It wasn\u2019t that long ago, in a place not so far away, that we expressed concern about what would happen to the wine world as the media continued to expand.\u00a0 This was pretty much back when James Suckling left the Wine Spectator to set up his own shop, and our fear at the time was that there might be a certain rise in ‘numbers’ as this new entity tried to garner a readership.\u00a0 After all, it is axiomatic that consumers do not concern themselves with wines that get a B+ (89 point scores), so one of the ways to get your name in front of a new audience was to become more quotable.\u00a0 How does one achieve that?\u00a0 One way is to issue \u2018enthusiastic\u2019 scores on certain wines that would surely be quoted by those of us trying to sell said wine.<\/p>\n
Selling by third party endorsement became a growing industry tool back in the late 1980s as certain wine media sources, mainly the Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator, made inroads into consumer wine awareness by virtue of their easy to digest 100 point scales.\u00a0 Yes there were words, too.\u00a0 But there was good familiarity with the general populace when it comes to number grading because most experienced it in school, and the quick evaluation a consumer could make just by looking up a number embedded the system into the collective wine psyche.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t help that most merchants were lazy and quick to adapt to someone else providing sales avenues via published reviews.\u00a0 Using third-party press relieved them of the responsibility of actually doing their own work and removed their liability in actually giving their customers their own opinions.\u00a0 This indemnification made the retail trade the writers\u2019 biggest fans and the constant attention that the majority of retailers gave to third party reviews gave the media tremendous power.<\/p>\n
Remembering back however, what was different then was that the scores themselves seemed to have honest intention on the part of the media to give the consumer the appropriate perspective.\u00a0 Back in the day, a 93 point score was a pretty enthusiastic endorsement, a 95 was a ‘must have’, and \u201888\u2019 and \u201889\u2019 were still viewed as positive prose for wines that were value priced.\u00a0 There were shock-waves in the industry when Robert Parker issues his first \u2018100-point\u2019 score for a domestic wine, the 1985 Groth Cabernet Reserve.\u00a0 Such scores were quite rare and special then.<\/p>\n
Fast forward a couple of decades, and the value of individual scores gradually depreciated.\u00a0 Sadly after the turn of the century, no matter how glowing the prose, a 90 point score barely elicited a response from buyers and \u201892\u2019 became the new \u201890\u2019 for value wines.\u00a0 \u00a0Giving a wine \u201889\u2019 these days is like putting it in a witness protection program\u2026no one will find the it because they won\u2019t look.\u00a0 All kidding aside, this is what we have observed behaviorally for a while now.\u00a0 But the worst, it seems, is not over.<\/p>\n
Part of it has been predictable given the way the James Suckling site established itself.\u00a0 Purveyors and retailers aren’t out there quoting the guys who give ’89’ to sell wine.\u00a0 \u00a0It also seems, as we sit across the table from a steady stream of suppliers presenting us with wine and information, the ‘number’ itself is more important than the source who issued it and often becomes disassociated with the actual source of the review.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, however, there are a lot more \u2018players\u2019 competing for consumer attention.\u00a0 Antonio Galloni once worked for Wine Advocate, then left to set up shop on his own, subsequently purchasing Stephan Tanzer\u2019s International Wine Cellar and incorporating that writing team into the fold.\u00a0 Most recently he hired away the Advocate Bordeaux specialist Neal Martin.<\/p>\n
Jeb Dunnuck was brought on to Wine Advocate to focus on Rhones and then got other responsibilities on the domestic front.\u00a0 Jeb, too, recently left to set up his own service (or more correctly re-setup as he had his own service before), knowing full well that the new enterprise would benefit from his exposure with Wine Advocate.\u00a0 He just recently kicked off this program.\u00a0 Given the \u2018defections\u2019 and the fact that Robert Parker himself has greatly scaled back on his post-sale involvement, Advocate editor Lisa Perotti-Brown, MW expanded her role in the Wine Advocate review writing.<\/p>\n
So where are we now?\u00a0 Well it is fair to say that previously there were two main review services being widely followed, 2.5 if you count the respected but not always \u2018quotable\u2019 Tanzer publication.\u00a0 Now there are five that directly resulted from the initial two and a number of others that are at varied stages of ‘market penetration’ but arguably have lesser clout.\u00a0 There are likely some \u2018startups\u2019 we haven\u2019t even run across yet that are U.S. based.\u00a0\u00a0 All of them have plans to become, or in some cases retain a powerful voice with wine consumers.\u00a0 Sadly, it appears that another dangerous score escalation may be in the offing.\u00a0 It has been coming for a while and it appears to be heating up.<\/p>\n
