Burghound's cowardly 88-91 ratings....

[JimHow]

I mean, come on, Burghound. Jesus, you are the Susan Collins of wine ratings.
88 to 91, 89 to 92, etc., etc., tells me NOTHING about whether I should invest in an already overpriced new released Burgundy.
You been dong this long enough, big guy. You'll survive if you are "wrong" in your early scoring. Live a little. Go for it. Is it a 90, or is it an 88?
There's a big difference there, big man. Stop hedging your bets. Stop being a coward.

[DavidG]

If it isn’t at least 95 points, it’s not worth it.
See how much money he’s saving you?

[JimHow]

well, you know, I would indeed like to buy 2-3 mixed cases of some nice Burgundy to round out my cellar.
But when I read that a wine is 89-91 points, it's like, dude, why are you wasting my time?
I'll go buy some 2016 Chateauneuf du Pape at a fraction of the price and with some critical certitude that the wines are going to be in that "excellent" range of 90+.... Not 88-91, 89-92, blah, blah....

[Winona Chief]

I think you should just read James Suckling's reviews - everything gets at least 93 points if it's drinkable.

Chris Bublitz

[OrlandoRobert]

I thought Suckles is now just 98-100.

It’s a genius, happy scale.

Life is good.

[felixp21]

I tend to take a lot of notice of Suckling's scores.

I find that I seem to really like just about every wine at the bottom of his scale. If it gets 97 points, I'm in. However, his medium-rated wines, those around 98-99, and his higher-rated wines, those around 100 and 100+, I usually dislike.

[jal]

I no longer find value in that newsletter or the Burghound. So ignore these ratings. As far as I'm concerned, Burgundy has been so consistent lately that every vintage is good to great. And every estate is consistent from year to year. So I buy the estates I like and the names I Iike and I'm rarely disappointed.
The other issue is that unlike Bordeaux, these wines are not made by the 10,000 case multiple but by the 1,000 case so I always have to buy what is available.
If you see something in the store or online, just look at the producer and the appellation and go from there.

[DavidG]

I tend to take a lot of notice of Suckling's scores.

I find that I seem to really like just about every wine at the bottom of his scale. If it gets 97 points, I'm in. However, his medium-rated wines, those around 98-99, and his higher-rated wines, those around 100 and 100+, I usually dislike.

Lol! Well done.

I've never been bitten by the (red) Burg bug. Whites were another story, but premox killed my interest there. So I have none in the cellar. For the past few decades, when it comes to drinking good Burgundy, whatever they are... I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. Or BWEs.

[OrlandoRobert]

Me too, David.

I think that surprises people that Burgs do not ring my bell. Perhaps it is odd given my profile. I’ve had some good ones, even some great ones, but none that have just hit that pleasure spot like a great Bordeaux or Northern Rhone. Plus, I’m not chasing unicorns at that price, and the value proposition is low, IMHO.

[Nicklasss]

My last Bourgogne opened, the 2012 Taupenot-Merme Gevrey, made me realize (again) that Bourgogne can be so light and nothing, even at 80$cad...

Want it or not, sometimes life is kinda of a whack... and sometimes unusually great... a bit like Bourgogne.

Nic

P.s. Jim, Burghound is right. The same wine, from the same aoc and same producer, will be sometimes a 88, and depending on bottle can be a 92. So a rating of 88-92 seems very fair and true. But you know that if you buy that bottle, you can get a 88 points bottle only or a 92. "Welcome to the jungle"... of Bourgogne.

[NoahR]

I drink a good bit of Burgundy. I don’t doubt Allan Meadows’ taste, and think his ratings are more conservative and hold a lot of water. But there are -rarely- surprises. Galloni and his crew will go out on a limb for a wine they like or don’t like. Galloni made no friends when he trashed the 08 Giacosas for example. But Burghound ratings almost always hew to the hierarchy. You’ll almost never see a GC rated below a PC (except maybe Malconsorts or Amoureuses) and I find it impossible to get any sense of style from his descriptors which are consistent but kinda boring. I subscribed for two years and then let it lapse.

If you want recs for ageworthy but less expensive Burgs, just let us know what you like. Lots of good stuff out there, but I doubt Critics will help you find it

[marcs]

I think you should just read James Suckling's reviews - everything gets at least 93 points if it's drinkable.

