PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT

[Craig Camp]

The Wine Spectator has just announced it has upgraded its rating for the 2000 vintage in Piemonte to 100. That's right - 100 points of perfection.

Is this an example of perfect weather conditions or perfect magazine marketing methods?

Can Mother Nature really be perfect? Does not a 100 point vintage mean that any wine you buy should be exceptional?

[Bill Klapp]

Chronic and serious BS! 1999 was a fine Barolo vintage-FOR SOME. 2000 figures to be a fine Barbaresco vintage-FOR SOME. 2001 has the locals pretty excited, and I heard a lot of "best since 1996, maybe better" talk from the classicists, so maybe 2001 should have been considered for the 100-point nod. By the way, the Piemontese wine community has had time to study the new Wine Advocate, and to a person, they are dismissive of Daniel Thomases (as is this writer). He should stick to light white wines from Northeast Italy! Between Thomases and Rovani, a case could be made that Parker is hell-bent upon destroying his own franchise.

[Phil Ward]

Between Thomases and Rovani, a case could be made that Parker is hell-bent upon destroying his own franchise.

Having discontinued my subscription two years ago due to "I've had enough", it does not surprise me that RP has farmed these regions out as he certainly has way toooo much to do.

[Florida Jim]

Rating an entire region and/or an entire vintage with a single number is blatant selling and has nothing to do with education.

Best, Jim

Edited November 2, 2003 by Florida Jim (log)

[Andre]

I have a sign up in my place: "Life is too short to drink supermarket wine" and that is exactly where we are heading.

The master mind behind eGullet did the mart thing of simplifying the world under different sections rather than having verything under one Flag.

To say the truth, Wine Spectator is simply boaring to me. They became like one of those fitness magazines: "How to shape up in just 3 minutes a day !" I am sorry, there is more to the world of wine than the Wine Spectator rating system.

[Mark Sommelier]

The Wine Spectator has just announced it has upgraded its rating for the 2000 vintage in Piemonte to 100. That's right - 100 points of perfection.

Is this an example of perfect weather conditions or perfect magazine marketing methods?

Can Mother Nature really be perfect? Does not a 100 point vintage mean that any wine you buy should be exceptional?

Hmmmm........ I wonder how much advertising Banfi, Pio Cesare, Prunotto, Cerreto, Gaja and Michele Chiarlo bought in that issue.

[Coop]

The Italians have certainly learned from the Bordelais. How many vintages of the century can you truly have? For Bordeaux it seems to be 61, then 78, 82, 85, 88, 89, 2000 maybe. As long as they follow each other they can all be. What does this do for the sale of earlier great vintages like 97?

[Gracchus]

Well, as I was telling my customers last year- you'd better buy all the '97 Brunellos you can, 'cause WS says it's the best EVER, so it's all downhill from here!

Andre pegged it- WS is like Men's Health or Cosmo for wines...every month it's rock-hard abs, better sex, and blockbuster wine.

And RP is over the top. Anyone read the new issue? The reviews of Alois Kraacher's dessert "wines" are a hoot! "More like a gelatinous fluid than wine...butterscotch squares whipped into condensed milk...a diabetic's nightmare...400g residual sugar/ liter" (I'm quoting from memory-you must read it!)

[Florida Jim]

Well, as I was telling my customers last year- you'd better buy all the '97 Brunellos you can, 'cause WS says it's the best EVER, so it's all downhill from here!

Andre pegged it- WS is like Men's Health or Cosmo for wines...every month it's rock-hard abs, better sex, and  blockbuster wine.

And RP is over the top. Anyone read the new issue? The reviews of Alois Kraacher's dessert "wines" are a hoot! "More like a gelatinous fluid than wine...butterscotch squares whipped into condensed milk...a diabetic's nightmare...400g residual sugar/ liter" (I'm quoting from memory-you must read it!)

"Well, as I was telling my customers last year- you'd better buy all the '97 Brunellos you can, 'cause WS says it's the best EVER, so it's all downhill from here!"

Oof, I think I'll shop elsewhere.

"And RP is over the top. Anyone read the new issue? The reviews of Alois Kraacher's dessert "wines" are a hoot! "More like a gelatinous fluid than wine...butterscotch squares whipped into condensed milk...a diabetic's nightmare...400g residual sugar/ liter" (I'm quoting from memory-you must read it!)"

For a man who was trained in the precision of language, he certainly has left his lessons behind.

