent acted in bad faith, and contrary to his claims, I maintain that The Billionaire’s Vinegar does not suggest that he did. In any case, while I believe that my book speaks for itself, I do want to point out a few things: I was never personally sued by Mr. Broadbent, and I am not a party to the settlement or apology negotiated by him with Random House. Because of the U.K.’s notoriously plaintiff-friendly libel laws and conditional fee system, the company made a business decision to settle with Mr. Broadbent in order to contain its legal costs and exposure in the U.K. Since the claim was always confined to the book’s availability in the U.K., the settlement does not prevent the book from being published anywhere else or require that a single word be changed. So, while Random House has agreed not to distribute the book in the U.K., the book remains available in the United States, where the libel laws provide greater protection for freedom of speech and where British libel judgments are almost never enforceable, thanks to the First Amendment.

Mr. Broadbent should not be blaming Ben Wallace, but rather his inability to realize that the gentleman, who no one knew anything about or how he got the rare bottles, had taken advantage of him and countless others.

Broadbent’s job was to make sure that the wines provenance was accounted for and had cleared his criteria to be auctioned. Provenance in THE most important aspect of aged wine and unless a potential seller is willing to offer detailed information regarding the origins of a wine (prior storage, how obtained, verification, etc.), transactions with that person should cease immediately and information regarding said person should be circulated to other auction houses. We are not talking about $60 bottles but rather thousands and tens of thousands of dollars worth of wine!

The real problem that this book brings to light is that the wine houses need to learn how to say "NO" more often. A very reliable and widely respected source told me that he has to say no to numerous bottles of suspicious wine being offered which origins sound suspect. Until there is a form of extreme due diligence and caution that is executed by every auctioneer and auction house, there will continue to be more and more counterfeit artists making money off of those who truly love wine. Unfortunately, in this case, Michael Broadbent has been painted the goat. Be it fair or not, only he knows, but the fact remains that auction houses of the world must look past the potential big fees to be made and say no to these questionable wines.

Broadbent: victim of a tarnished industry?