For The Love Of Port

Does Uncle Tom in conclusion also give it 5 stars

Without totting the number of wines that Broadbent has given 5* to, I would estimate that this covers my 10 point score band and most of my 9 point score band.

To answer your question, I would therefore say yes, just!

Derek,

Wyndham Fletcher had just retired as boss of Cockburn when he wrote that book, so his opinion may have been a teensy bit biased...

It's a fascinating insight into another age, but he does come over as something of a benign old duffer!

Looking at Suckling's 1990 work today does rather show the ravages of time. If we had all followed his advice, the '85's would have been drunk to extinction by now, or would otherwise be over the hill. - I think not!

Unlike the Parker system, which aspires to a once and forever score, my rating system is intended to evolve.

Twenty five years ago, when it was at it's best, the Taylor '60 was probably worthy of a 6-6 or 7-7. Even then though, it's inherent weakness might have been identified, justifying a point less on the second score.

It has now declined significantly, with further to go, so I rate it today as a 4-3. The Dow is worse, and seems to be falling apart, so I rate that as just 3-1 today.

Tom

PS I bet you finished that Taylor LBV last night.... :twisted:

uncle tom wrote:

I bet you finished that Taylor LBV last night.... :twisted:

Yip 8)

Very good thread, that I waited in replying to as I wanted to see what others thought. I used to use the "Parker" system of 100 points on all wines I drank. In the last couple of years I have found myself using it less and less. It seems I have an increasingly hard time with an arbitrary number that people look at and then buy based soley on this number. Maybe it harks to the old saying, "Leading the blind to water." Meaning, no matter what it is, people are blind to everything but a number. I still use the 100 point system on occassion, but less and less as time goes on. I'm sure in the distant future, I will stop all together.

I have increasingly started to ignore the number rating and started to read the reviews in depth. It is amazing how much more you learn about a wine by the review itself. And as said, a 90 point wine for one person may be a 85 point wine to someone else. Obviously, the best way is to taste everything, but that is not possible in the real world. That is why I am also in the camp of, Yuk, Good, very good, great, outstanding, buy again, never buy again, (etc.).

I too have learned to pay more attention to certain reviewers. Parker, IMHO, is not good at port ratings and I rarely look to his reviews for advice. Nothing against him, but if you really read his port reviews it is obvious Parker is not well versed in reviewing ports. My tastes are more in line with several of you here on the forum and you all are the ones I look to, more than anywhere else, for reviews.

I guess the 100 point system was just an easy thing for us Americans to use. Our whole world here is based on a number or letter system. So for wine it works good for most who are too busy to sit down and read the full text review. (ok, just my little rant about lazy Americans)

Numbers, of what ever form, are just that, NUMBERS!

I think your scoring system is pretty good Tom quite fair.Suckling I've always found quite poor but his book can be quite a handy reference in other ways.I mostly agree with Broadbent's tastings but his scoring system has not got a lot of scope.Suckling seems to have rushed his tastings into a small time scale and although you can nearly be sure top tier is always going to last well he falls short in the middle of the pack.

This is an interesting thread and does reveal an interesting difference in thinking between us.

I found Tom's response to my comments to be particularly thought-provoking. I hadn't really considered how I score or why I score until reading some of the replies here.

When I score wines that I drink and / or taste, I do so against the yardstick of my own enjoyment. I try to take out of the scoring the influences that Philip outlines - these may create memorable occasions or memorable bottles, but I try not to let it influence the way I rank one wine against another.

But what I definitely try to do is to rank wines against each other, regardless of colour, varietal, age etc. As Tom puts it, I will attempt to rank chalk against cheese based on the criteria of "Mmm, that tastes nice to me". Inevitably, this means that any scoring you see from me will be biased by the fact that I like chalk more than I like cheese. My scores are therefore very personal and may not be of much use to anyone except me, unless you are looking at my scores for a range of different cheeses. Comparing my cheese scores should give a reasonable guide as to which cheeses I found most attractive. Comparing my cheese scores and my chalk scores might lead you believe that even the worst kind of chalk is better than the best kind of cheese - but really you are only seeing me reveal my personal bias.

Because of the way I score, I would be very different from Tom when scoring a VP and an LBV. I would be using the same yardstick for both of them - the yardstick being "What do I think of the way this wine tastes today?" I give no credit for age or provenance or anticipated ability to age, it is all about performance on the day I open the bottle. If the myth that VP is better than LBV holds true, you would expect my VP scores - on the whole - to be higher than my LBV scores. If my scores for LBVs are higher than for VP then this tells me that I prefer the LBV style and that is where I should be concentrating my buying activity. If I find that I am scoring older VP's more highly than younger VP's then this tells me I should not commit infanticide. (As it is, I give reasonably equal scores to young and old wines which tells me that I should continue to drink both!)

