1/20/20, 4:00 PM - Isaac--you have a typo on the score
12/25/19, 2:24 PM - Forceberry: Don't know how to explain the difference in what we are tasting. I will say that I have had three bottles of the Black Stallion and the first two I rated 92 and the last one I rated 87--which is a large difference in my rating system. I am not a fan of oaky wines so I would usually avoid them and hopefully notice them. This bottle is what I call a "grocery store wine", but sells for a higher price than the average grocery store wine. Not sure if you sell wine in your grocery stores in Finland but it typically means a very large production wine (often of mediocre quality) and I am thinking large production means large differences in the wine, assuming they don't blend all the barrels before bottling. I have never seen much in the way of discussions in the wine world about bottle variance--it must happen, especially for large production wines. I see that you have a wine blog so maybe you have discussed the issue?
11/20/19, 4:33 PM - Joey: Thanks for the comment. Wish I had ordered more than 4. When I get a comment I look at the reviews and holdings of the wine drinker doing the posting and yours is unique. 12 years on CT with 14 reviews and just a few comments. You have some very interesting wines in your inventory, especially the Dirty and Rowdy, and of course all the Bedrock. Is there a reason that you don't review your wines as you drink them?
11/21/19, 2:41 PM - Joey: Glad to hear you will start posting ratings or reviews or both for the wines you pull out of inventory. Will look for those. I have done the fan choice for three people who's reviews I want to routinely read. Their reviews automatically come up on the right side of the home page, in the area called "recent reviews" when you select on "I'm a fan of the taster". I think I normally see the latest four or five reviews of those three people I've identified as a fan. When you start writing reviews I will add you if your reviews are the kind I read. You will quickly find out that there are a lot of ways to write reviews--some people focus on what and where they ate when they consumed the wine; others use multiple adjectives to describe the wine that requires a dictionary to understand; others refuse to rate the wine. Obviously there is no correct method but I focus on the ones that do three or four things--they give me a rating I can use as a starting point; they tell we what they taste in understandable language; they tell me if the wine is ready to drink or needs more time in the cellar; and the ones I really like is if they tell me how the wine changed in the two or three days most people take to consume a bottle; I often mention whether I decanted the wine if it is red; and lastly many of us mention the QPR (Quality/Price ratio) which just means was the wine worth what we paid for it. I have avoided the "friend" category because I could never find anything on the site that explained what it meant.
10/31/19, 4:37 PM - RG: There are 70 CT reviews on this bottle and the average score is 90. Can we assume that your expectations were based on something else?
11/1/19, 6:44 AM - Chatters--I guess we will never know unless RG responds but this is a bottle with a very narrow range of opinions. Of the 29 numerical ratings 17 are within one point of the average. Only three ratings are what I would think of as lowballs (85-87). Not a single flawed bottle noted, which I think is typical of Ridge wines. In addition to wine taste being subjective, as you mention, I think there are scoring variances caused by how the wine is served--if you get it in a restaurant (and maybe the winery) you get a wine that hasn't had a chance to breathe. On the other hand, a wine that has been decanted and consumed over a two or three day period is probably going to taste and be rated differently.