Chris Bublitz

If you want to get the most points for your money, Suckling is definitely the way to go. Burghound cheats consumers by stealing away points so you get fewer points for each dollar you spend. I try to arrange my wine buying so I get the most points available on my limited budget and I can drink as many points as possible. Points are delicious!

[DavidG]

Me too, David.

I think that surprises people that Burgs do not ring my bell. Perhaps it is odd given my profile. I’ve had some good ones, even some great ones, but none that have just hit that pleasure spot like a great Bordeaux or Northern Rhone. Plus, I’m not chasing unicorns at that price, and the value proposition is low, IMHO.

I’ve had a couple of peak wine experiences with old Burgs, but they’re so rare and expensive. The typical achievable Burg experience for me doesn’t come close to what I can reliably get from Bdx and N. Rhone.

[Jay Winton]

Check the selection from Envoyer and Grapes the wine store in White Plains. In both cases you need to sign up for emails and know that many (not all) are prearrivals. Envoyer frequently gets older vintages and I've had no issues with provenance from with retailer.

[Blanquito]

Critics are such disappointments, but I we are all operating under a false premise and have been for years— the wine critics don’t work for us, the consumers, and they haven’t since around the release of the 2000 Bordeaux vintage in 2003.*

The critics work for the wineries and the retailers (and themselves of courses). How much do the wineries and the retailers pay for critic copy? Let’s not pretend retailers don’t comprise the bulk of a critic’s income at this point. Critics are promoters and their job is to hype the latest wines and keep us coming back for more when (a) we’ve all already got way too much wine, and (b) there’s an ocean of back vintages that are just as good or better, and often much cheaper and much closer to maturity.

Parker used to defy this arrangement, but his main fail in my book was getting on (creating?) this bandwagon in a big way.

* I doubt there is much outright corruption and some critics have their integrity intact, but the fundamental economics of the job at this point are in direct conflict with representing the consumer’s interest. A true ‘consumer advocate’ would never focus on new releases or at least downplay that, and do tastings of mature wines still in the market. Or would retire as they realize all they do is create hype and drive up prices, all the more so if they are any good at their jobs! They’d get rid of scores and adopt a new system which isn’t prone to hyping. They would never befriend wine makers and accept their ample generousity. And most of all, they wouldn’t allow retailers to post their scores nor would they accept any coin from the sellers.

[Blanquito]

When I started this wine hobby in earnest, there were no shelf talkers. Even savvy retailers had little to no idea what Parker was saying about most of the wines they were selling. And it was a pain to get Parker scores— you had to subscribe or buy one of his books. These were all good things. The wines were on the shelves, you could try them yourself, there was no hype driving up prices. Parker would even complaint or threaten litigation when retailers would send out email blasts with all of this notes.

But a few years later, things began to change. Those little pre-formatted shelftalkers started appearing next to wines in shops (it was all so analog), touting 91 pts from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate! These were pre-formatted by the WA itself, making it easy for retailer to print these out, but I never got any of these wine my subscription— they were just for retailers who paid a different and hidden subscription price. At first this was mostly a convenience for shoppers, but eventually retailers started raising prices based on these, especially for wines that got big scores or for which there was a buzz. And back then, nearly all of the buzz came from Parker. Wine boards were in their infancy, cellar tracker wasn’t even yet a fantasy in EL’s subconscious, the internet was just getting going in the mainstream, etc. Parker had nearly all of it to himself.

Remember when we would all wait with baited breath for Parker’s in-bottle Bordeaux scores of the latest release? The first time I really cared was in 2003 when the 2000 bottles scores were due out, and somehow, mysteriously it seemed, many big retailers with a big internet presence would get the scores a day or two before any consumers. The big scores would get a price hike, sometimes by a lot. Parker was already catching flack for this on eBob. His base wanted to know why he didn’t just release the scores all at the same time for everyone on his online site? But he made all these lame, seemingly disingenuous excuses for why not, that he needed to mail out the printed scores first to protect his print subscribers, this despite the fact that all of these folks got free access to the online site as well and that the system was broken because the retailers were profiting, not his precious wine consumers. But I bet this was a feature, not a flaw, in the system.

