Wine Ratings Games

Umpires. Referees. Olympic judges. Wine critics. These are just a few people who make their living making subjective decisions in sports or in evaluating wine. There are many more, of course, but today, we're going to hone in on wine critics.
Whether you agree with them or not, the one thing you expect from all of these "decision makers" is consistency.
Consistency, unfortunately, has been very... well... inconsistent this year. Let's look at the two major wine evaluating publications:
Wine Spectator
Without question, Wine Spectator ratings are low across the board this year. What happened? Did all the editors get together and decide to lower the ratings for some reason? For what purpose? Or are the wines really that inferior this year? I suppose that's possible, but the vintage reports haven't been terrible.
Yesterday, Wine Spectator's James Laube issued a tasting report titled "11 Outstanding 2009 Napa Cabernets". You can imagine my excitement. This is what the wine public craves: Napa Cab.
So look at some of these wines, prices and ratings:
Behrens Spring Mountain Crowley Vineyard - $85 - 91 Points
Ghost Block Yountville Single Vineyard - $100 - 91 Points
Maybach Amoenus Vineyard - $125 - 91 Points
Nickel & Nickel Martin Stelling Vineyard - $155 - 90 Points
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Robert Parker transitioned his California beat to Antonio Galloni this year. They've been together a long time. You'd think we would see some consistency, right?
Not.
Take a look:
2009 Beau Vigne Reserve Cabernet
Galloni: 92 points
Parker, previous 3 vintages: 94-96 points
2009 Conn Valley Eloge
Galloni: 92 points
Parker Barrel tasting: 96-98 points
2010 Beringer Private Reserve Chardonnay
Galloni: 87 points
Parker, previous 3 vintages: 92-94 points
Wine Spectator 2010 vintage: 92 points

I could go on and on, but this blog is long enough. You get the idea.

Like umpires and judges decisions, we have to live with a wine critics ratings. We don't have to agree though. And we have an advantage with wine critics that we don't have with the others - our own palates.

Tom