11/4/19, 4:19 AM - Chatters--I was there at the beginning (100 point scale, I mean). I was living in the suburbs of Washington D.C., and just getting interested in wine and Robert Parker became the wine writer for the Washington Post. I am by nature a left brain analyst and his approach was exactly what I needed--no longer the fuzzy reviews of wine writers (with bottles provided by the wineries with the obvious conflict of interest attached). I would read those fuzzy reviews and often not even be sure if the reviewer liked the wine (read some of the reviews of those at the bottom of the CT home page that are trying to make the list of "most reviews in last six months" and you will see the same). Parker was totally different--he didn't accept free wine from wineries, he didn't take advertising for his magazine and you knew exactly what he thought of the wine. Even then there were folks who thought wine was just too subjective for a score--I assume these folks are right brainers. Step back and think about it--all reviews are subjective--whether it be of a restaurant, a movie or book, or a wine. We know that going in but verbal reviews are just as subjective as the ratings. Read your past reviews and tell me your verbal opinions aren't subjective. When I give a wine a rating I try to give it a written review that meshes as closely as possible to the rating--they are subjective but they are equally subjective. Parker had to say ad nauseam over the last 40 years that the ratings were of value only with the narrative review attached. I'll leave you with a cliche to live by--"don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". Spicy1
11/4/19, 12:52 PM - RG: Seems like I have been defending Parker's scoring system for 40 years but I don't mind--I think it is worth defending. You are right of course that wine ratings are subjective and there are a lot of variables in how the wine is stored, how we feel, etc. My point in the comment to Chatters is the exact same thing applies to the narrative reviews (and to any other rating system out there). As to your point of no low scores--I had a subscription to the early years of Parker's "Wine Advocate" -maybe late 70s to mid 90s and my recall is that his system was a 50 point system (50-100) and that he would often score wines in the 60 to 70 range with the a few 50s if he really was unhappy with a winery (but he meant it as an insult). But times have changed--the quality of wine has improved dramatically since 1980--in my early days of wine buying, with my low wine budget, I would routinely buy wines rated by Parker in the low 80s and it was a rare bottle that exceeded 88. Now there are so many good wines that a winery that produces those sub 80 wines can't survive. Still, looking back at my CT ratings, I find a 60, nine 70s and twenty two others between 71-84. There would be quite a few 50s if I rated a flawed wine but there seems to be a lot of opposition to rating flawed wines. My guess is that if I randomly picked bottles from the grocery store wine racks, without using CT ratings, there would be far more low ratings in the 60s--many wines that I would pour down the sink.A big factor, I think, in the high ratings we see on CT is a combination of wine drinkers with more money to spend on wine and many of us relying on CT ratings to help pick our wines. If we focus, like I do, on wines rated 88-93 we are very unlikely to drink wines we will give a low score to. Your point about a point or two not making much different--just look at the comment that started this set of comments. You rated the Ridge wine 90 but it didn't meet your expectations (you later said you expected at least a 92) so that tells me there is a big difference in your mind between a 90 and a 92. To me there is a huge difference between an 88 and a 93 (although sometimes I think 89 is a sweet spot--lot of people won't buy--so for many the difference between 89 and 90 is much larger than 90 to 91.I still believe the Parker system is the best way to encourage wineries to make good wine and the easiest way for us wine drinkers to buy the best wine we can afford.
9/20/19, 4:56 AM - West Coast--if I read your review, without having seen your rating, I would have guessed a rating of no more than 85. I wonder what you would have rated it blind, especially not knowing it was a $50 wine?
9/11/19, 5:04 AM - Just curious Mtolerico. Why put the score in the review and not in the rating area? I assume you are doing this on purpose to keep your rating out of the CT rating system. I have noticed quite a few people doing that and never understood the logic.
8/29/19, 4:14 PM - Pretty sure that tarter and tangier aren't words but not important since we know what you mean. But what I don't know is if you like the wine.
8/26/19, 3:38 PM - This review must be in the wrong place. This is for the Grenache not a Zin and it's only 3 years old--and yet three people found it helpful!
8/10/19, 1:20 PM - Roberta Ross--I see that this is your first rating on CT. For most of us a rating of 98 is rare indeed. I don't ever expect to taste a 98 rated wine. If you find a wine like this you might want to give us a little more detail on what you find so outstanding ( I actually like the wine but my rating of 91 is higher than all other raters). Others will tell you that rating is totally subjective so rate them how you see them.
7/10/19, 5:25 PM - Diane--could you tell us what "advanced" means? And maybe why the wine was disappointing?
6/18/19, 5:42 AM - Melzar: When you talk about reductive notes are you tasting or smelling sulfur? And if so, do they linger?