But this is ancient history. We are in a post-critic wine world it seems to me. Sure, newbies without experience might use these folks heavily still and we all may have our interest piqued by a 97pt!! email, even if only subconsciously. But CellarTracker and wine boards and critic fatigue and score inflation and Parker’s semi-retirement all helped bring that era to an end. Does anyone really care if Jeb gives a wine 98 pts? Or Suckling? Even Neal Martin gives out high scores today regularly that 15-20 years ago would have been truly rarefied territory.

I am sure the critics still get paid, but it’s not from their subscribers anymore that the bulk of their revenue comes. High scores move product, retailers shell out for this hype copy, wine makers welcome (only fawning) critics with open arms and free samples and invitations to 50 year verticals at the chateau, and rides in the helicopters. And the world still revolves around the sun.

[marcs]

Me too, David.

I think that surprises people that Burgs do not ring my bell. Perhaps it is odd given my profile. I’ve had some good ones, even some great ones, but none that have just hit that pleasure spot like a great Bordeaux or Northern Rhone. Plus, I’m not chasing unicorns at that price, and the value proposition is low, IMHO.

I’ve had a couple of peak wine experiences with old Burgs, but they’re so rare and expensive. The typical achievable Burg experience for me doesn’t come close to what I can reliably get from Bdx and N. Rhone.

It's really a shame you missed that dinner at Dino's, because that 1998 Jadot Beze and the 2009 Bouchard Corton were both excellent (the Jadot was superlative and the Corton just very good, but both IMO easily beat a very good 1985 Cos d'Estournel). When Burgundy is on it's hard to match. It's true the variance is enormous and, as you imply, Burgundy is less reliable than other regions, but I haven't found good to great experiences to be as rare as all that.

I feel like Pinot is a "smoother" grape than Cab so when it hits on all cylinders the seamlessness of texture is something that it's almost impossible for Cab to match. But that somewhat rougher more "chewy" quality of Cab makes it more reliably interesting somehow.

I still have several bottles of that 2009 Bouchard Corton left so we can see if you share my view of it.

[marcs]

Critics are such disappointments, but I we are all operating under a false premise and have been for years— the wine critics don’t work for us, the consumers, and they haven’t since around the release of the 2000 Bordeaux vintage in 2003.*

The critics work for the wineries and the retailers (and themselves of courses). How much do the wineries and the retailers pay for critic copy? Let’s not pretend retailers don’t comprise the bulk of a critic’s income at this point. Critics are promoters and their job is to hype the latest wines and keep us coming back for more when (a) we’ve all already got way too much wine, and (b) there’s an ocean of back vintages that are just as good or better, and often much cheaper and much closer to maturity.

Parker used to defy this arrangement, but his main fail in my book was getting on (creating?) this bandwagon in a big way.

* I doubt there is much outright corruption and some critics have their integrity intact, but the fundamental economics of the job at this point are in direct conflict with representing the consumer’s interest. A true ‘consumer advocate’ would never focus on new releases or at least downplay that, and do tastings of mature wines still in the market. Or would retire as they realize all they do is create hype and drive up prices, all the more so if they are any good at their jobs! They’d get rid of scores and adopt a new system which isn’t prone to hyping. They would never befriend wine makers and accept their ample generousity. And most of all, they wouldn’t allow retailers to post their scores nor would they accept any coin from the sellers.

Both Blanquito's posts are dead on, bravo. Critics are frankly an embarrassment at this point, with the endless layering on of more and more extreme hosannas and genuflections to the most expensive wines in each new vintage. The writing is crap too, you can feel them frantically paging through the thesaurus to seek out new and more pretentious synonyms for "awesome, buy this!" Parker was a little more down to earth with his "gobs of fruit" and "mortgage the house!" stuff.

There's a hilarious thread on Wineberserkers devoted to keeping track of the latest and most purple examples of critical prose:

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/vi ... 1&t=139826

[Winona Chief]

I think Blanquito has it right.

I don't pay a whole lot of attention to wine critics anymore. I have my own experiences drinking fine wine over the past 40+ years to go by. My go to for info and advice are 15 or 20 reliable people on Cellar Tracker and another 20 or so solid wine people that I talk to in person.

Chris Bublitz