Perfect Score Wine Tastes Terrible- Here's Why

This week I've been in the Bay Area judging a wine competition, and on Tuesday, somewhere between the 45th and 50th pour, I began to think about the role that scores play and how critic evaluations can be a strange thing. Scores are incredibly important for producers and they drive the purchasing decision for many consumers, but perhaps the elephant in the room is what scores do not tell you. I think it could be useful to unpack these issues in greater detail. That's what I'll do in this video. It's important for judges and evaluators to be able to separate their personal opinions from the objective criteria used to evaluate wines. For example, on this channel I've made no secret about the fact that my personal preferences don't typically include rosé. So of course, yesterday I was assigned to review 10 rosés that sell for less than $30 per bottle. But by the same token, there was a wine that I really, really enjoyed and wanted to give high marks because it reminded me of a high quality Syrah. There were descriptors that included meat, game, black olives, and more, and it was a real savory, enjoyable wine that I would probably enjoy more than any of the other wines that I reviewed yesterday. Nevertheless, this wine was competing in the Primitivo category. So for that reason, I had to mark it down somewhat because it did not have the tipicity expected for a Primitivo. When a professional evaluates a wine, they're using objective criteria. Things like balance, complexity, length of the finish, and tipicity. Whether the variety or varieties in the glass from the particular place in which those grapes were grown are performing like they should. To be sure, a reviewer is far more likely to enjoy a high quality wine that would receive a high score, but the reviewer's personal enjoyment or stylistic preferences are not criteria to be used in the evaluation. That's why, for example, even though I greatly enjoyed the Primitivo that tasted like a Syrah, I had to mark it down because it lacked the tipicity you would expect for that wine. It's that detachment and objectivity from the reviewer that makes scores meaningful. Of course, your personal enjoyment and stylistic preferences likewise play absolutely no part in the critic's evaluation. You have to provide that information yourself through your own self-knowledge. When it comes to scores from critics, my personal belief is that it's best to use them as a as the starting point for further consideration, particularly when you've never tried a wine before. But that doesn't mean that you're guaranteed to enjoy the wine. This is especially true since numeric ratings can vary in weight and significance. Some critics are easier graders than others, and so a 96-point score from one critic may not carry the same weight as a 93-point score from another. The best piece of advice I can give you when it comes to scores from critics is to try to figure out one critic whose palate aligns most closely with your own, and then rely primarily on that critic rather than the scores from critics generally. Typically in promotional materials, it's not uncommon for retailers or distributors to include just the highest score from all available critics. But on this channel, I always make sure that I try to include as many scores as possible, because that way, if you're able to determine, for example, that your palate really aligns with the decanter reviews, then you can look for that particular score in the notes in my video. When it comes to scores, something that many people don't admit is that some of their personal favorite wines may be wines that do not receive tremendous critical acclaim or even high scores at all. I know personally, there's many wines that I enjoy because they're soulful wines, wines that will elevate a particular food pairing, or wines that bring back special memories of experiences that I've had in the past. While Livermore Valley is best known for wines from its signature grapes, Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, the panel I was on found a Nebbiolo that absolutely stopped us in our tracks. We even asked if there were wines from foreign countries included in the lineup because this wine reminded us so much of a Nebbiolo from Piemonte. We were so enamored with this wine that we insisted that they bring it to dinner so we could enjoy it properly that evening. While this wine did well with our particular panel, it did not win best red wine, and it didn't even make the top three of the red wines included in the lineup. So sometimes you may find that there's a wine that you enjoy tremendously personally, even though it's not the highest rated wine. A high score might tell you if a wine was well made objectively, whether it's typical of the grape variety included in the wine, and certain other objective criteria. But it won't tell you about your personal preferences or your personal enjoyment. So to make the most out of wine recommendations and scores, it's important for you to have some self-knowledge as well. For you to be able to articulate clearly the type of wine styles that you like and why. Do you like wines with high acidity? Do you like sweet wines? Do you like wines that have substantial new oak influence? And so forth. Once you're armed with that information, I would encourage you to read not just the score for a wine, but the description about how the wine was made and what the wine tastes like. Once you're able to clearly articulate the type of wines that you enjoy, you can use that information to get far more effective recommendations when you're ordering at restaurants or your local wine shop. There's not a week that goes by where I don't hear either a viewer or someone else that I come into contact with tell me that a particular wine is no good or it's just a flat-out bad wine. When I press them for the reasons underlying that conclusion, they'll typically say something like it's a fruit bomb, it's too oaky, or something else that has to do with their personal stylistic preference rather than how well the wine was made or the objective quality of that wine. So what they're saying really isn't a critical review, it's simply a personal preference. The wine could be technically very well made and justify its high score, but that doesn't mean that everyone will like it. Owning your personal preferences and communicating the reasons why you didn't like a particular wine is far more valuable to others than simply concluding that a wine is no good and dismissing it as a bad wine. The other great thing about knowing your personal preferences is that it oftentimes allows you to find wines that fly under the radar and have much lower price points than more highly regarded wines. I would definitely encourage everyone to own their preferences, learn the styles of wine that you enjoy, and when you're giving opinions about wine, tell people the reasons why you didn't like it and be more specific. Don't just say that the wine was no good or that it was bad, say that my personal preference is for wines that have an emphasis on the purity of fruit and this particular wine had too much New Oak influence for me. It could very well be that the person you're talking to loves wine with lots of New Oak influence and enjoys crowd-pleasing wines. The most valuable skill that you can develop as a wine drinker is self-knowledge. Once you can articulate what you enjoy and why, everything becomes much easier after that. If you'd like to learn more about how wine competitions work or my experience judging last year's competition, be sure to check out this video that's linked above.