6/15/19, 8:52 AM - Snipes--thanks for the comment. For sure rating is totally subjective--whether it is wine, restaurants or movies. Wine has been stored at 60 degrees in a wine cooler since I received them from Kutch in December but shipping cross country can always be a risk. Have four Kutch Pinots and one more Chard so that will give me a clue on the possibility of shipping damage. To me 87 is a mediocre wine in my rating system (and at the low end of what I will buy)--even though CT calls it "very good" but more important is that a $45 wine getting an 87 is a terrible value or QPR. There are plenty of $12 wines with 87 ratings. But really I am just comparing the Kutch Chard with the ratings on CT--some as high as 95 and most in the 91-93 range. Personal taste could be part of that I suppose. There are Chards that are high in butter and oak, such as Rombauer that get good ratings that I find undrinkable but I understand that difference. The CT Kutch reviews make it sound like a wine I would like--and that is part of the reason I bought them in the first place--I read the reviews after seeing the good Kutch write ups by Isaac Baker (Terrorist and CT). I will admit that I think there is a lot of "grade inflation" in wine ratings over the last 10 years. Think Suckling. I also wonder if a lot of raters, who buy expensive wines, have a hard time giving the wine a mediocre rating--it requires that we admit we made a mistake buying the wine, so I always wonder how the ratings would compare if the wines were tasted blind.
5/25/19, 8:47 AM - Straight: Went into the Rivers-Marie site and read the description of the 2017 version of the Anderson. Few of the things it said were "there's a lot more give to this edition compared to 2016. There is also less rusticity, replaced here by more focused fruit quality". Not exactly sure how they use the word "give" but it seems to be a positive for 2017 and negative for 2016. From a wine makers point of view I would guess that "rusticity" is generally a negative and less "focused fruit quality" would also be a negative for the 2016. I would read that 2017 review as about as negative as a winery is likely to be about one of their wines (2016)--and it seems to agree with our reviews. I ended up getting 8 bottles of the 2017 Pinots but none of the Anderson so I guess I won't find out until 2018 arrives.
5/3/19, 6:35 PM - Frank: You are right, the bottle was from Carlisle Vineyard. I went back and looked at my tasting notes for the last year and I have had 10 Carlisle Zins and given them an average rating of 91.2, with the 2014 Old Vines (94) and Sonoma County 2014 (93) being my favorites, with Bedrock 2012 (88) being my least favorite. There seems to be a pattern in my scores that says I like the bottles with screw caps the most, which Mike tells me are the wines that are least expensive and also least in need of ageing. I will add that a rating of 89 in my system does not indicate I think the bottle is flawed or poor--in fact it is just a point or two from being excellent.
4/28/19, 9:55 AM - J: Thanks for the comment. I'm a lot less sure than 99.5% that this was a distributor selection. In fact I am only guessing based on the poor quality of the wine list at the restaurant. If the restaurant owner knew/cared anything about wine he would not have put a list of wines together like the restaurant had and I'm sure you have been in many similar restaurants. That tells me that the distributor selected the wines. I had never heard of Loring before trying this bottle and doing a little research on CT. You're right, it is small production at 300 cases but it is widely distributed for a cult wine. Loring lists some 30 distributors, including in non cult states like mine (NC) as well as Tennessee and Alabama. I think of cult wines as not being distributed at all, other than through the winery, and if they are it is to a handful of upscale restaurants. The Loring web site mentions that the River Quinn wine is not specific to an AVA--not sure if that means Santa Barbara generic or California generic. In any case I look forward to your tasting the wine and giving us CT readers your review.
1/14/19, 5:49 AM - BENJ: Looking at the Ridge site, 45% of the oak is new, the rest one to three years old. Seems like the more expensive the Ridge wine the older the barrels--Monte Bello has the greatest percent of old barrels and even a little French oak. I am guessing that softens the tannins and smooths out the wine.
10/11/18, 6:18 PM - PDEV; Don't think I have ever read a wine review that mentioned "roasted peanut shell" but I think I can almost smell/taste it. I have one bottle of the wine and will try to find the peanut shell.
10/6/18, 9:19 AM - Winotim: I had a bottle back in May that I really enjoyed with a blend of rock and ripe apple--haven't had enough white Burgundy to compare. This bottle was a little less mineral driven and generic and that is part of the reason I didn't give it a real review. Have one more bottle that will break the tie--maybe next spring.
10/7/18, 4:19 AM - Omar--thanks for the tip and I will try it on the next bottle. You are the second that has called the substance "wax". It seems much harder than wax to me--more of a hard plastic material. Did you use your technique on an Arnot-Roberts?