I don't see my approach as being right or wrong - I really like Tom's approach and can see distinct advantages for it. I hope Tom continues with the 2 element scoring as I think this will prove of great interest over a few years. But what I think is critical is to understand each other's approaches to scoring. Only then can we best take advantage of each other's palates and experiences.

But anything helps - I don't recall seeing Simon post a score for any of the many wines he has tasted, but I find the notes of great interest and there is always a qualitative guide in the comments which is useful if I ever come across one of the bottles he has tasted.

And to address Derek's point about the price difference between the '94 and the '97 Taylors - I suspect this is a reaction to the supply/demand balance when you consider that Wine Spectator has rated the '94 at 100 points and the '97 at 94 points. Which do I think is the better wine? I don't know, I've not had chance to taste them. Is the '94 worth twice the price of the '97? I very much doubt it...but by giving the '94 100 points, WS has turned it into a trophy wine that a small number of wine collectors must have in their collection. Fortunately, I bought mine en primeur at £30 per bottle

Alex

100 point scoring system? It all comes down to marketing.

100 point scoring system? It all comes down to marketing

Certainly the merchants feel happier if they can market the mediocre as 'scored 85/100' - however, the system had it's genesis amongst wine writers rather than wine merchants.

~~~

I take Alex's point that LBV need not be an inferior product to VP - there is nothing to stop Noval stashing away the Nacional wines in barrels for a few years and then selling the product as a superlative LBV.

However, it would be an insane commercial strategy!

As long as the consumer will only pay a third as much for LBV as they will for VP, the shippers will apportion their juice accordingly.

Tom

I was told by a number of people working in cellars in Gaia that if the juice that goes into making LBV was good enough to be VP then it would be bottled as VP. However, that doesn't mean that one shippers LBV isn't better than another's VP

Derek

Or vice versa. Say a house decides a few pipes are not quite up to par to be used in their VP (or SQVP) and they use those higher quality grapes to make an LBV.

That type of thing happens all the time in the wine world. Just this year I was visting a good friend who works at Ridge Vineyards. He told me, when I got home, to head to my local Trader Joe's market as Ridge had "decertified" some barrels of the Monte Bello juice. apparnetly it was just below their standard for the actual Monte Bello bottling. So, Ridge slapped a new label on the bottles and sold all but a couple of cases (which the winery kept) to Trader Joe's for dirt cheap, which they then retailed at $25.00/bottle. Considering Monte Bello is over $100.00/bottle, this was a killer deal. I was told, first hand by other employees, its was the deal of a century. several of the employees I spoke to had bought lots of it too. i ran home and bought all i could. A great wine btw :)

I think you're both right.

LBV is generally made from potential vintage stock that either didn't make the grade or was surplus.

In every other business it's product that gets tagged as 'seconds' - Niepoort even has the courage to bottle a 'Secundum' VP.

I have to dispose of 'seconds' in my business, but people who down bottles of LBV in a single session are not allowed to have any..

..are they Derek?

Tom

Hey Hey Hey, leave him alone....BTW, if you meet us in Portugal can you bring some of your "seconds" for us to play with :twisted: :twisted:

Tom, I told you that I finished off the Taylor 1999 LBV on Wednesday night but who said I opened it that night?

Derek

PS: Just for the record, I did

Just a hunch

Tom

I have a hunch that I'm not alone here

Derek

Has been known...

Tom

Back on the point of this thread, Tom, what you describe about VP juice being re-classified as LBV is exactly what I was trying to convey in my ealier post.

The information I was given in Gaia is that all the premium quality grape juice from good years will go into cask with the hope of becoming VP. At some point during year 2 of the maturation process some of these casks will not reach the standard required by an individual shipper to be used as VP. Depending on how far below the line they are they would either be kept in cask to be used as LBV or blended away into various lesser category wines.

Can anyone confirm whether or not this is what happens - I am only going on what I have been told but, for me, it doesn't seem credible, especially for producers of high quality unfiltered LBV to use this selection process.

Derek

I think you have to bear in mind the difference in volumes produced.

LBV production dwarfs VP production to the extent that I suspect most shippers' first concern is to set aside stock that is potential LBV, and to then apportion that stock according to market conditions.

The best lotes, if good enough, will be earmarked for VP, and the worst will be consigned to the Reserves (or even Ruby) stock.

Of course their are exceptions - I'm still not clear what the Syms are doing with the Vesuvio wines that do not get bottled as VP...

Tom