Best, Jim

[jjread]

The general notion of Piemonte wines in the 2000 vintage being something to celebrate (let alone Perfect) is not just crap, it is a straight out lie. When speaking candidly and off the record, the winemakers of Piemonte refer the 1997 as the "American Vintage" and the 2000 is quite similar to it. That is to say that they are rich, opulent, obvious and much more familiar to a Californian wine drinker than one used to the flavor of Piemonte. Also adding to these wine's lack of typicality is the fact that most of these wines will age quite poorly (much like their Tuscan counterparts in these vintages). The vintages that are truly great, classic, and worthy of praise and aging for Piemonte are 1996, 1999, and (from the looks of it) 2001. While there were some great, classic, and age worthy wines made in these vintages they exist as a result of the winemaker (or a unique micro-climate) and not the vintage. It is wrong to give too much value to a vintage as it is great wine makers, and not vintages, that make great wine. To be sure, Wine Spectator should be ashamed. My only solace is (while double edged as I feel pity for the consumers) that when WS readers open their bottles of 1997 and 2000 Barolos and Barbarescos in ten years with pride and ceremony most of them will taste like hell. Maybe then many of these consumers will learn to think for themselves and see WS for what it is. It is a useful look at popular trends in the wine world but it is often misguiding, unscrupulous, and generally prostitutional with its recommendations.

Edited November 4, 2003 by jjread (log)

[ctgm]

No wine should ever get 100 out of 100.

Giving an anology, you can get 100 out of 100 in science but not in art. As wine is art how can it be perfect?

[futronic]

As was discussed on the WS forum, vintage rating charts state the *potential* for wine produced in a given vintage. It is *not* the average score of wines in a particular vintage. Therefore, a 100-point vintage means that every producer has all the ingredients to make outstanding wine if they have good plots, performed an appropriate level of green harvest, picked at the right time in October, etc, etc.

[Andre]

As was discussed on the WS forum, vintage rating charts state the *potential* for wine produced in a given vintage.  It is *not* the average score of wines in a particular vintage.  Therefore, a 100-point vintage means that every producer has all the ingredients to make outstanding wine if they have good plots, performed an appropriate level of green harvest, picked at the right time in October, etc, etc.

This may only be true when regarding wine making as pure technology rather than an art.

For sure WS would conviniently term it as something technical you can rate.

A traditionalist may find the grapes more or less to his liking rather than follow the WS lead and express himself as expected.

[Rieslingfan]

As was discussed on the WS forum, vintage rating charts state the *potential* for wine produced in a given vintage.  It is *not* the average score of wines in a particular vintage.  Therefore, a 100-point vintage means that every producer has all the ingredients to make outstanding wine if they have good plots, performed an appropriate level of green harvest, picked at the right time in October, etc, etc.

That makes no sense. Based on the stated logic WS could give 100 pts to a region with no good producers because it was possible to make great wine. Argh!

[futronic]

Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just saying that this has been discussed ad nauseam on the WS forums, with representatives from Wine Spectator making comments on several occasions to the effect of what I posted above.

With reference to your second point, in theory it would be possible to give a 100 point rating to a region with no good producers when taking into account terroir, history, quality of vines, etc. That said, how many perfect regions would not have a single producer of quality?

[Rieslingfan]

With reference to your second point, in theory it would be possible to give a 100 point rating to a region with no good producers when taking into account terroir, history, quality of vines, etc.  That said, how many perfect regions would not have a single producer of quality?

Sorry, didn;'t mean to sound like I was shooting the messenger.

As for the lack of quality producers, I would think a fine region would have to have a large number of fine producers. Otherwise there just would not be enough good wine available to even evaluate the quality of the region's potential.

It's just another nail in the coffin of vintage charts and ratings.

[badthings]

get ready for more of the same:

"In most regions over the past decade, every year has been great for wines," Jones told this week's annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Seattle, Washington. "Undoubtedly, climate played a significant role in this trend."

Jones studied 30 types of wine from 27 different regions, including parts of France, Italy, Portugal, Germany, California, Chile and South Africa. He found close links between vintage ratings - a zero to 100 scale - for each wine and climate records from the past 50 years.

The temperature rose by an average of 2 ºC during this time, and wines experienced an average rating increase of 13.3 for each degree. This is enough to bump a 'good' wine into the élite category of bottles ranked higher than 90.

To look to the future, Jones used a global climate model developed at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Bracknell, UK. It forecasts a gain of a further 2 ºC for most wine-growing regions over the next 50 years.