10/8/18, 4:18 PM - Ben: Thanks for that. I will try it and also the recommendation to put it under hot water for 30 seconds and see which works best. But personally, I would just prefer a screw cap.
9/19/18, 4:22 AM - JVIZ& Rich: Thanks for the comments. You make good points about not rating flawed bottles. On the other hand, many bottles are flawed to some degree and we wine drinkers can only guess the cause of the flaw--was it storage problems (ours or the store), transportation issues, cork taint (and I am thinking there are many different levels of cork taint), or multiple other issues. Or what seems flawed to us might be acceptable to other drinkers. Should we only rate what we think is the perfect bottle or do we as wine drinkers want the best estimate of what we are likely to get when we plunk down our money? Especially true for someone like me who never (in 40 years) returns bottles for refunds or replacement. The hassle isn't worth it. Maybe there is no right answer and we each plod along and rate them as we see them.
9/19/18, 8:58 AM - Rich: Great comment so let me expand a little on my approach. First, you will note that there are 44 reviews of the wine so my score of 70 will have minimal impact on the average (even though not all 44 include ratings). There is also the possibility that others who don't want to rate a "flawed" wine might not review the wine at all so we don't get a true picture of how many bad bottles there might be. But maybe my main point is that most bottles are flawed--even though that is not the perfect word. Many bottles have the flaw of being too young, others past their prime, others might be oxidized. Most bottles might only be in bad need of decanting. I find many bottles improve dramatically on nights two or three. Using your system, how do you decide what constitutes a flaw that shouldn't get rated and another bottle has some lesser flaw that does get rated. So I try to rate them all (with a few exceptions over 700 bottles rated on this site) and let the reviews and averages deal with what you call unfairness.Lastly as a hypothetical, assume that out of 44 bottles of this wine, 10 of them were "flawed" and weren't rated (using your approach). Would the resulting rating be representative of the wine you are likely to buy?
9/15/18, 4:07 AM - Guchl: Thanks for the offer. Good to see someone likes those grapes. Luckily for me I have avoided buying SB and Gamay for the last year or so and have just a few Riesling to finish up.
8/12/18, 4:33 AM - Abhar: For sure the average rating is decent but I am a little surprised when a wine of this quality gets ratings of 77, 84 and 85. Reading those reviews I am not seeing any common thread or even words that would indicate the possibility of a bad bottle. One thing I have learned though is that there can be a huge impact on the wine tasting depending on whether the wine was decanted, or left to open, and of course storage and shipping can have an impact. What was really strange was the reviewer that gave it a 77 said he liked the wine!
8/12/18, 7:19 AM - Zorba/AbharI remember Parker saying, many years back, that the beauty of his 100 point scale was how simple it was. Every school kid knew that 100 points was perfect and you would get an A and that somewhere in the 70 area you would get a failing grade. I understand that everybody on CT can be their own expert and score how they want--especially if their goal is only to track their own cellar. But I am thinking that most of us provide scores to help our fellow wine lovers identify good wines to try. Doesn't that work best if we all use approximately the same system? This is the best site I use so I am not (really) complaining but if the operator would make a small effort to get users to rate the wines and remind users of what the scores from 70 to 100 mean it might make the site even better. One simple thing they could do is change the section on the home page that identifies the users that have reviewed the most wines to instead be the users who have reviewed and rated the most wines. They would either start rating wines or drop off the list.
6/20/18, 7:04 PM - Srh: Thanks for the tip on the Wine Searcher article. I will read it. I have seen the 19 Crimes wine in the stores but never tried it. I have had only one of the Rombauers--the Chard, and found it undrinkable but I know a lot of folks love it. I will have to take a look at your past reviews and see what wines you rate high. So many great wines out there to try but not always easy to identify which ones are worth searching and buying. I am a big fan of the reviews, even more than the ratings--finding out why people like or dislike a wine.
6/7/18, 8:30 PM - srh: I like Chenin Blanc but really like Viognier so the combo really works for me. In North Carolina this wine typically sells for $ 15-16 so only with a case discount can I approach your price.
