Wine reviews vs. Book reviews

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Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 4:18:16 AM

darren81

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In my opinion, reviews are a very key part of marketing for any transient and experiential entertainment product. Food, drink, movies, literature, it's all about the reviews. Sure, branding does come into play (Steven Spielberg movies, Harry Potter series, etc etc) but by and large most people make entertainment choices based on what others tell them.

I believe this is very natural and logical human behaviour. Unlike a permanent item, such as a painting, we can't accurately determine the utility from a product until we actually consume it. Until then, the best indicators of utility come from external hints such as item descriptions and more importantly, reviews from people who have experienced the products themselves.

In particular, the decision making process between buying a book vs. buying a bottle of wine would be quite similar:

- Consumption is pretty much on a one-time basis
- Utility derived from consumption can differ significantly between different consumers
- There's no way to accurately determine whether an item is worth it until its read / drunk
- You can't tell the quality of the product from the cover / label
- The back cover / label tries to entice you with information that's clearly biased
- We each have our favorite genres / varietals
- Branded authors / producers consistently do good stuff but brand in itself is not a guarantee

Given all the above similarities, why do you suppose book reviews have not gone down the 100 point scale?
Or rather, why have wine reviews gone down the 100 point scale when book reviews seem to be doing just fine without?

I have some personal ideas of my own, but thought would like to sound everyone out first :)

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 6:22:21 AM

nwinther

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That's a very good question.

Chance, would be my answer.

When determining ther 100 points, a number of variables come into play that is - with an open mind - universal. For instance, a long finish is generally a good quality. How this would be translated into books, I have no idea.

Book (and movie and music) reviews tend to be scored with stars, usually 1-4/5/6 with the posibility of half-stars. To produce a 100-point system, you'd have to come up with a number of variables to fill in the points.

"Quality of packaging" (Hardcover/paperback, paper quality)
"Print" (size, font and color/saturation of the text)
"Concentration" (does the book stray from it's subject/story needlessly or is it focused without skipping vital dialogue etc.)
"Originality" (is it an original story/setup yet still coherent or is it just a rewrite of something seen countless of times)
"Quality" (As a crime-novel, is it working. Or is it a narrative and does it accomplish this. Is it a plot-driven page-turner and does it swallow you up completely, or are you indifferent to the story and charachters)

However, when it comes down to it, there's also the differences to consider.

Why was Parker successful and is still considered the foremost critic of wine in the world? I know he was an astounding taster, being able to recognize wines tasted long ago.

Could this be applied to litterary critics as well? In principle, why not. Ebert is a prominent - perhaps the most prominent - movie critic in the US. If he chose to use a 100 point scale, I'm sure several would be copying that.

However, there are many differences between litterature and wine. The litterary expert would be interested in and favor litterature that most people wouldn't touch with a poker. Raving reviews of poetry just doesn't do it for me, whereas most people would enjoy a Lafite, even if they prefer Yellow Tail. So high scores would not result in better sales or even attention because noone but the critic likes poetry.

And that is another matter. Litterature is widely available - infinitely so in fact, whereas (fine) wine is very rare.
To taste wine and to read a book is two quite different matters - especially regarding the time it takes. Most readers can manage a book pr. month - some a book a week, but few can take a book a day - not to mention 5 or 10 books in a day. As such it's a much more complicated precedure, "scoring" a book than scoring wine. The beginning and the details in the langauge throughout the book is processed or reduced in your mind as the days or weeks go by, and when it's time to review, breaking down the scores is quite difficult IMO.

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 7:16:04 AM

wineismylife

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Random chance. Here is a good article on it. To summarize:

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when scoring started it was informally started via medal awards in competitions in the late 1800s. Somewhere between there and the 1950s a 20 point scoring system was adopted as the British wine press began utilizing a 20 point system on a regular basis during the 1950s. During the same timeframe an Australian (not Robert Parker as commonly believed) Daniel Murphy started utilizing the 100 point system. The Robert Parker and Victor Morgenroth finally made the 100 point scale popular with the masses via their efforts starting in the early 1980s. The rest as they say is history.

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 8:31:26 AM

recotte

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I would have liked to have waxed poetic about the subtleties and nuances of rating wine requiring a finer scale that allowed for more latitude than a simple 5 point scale that allows for gross qualitative lumpings... but in my heart I suspected what WIML posted, which is that it's just an historical quirk and artifact that took root and has persisted.

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 9:17:45 AM

BobMilton

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Hey, the new CellarTracker is approaching Roger Ebert's binary scale : thumb up/thumb down translates to I like it/I don't like it. We are achieving convergence.

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 9:18:57 AM

dsGris

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What is the meaning of like?

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 9:43:30 AM

recotte

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dsGris

What is the meaning of like?

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 10:45:22 AM

cookiefiend

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quote:

ORIGINAL: recotte

42

quote:

ORIGINAL: dsGris

What is the meaning of like?

And don't forget your towel.

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 11:14:52 AM

BobMilton

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I presume we'd need to ask Eric for an "official" definition of like, but to me it's the simplest of questions about a wine: do I like drinking it or not? Is that any better than the 100 point scale? No, but I don't think it's any worse either. In both cases you have to calibrate the rater before knowing if their opinion is of any value to you.

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 11:47:53 AM

recotte

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I think the "like" really does boil down to a basic, "do I like it or not."

To the extent that most numeric ratings fall in such a narrow band anyway, I think this is just as useful, and possibly even more useful, than the numeric ratings at times. However, the tasting notes are still, for me, more important in deciphering the rater's intent and help in that calibration to determine whether their opinion is of any use or import.

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/29/2011 6:16:52 PM

J2K

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A book is a gift that can be opened (and scored) again and again and again...At least that's what I was told as a child when I got books for presents.

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RE: Wine reviews vs. Book reviews - 3/30/2011 4:00:09 AM

darren81

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Very interesting thoughts from everyone. My personal suspicion is pretty much in line with what everyone has discussed. I think, however, that the wine review world would probably not converge to a binary state... for the same reason that it became a 100 point system to begin with.

I think part of the genesis of the 100 point system comes from the investment nature of wine.

While books are indeed consumed the same way, they provide zero investment value (well, with a few exceptions such as special editions etc that trade more like art than literature).

And brokers of investment products will always try to find some "scientific" way of justifying a specific buy/sale price. Stocks have target prices. Bonds have credit ratings. Real estate has valuations. Wine? Has 100 point scores. And people make investment decisions off these scores, regardless of how BS they are the same way they make purchases based off equity broker reports.

One might argue that Art and Antique has no such system... but buyers of such visual products immediately know the utility they derive from a product just by looking at it... hence no need for any such systems.

So yeah, as much as we here believe a 100 point scoring system is silly... i think it'll never go away as long as people buy wine for investment.

Interesting side thought.... Rotten Tomatoes takes a whole bunch of binary scores and aggregates it into a percentage... perhaps consumers really just are obsessed with the number 100. ;)

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Post #: 12