Buy Me, I Have 90 Points. Who Cares?

I begrudgingly use critic’s scores from time to time when selling wine.  I really don’t like doing it, but for some buyers and consumers this is the only way to differentiate certain wines from others in the Great Worldwide Wine Lake.  If it’s between me and the other guys for shelf and wine list space – the scores are coming out.  My friend and boss, David Bowler, has taught me to follow up with a priceless line– “make sure you tell them it’s a good wine despite the score!”  And I use it every time.  It’s competitive out there and gaining a slice of the shrinking pie can be difficult. 

Scores, when used as a guide to learn about a winery or introduce oneself to a new producer, are effective.  However, simply buying wine on scores is lazy.  By doing so, the consumers trust their purchases to someone else’s palate.  They are, in effect, are taking a similar leap of faith when they walk into a wine shop or restaurant and leave their selection up to the wine shop manager or sommelier.  The distinction between the two is clear – the clerk or sommelier doesn’t base their advice on their own palate, but on what the customer desires.  When a guest in a restaurant asks for a Chardonnay from the New World, light on the oak and within the $75-$100 price range, the sommelier still makes the choice, but based on the guest’s palate.  Scores added bonuses to an already very good bottle of wine – the icing on the cake as it were.

Today, I was sent an email that recommended I purchase a few wines from a brand that labels their wines according to the scores that wine received.  However, the wine is not packaged by the winemaker – it’s branded as a wine with a score of over 90 points.  Why do winemakers do that, you ask?  In the current economy (and also during the best boom years), winemakers often put their extra stock into private labels and drop the price so they can move inventory.  I support that business plan.  Winery stays open, wine is more easily distributed and the consumer receives a huge value. 

My issue with the wines recommended in this email is that I am supposed to buy the wine just because other more seasoned, experienced and revered palates gave the wines two thumbs up.  I respect most of those writers – many of them have integrity and a wider base of understanding of wine than me.  What I don’t respect is selling wine by points only (and throwing hideous labels on them) which in effect contributes to an apathetic wine buying public.

Perhaps I am a bit of curmudgeon or old-school, but wine should be sold on stories, not scores.  Even if you don’t mention the winemaker, put the wine into a new type of packaging that doesn’t look like a chic bottle of motor oil and tell the story!  Instead, people buy wine on analytic bullshit – “this bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, co-fermented with Semillon in Bordeaux was aged 22 months in new French oak and received the following ratings…”  Tell me what makes the wine great, not why other people love it.