5/10/18, 7:51 AM - BRR: I bought a case of this wine back in 2015 and started drinking in early 2016, a bottle every three months or so. It had received some good ratings, maybe from Parker, but those ratings are always a crap shoot since they take place well before the wine is ready. For the first 6 bottles I thought it was a decent $15 cab. On bottle 7 in July 2017 I thought it had improved a couple points (see my review if you want to see what I tasted then). Had hoped it might turn out to be the wine I had expected based on the ratings. Last two bottles tell me it's peaked. Fruit is faded and spice and herbs have disappeared. The drinking range shows it out to 2027 but I am thinking it will be undrinkable by then.
12/17/17, 4:57 PM - What a total waste of space.
12/5/17, 5:31 AM - Mid Palate: Thanks for the comment and you could well be right but my experience is different. I see wines constantly changing--sometimes slowly and sometimes very fast. I remember buying a case of a New Zealand Gewurtz that I drank over a three year period that was outstanding for the first 5-6 bottles and then quickly went down hill to the point that the last few bottles were barely drinkable (and that case was stored decently and not moved). Now storage is a factor in the process and certainly personal taste. The more of these reviews I write the more aware I become of the impact of decanting, storage and aging (which is why I question the pros tasting wines once and often before the wine is close to being ready to drink).
9/1/17, 4:26 PM - Didn't like it---sour. 92 pts--what is the meaning of a 92 point rating?
10/28/17, 11:44 AM - Noco: I guess there are a million ways to rate wine. I rate a wine based on whether I like it and whether it has the components I want in a wine--which might include black pepper, various herbs especially oregano, black olive, smoke, mineral, etc. I can't see how you can determine what the winemaker intended--such as in this case that he made the wine sour on purpose. Trying to guess how the wine compares to what the winemaker intended is usually beyond my knowledge. In any case, I rely as much on the reviews as the rating. So, for example, before I buy a California chardonnay I will check the review--if it talks about oak and butter I avoid it but if I end up with such a bottle I will give it a much lower rating than someone who likes the style. Our systems seem far apart but if we write descriptive reviews maybe the rating isn't all that important (but someday it would be great if Cellar Tracker developed a rating philosophy/method and passed it on to us users).
6/29/17, 6:01 PM - Rocky: Maybe it's a natural ego thing to name your winery after yourself. No big deal, but maybe it would make more business sense to add a little pizzaz. How about "Hall's High Valley Cabernet" or maybe ".Hall's River Run Cabernet"--anything showing just a little imagination and something to separate your vineyard from the crowd.
7/5/17, 12:03 PM - Wine Gro: Thanks for the comment. I will look into the other Hall wines, especially the 1873. But the price, which I thought was good at $69, was in a restaurant. In my part of the world (NC) I expect to pay at least twice retail, sometimes more (often an outrageous three times markup for the lower priced wines). So I think the $45 you mention was a low end of retail (think I had checked it on Wine Searcher) so I would expect to pay at least $90 in a restaurant for such a wine. In any case, I thought it was a good deal at $69. What is the markup in your part of the world?
7/7/17, 3:41 AM - ppcwine: Thanks for the info about finding Hall's in Durham. Total has 15-20% off sales on a regular basis (sending me postcards) --so I will look for the 2013, assuming it arrives, and maybe pick up a bottle or two of the 2012 for comparison.
2/6/17, 8:06 AM - Ageverett: Thanks for the warning about the need for the long decanting. There is no right way to rate wine so I am not disagreeing with your rating but am wondering how many of the reviewers on CT factor "expectations for the future" into their ratings. One of the big advantages we have over the pros--they often have to rate wine well before it is ready to drink and factor in their guess as to how it will evolve. I am rating how the wine tastes as I drink it. Your rating is the first on this site that I have seen that mentions the expectation for the future so it has me wondering if I am the exception or the norm.
2/3/17, 5:50 PM - Ben: 1700 reviews. Could you be convinced to rate the wines you review? Even if you think ratings are inexact and maybe even silly, they would be of value to those of us who rely on ratings.