A few years back, after the sale of the Advocate, Robert Parker did a \u2018second look piece\u2019 on 2002s from Napa Valley.\u00a0 Now here was one of the most powerful critics of any kind, someone who had been generally judicious in handing out triple digit reviews (with the possible exception of elite Bordeaux and Guigal and Chapoutier specialty items).\u00a0 But in this particular issue in June, 2012, in one section, \u2018The Bob\u2019 handed out nineteen 100 point scores<\/em><\/strong>!\u00a0 Now granted, one could argue that this was the beginning of Parker\u2019s \u2018farewell tour\u2019 after a storied career and he was making friends.\u00a0 One could also point to the lineup (Abreu, Harlan, Sloan, Schrader) as the Cabernet version of the \u201927 Yankees so what\u2019s a few ‘100s’ among friends.\u00a0 That was unprecedented at the time and we saw it as a departure from the conscientiousness of Advocate\u2019s prior history.<\/p>\n But it is what has been happening recently, with reviewers operating in new positions or trying to establish new services, really has us concerned.\u00a0 Lisa Perotti-Brown\u2019s first significant foray into the Napa Valley generated fifteen 100-point final scores and 32 that were either 99 or a range score that touched perfection (98-100)<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Perhaps a little surprising to some is that there were three Chardonnays that were awarded triple digits.\u00a0 Pretty rarified stuff.<\/p>\n Not to be outdone, there was plenty of firepower to Jeb Dunnuck\u2019s opening report of the Napa Valley.\u00a0 Now one of Robert Parker\u2019s strengths was his enthusiasm which he could convey through the written word.\u00a0 Jeb showed plenty of excitement in his inaugural work, handing out no less than 31 \u2018100s\u2019 and a good slug of \u201899s\u2019 (21 actually)<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Thirty one \u2018perfect\u2019 wines?\u00a0 In a single category? Really? Someone used the term \u2018jumping the shark\u2019 for this opening salvo\/love fest.\u00a0 More important, if the perfect score becomes commonplace, it also will seem less special and have less impact, not to mention how it undermines all of those poor souls that only got \u201896\u2019 which, back in the day, was a very good review.<\/p>\n We could make a few, albeit less sensational examples to illustrate what we are talking about with respect to the current round of \u2018score wars\u2019, but it\u2019s the overall impact that is the problem.\u00a0 With more publications slinging around more ‘100s’ and other lofty marks, perspective goes out the window.\u00a0 The consumer will start getting confused or numbed (a number of the trade already have), and sensationalism will rule the day.\u00a0 With so many more items pushed up against that finite ceiling (since you can\u2019t have more <\/em>than 100 points) separation becomes much less clear and it all starts to lose meaning.<\/p>\n In the end, if this proliferation of over-the-moon scoring continues, where does it end?\u00a0 People thinking the only way to get a decent bottle of wine is to pay $300-500 on somebody\u2019s mailing list? Does \u201895\u2019 become the new \u201889\u2019?\u00a0Is there really that much perfection in the world or are all these writers trying to win friends and influence the marketplace for their own agenda?\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to say but it is clear we are entering dangerous territory.<\/p>\n These publications are supposedly designed to help consumers sort through the myriad of wine choices out there.\u00a0 Passing out big scores like Halloween candy might get the writer \u2018in big\u2019 with the wine elite.\u00a0 It might help Andy Beckstoffer charge even more for his grapes. But we fail to see how it helps the consumer very much, and they<\/em>, my dear writers, are the ones that pay your bills.\u00a0 If your audience stops listening, it\u2019s nearly impossible to get them back.\u00a0 Cuidado<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It wasn\u2019t that long ago, in a place not so far away, that we expressed concern about what would happen to the wine world as the media continued to expand.\u00a0 This was pretty much back when James Suckling left the Wine Spectator to set up his own shop, and our fear at the time was … Continue reading “SCORE WARS”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2379"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2389,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379\/revisions\/2389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}