I'm a C.S.W. That's a professional wine specialist - or Certified Specialist of Wine - it's my job and my passion. I'm a certified through the Society of Wine Educators, and on average I taste about 20 new wines a week which I consider purchasing for retail sale, and I do it because I enjoy wine (and I get health insurance).
Let me say that last part again: I enjoy wine. I enjoy the idea.
Right about this point in most blog posts out there in the inter-web world someone always makes reference to a scene in a certain movie about two guys trying to get laid in Santa Barbara, and in this scene two characters discuss why they're "into"wine. I have to tell you, anybody who makes reference to this movie scene does so because he or she has no actual opinion of his or her own. One simply saw a scene in a movie and said: yeah, me too. That's why I like it too.
The same thing goes for all the people out there who need a score to tell them if a wine tastes good to them. They have no opinion and are too lazy to formulate one, so they rely on reviews. For example: someone came to me this past Thanksgiving and asked me for a good wine with a high score for under twenty dollars. I suggested some great wines, but unfortunately they didn't have any scores attached to them (most of my "high score" wines are over $20). He reiterated that he needed the wine to have a high score, otherwise how would he know if it was any good? I told him: "I'm telling you these are all good, I think you'll like them." Then he questioned how he would know if I was making a good recommendation - if the wines were good they'd have a score - so I suggested opening the bottles so he could taste them for himself. After all, it doesn't matter if I like them, the important thing is that he likes them. Then came the moment of truth. He said: "I don't know what good wine tastes like, that's why I need a wine with a high score, so I know it's good."
Let me explain something about scores: I taste more wine than the average Joe, I read about it, I study it, it's what I do for a living, therefore my palate is a bit more advanced than most consumers. That being said, someone who assigned a score to a wine isn't tasting 20 wines a week, they're tasting more like than a 100 wines a day. So a person assigning a score to a wine has a far more advanced palate than the average consumer. In fact, most of the little flavor profiles that stick out to a professional reviewer aren't going to be visible to the palate of the average consumer.
PEOPLE: You're not drinking a score, you're drinking a bottle of wine - that's a bottle of fruit juice that has gone bad - nothing more, nothing less. That's all it is. It's your need for scores that's ruining wine, and let me tell you why: A high score means a higher price, more sales and more revenue for a winery or producer, and that's fine. The problem is that those scores come from a select few who have distinct tastes. Lets use the famous Mr. Robert Parker for example: everyone knows that he loves those big, jammy, slutty, extracted, concentrated, fleshy fruit bombs. So rather than making the wine that the winemaker wants, or the wine that's the most natural expression of the fruit, the juice gets crafted into what Mr. Parker likes so he'll give it a favorable score. If every winemaker in the world is doing that, then every wine starts to taste the same. Fuck terroir. Fuck those expensive winemaking degrees from UC Davis and University of Bordeaux. Fuck varietal expression. Fuck tradition. Fuck nature. One flavor of wine made in one style to be consumed by people who only drink the wine they bought at Whole Foods out of their Target wine glasses, in their Old Navy weekend clothes, while talking about news of the world they don't understand but are regurgitating from what they saw on TV. (Breath.)
Go to SCORE REVOLUTION and sign the register. Let grape growers grow grapes and let winemakers make wine. The key to finding a bottle that you enjoy has nothing to do with a score, it means going to a wine seller who is willing to get to know what you like without making you feel stupid for not knowing a muscat from a muscadet.
Wine is unnecessarily pretentious as it is. There's nothing more off-putting than talking about wine with someone who corrects your pronunciation, or says things like "pee-no new-wah" as if they're suddenly French, by way of New Jersey. Why make it worse by adding a score?