10/24/16, 5:47 PM - Genghis: You could be right of course. In the early years of my wine drinking--1960-1980, Riesling was my white wine of choice. I remember the Kabinetts and QBAs being consistently drinkable (and dry) even when I could only afford the very low end wines. Then they started adding sugar--maybe it is nothing more than global warming making the grapes riper earlier or maybe it is the taste of the German wine drinker. I still enjoy Riesling when it is dry. Had a great one from Australia a few months back--Pewsey Vale 2015. I don't think I am alone--German Riesling has lost a lot of fans over the years.
10/26/16, 4:24 PM - John: Thanks for the comment. First time I have heard that most Germans like their Riesling dry. Hard to figure the logic in sending mostly sweet wines to the U.S. that don't sell well when they could be sending the wines they drink themselves that might be far more popular. Maybe it goes back to the Blue Nun days when the hippies and college kids loved the sweet stuff. I will search out a Trocken for my very last, absolutely last, attempt at liking German Riesling. Do you have a favorite Trocken, available in the U.S. in the under $25 range?
9/20/16, 7:22 AM - Pecete: Thanks for the info on pump versus gas. I have used the pump for many years and had thought reviews concluded it was the best option. On the other hand, as we have both found, some bottles improve on day two and some go down hill fast. Not sure how much of that is related to the pump and how much is just the sulfur and other gases escaping from the wine upon opening. But I am open to a new method--since you posted your message, I have read quite a bit about inert gas and think I will try it. I see something widely distributed called "Private Preserve" which sells in the $9-10 a can range and they claim it can be used about 120 times. Many users think that number is inflated. So--is that the brand that you use and if so how many uses do you guess you get per bottle?
8/10/16, 7:27 AM - I wonder if we are looking at the same wine. When you go to Wine Searcher this bottle averages $22 with some in the $19 range. What wine did you pay $50 for?
7/7/16, 5:19 PM - Wine strategies: Thanks for the comment. In theory I agree. In practice, for an introvert like me the calling to the winery would be an unpleasant experience, not worth the cost of the bottle of wine. Add to that the receiving of a shipped bottle is a hassle (even when the shipment across country works weather wise)--I order wine over the internet in case lots and that is barely worth the savings--wouldn't do it if the selection wasn't so great. Bottom line--I assume that a small percentage of bottles will be poor and that is built into the price of the wine. If the percent of flawed wines for a winery or wine store exceeds that small percent (5%?) I just stop doing business with them.
6/22/16, 7:43 AM - Truthspeaks. Rating wine is a tricky business. Have only had one of my 12 bottles and thought the wine was OK so am hoping for the best but I wonder if you didn't want to take another sip why would you even give it an 86? That is the kind of reaction that would get a 60 from me.
5/1/16, 10:38 AM - David: It is amazing, thanks for pointing it out. Cellar Tracker does show an inventory of 3 bottles of the 2011 and I am guessing that there must have been a 2012. But you are right, 10 years is a stretch since according to the website, Michel Chapoutier bought the vineyards in 2009. So let me amend my comment to say--in recent years--maybe 5, maybe less, ....
5/1/16, 3:49 PM - David: No problem at all. I am new to the rating game and I probably should avoid being overly honest/blunt with my ratings. I have the same issue with the Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc--I think it is an excellent, consistent $14 wine that I rate around 88-90, so when I see a rating in the 70s or low 80s for the wine I don't know what to make of it. In the end I fall back on that old cliche "there's no accounting for taste"!
5/1/16, 6:45 AM - Jaumealaska: Thanks for the info. I have only been on a few winery mailing lists, including Turley and Carlisle and have found the process a little frustrating. First the years of waiting to get to buy wine and then the slow increase in the annual allocation. Hopefully, Bedrock will move quicker and have a much broader range of wines. In my small wine cellar I have reached my quota of Zins but hope Bedrock allows me to buy some of their Syrah and red blends. I am trying to identify small wineries in Oregon and Washington that are worth getting on their mailing list--or in some cases just buying direct without the mailing list--so far I have identified Eyrie, Coehlo, Flying Trout and Big Table Farm--any thoughts on those or other wineries you have ordered from?
1/9/16, 10:38 AM - I notice the wine is best between 2017 and 2024 so am wondering if it should taste like a 95 rated wine this early? Reviewers had to guess how it would taste even earlier--assume a year or so back.
12/16/15, 1:20 PM - what is RS?
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