2014 Duckhorn Vineyards Merlot Three Palms Vineyard

Community Tasting Note

16 comments have been posted

• Comment posted by CLutesdfw:

  12/16/2017 12:05:00 PM - Interesting comment. I haven't tried it yet but Wine Spectator named this bottle as Wine of the Year for 2017

• Comment posted by acyso:

  12/17/2017 7:04:00 PM - @CLutesdfw: WS is part of the problem too

• Comment posted by BrockmanP:

  12/21/2017 2:18:00 PM - Not helpful at all. How do you take this person seriously unless they just had spoiled wine. Given the other comments I think so.

• Comment posted by Seth Rosenberg:

  12/21/2017 8:35:00 PM - Or, OH WAIT, people could have radically different opinions on what a good wine is. Is that possible??? I wonder.

• Comment posted by Seth Rosenberg:

  12/21/2017 8:52:00 PM - 60 points (ACYSO)
  Number 1 wine of the year by Wine Spectator for 2017.

• Comment posted by DRob:

  12/28/2017 9:44:00 AM - acyso has an opinion. I completely respect that! Not every wine is for every person. What I disagree with is acyso's belief that if you don't agree with that opinion, YOU are the one who is wrong. That is bullshit.

• Comment posted by BrockmanP:

  12/28/2017 10:36:00 AM - Amen and well said!

• Comment posted by DRob:

  12/28/2017 10:55:00 AM - Cut and paste from acyso's own primary page.
  Please see notes from a wine scoring 60.
  
  I use (almost exclusively) the following scores:
  100: eyes-roll-into-the-back-of-your-head good
  98: pretty much perfect, but I can imagine how it might be even better
  95: superlative
  93: good to great
  90: above average (I tend to buy things that I know I'd like, so grade inflation has moved my midpoint here)
  88, 85: what I would like to imagine is the average quality of all available wine
  83, 80: below average
  70: has alcohol and is presumably made of grapes, though let's be honest, there's probably more oak than grapes here
  60: a crime against winemaking along the likes of Quilceda Creek, Marcassin, Colgin, or Pavie. If you like those, (1) my notes aren't for you and (2) you're wrong.

• Comment posted by Seth Rosenberg:

  12/28/2017 11:02:00 AM - Facepalm. Folks are getting trolled and don't even know it. What is especially amusing is that it's passive trolling - he doesn't even have to make direct contact. you come to him. Just proving him right with respect to the mindset of a lot of people.

• Comment posted by r2power:

  12/30/2017 1:49:00 PM - Why pollute the averages if you know you detest this style? You probably prefer French styled cabs overall, but that doesn't mean they are for everyone either. Get over yourself and accept that big, highly extracted wines are here to stay.

• Comment posted by Seth Rosenberg:

  12/31/2017 5:09:00 AM - The fact that you see it as 'polluting the average' says it all. This isn't some numbers game - it's about people expressing their views on a wide variety of wines and styles. Anyway. the 'average' is inherently an AVERAGE - which could include highly divergent views. Some would consider this the point of it all (or at least a point), while others are more interested in groupthink.

• Comment posted by r2power:

  12/31/2017 7:06:00 AM - You are leaping to quite a conclusion. While you are technically correct in your definition of an average, good statistical modeling calls for outliers to be tempered or even eliminated to get a true sense of consensus averages. A protest against an entire style of wine making seems out of place for this community ranking. I don't like the old style of Rioja with it's matterized flavor, but I would not rank one now that I understand that it is a stylized choice and not a deficiency. I don't think I should taint the experience of those who like that sort of thing. It's not about groupthink - it's about gaining useful community information.

• Comment posted by Seth Rosenberg:

  12/31/2017 10:55:00 AM - Your argument seems to be making an analogy between wine rating and empirical science. The idea that there is some actual numerical rating that the sampling is trying to reach as n >> infinity is an assumption, as is the idea of something like a Gaussian distribution. With those assumptions, it usually makes sense to discount outliers. But what if the distribution is bimodal, or if the distribution curve is not the standard one? Again, in a lot of classical science, the assumption of repeated measurements to hone in on a value is useful, but in wine tasting, not so much - there isn't a right answer, and I'm becoming more and more aware of how the use of numbers associated with wine lead many to get trapped in a false paradigm.
  
  Even if one doesn't like a style of wine, one can judge the wine based on the criteria one uses for wine in general - if wines in the style generally rate poorly, then the taster, and those with similar analyses can draw conclusions about the style in general.

• Comment posted by Tiger1028:

  1/3/2018 9:45:00 PM - Imagine what a lovely evening with this guy is like. Ugh.

• Comment posted by Seth Rosenberg:

  1/4/2018 5:10:00 PM - Imagine, if you will, a lovely evening of wine without Duckhorn ...

• Comment posted by Seth Rosenberg:

  1/4/2018 5:11:00 PM - ... and people who actually understand statistics ...