For The Love Of Port

What are your thoughts on this and do you find it to be "accurate" in its message?

http://blogs.forbes.com/ericarnold/2010 ... -100-fail/

The fact that a 100-point Port doesn't even make their top 100 pretty much sums up my feelings about Wine Spectator's rankings.

I don't remember the exact timing of things, so maybe Suckling's rating for the 2007 Dow doesn't count as a Wine Spectator ranking, but either way their list appears to be rather... random and capricious.

Their security error is just stupidity on their part. They gain nothing by having the entire list online before it is meant to be revealed because it takes minutes if not seconds to make the next day's update either way. That's just a boneheaded management decision.

This gets argued every year, but the WS's Top 100 are the editors favorite wines of the year, not the top scoring. Apparently, they get together and hash out the list. I'm assuming Suckling did not make the meeting this year, so there was no one to argue for his favorites.

Eric Ifune wrote:This gets argued every year, but the WS's Top 100 are the editors favorite wines of the year, not the top scoring. Apparently, they get together and hash out the list. I'm assuming Suckling did not make the meeting this year, so there was no one to argue for his favorites.

No I don't think he made the meeting.

Yeah, but their list is contrary to how they say they chose it, makes no sense. Why chose a wine that is limited production, with no distribution, that is sold out before the list even comes out? Yet they pass over high scoring wines, with easy availabilty to purchase world wide, and at a good price to score ratio.

This part was most interesting:

Back then, a reader submitted to the magazine’s Restaurant Awards program a wine list composed of low-Spectator-scoring selections from a nonexistent restaurant in Italy; the magazine bestowed upon the fake restaurant an award for its outstanding wine list. The reader used the incident to allege that Wine Spectator’s Restaurant Awards program was a rubber stamp, not a serious accolade.

Unfortunately or not, their list has an effect on prices of the wines they tout. Whether you agree with list is another thread altogether.

+1 (Moses)

Moses Botbol wrote:Unfortunately or not, their list has an effect on prices of the wines they tout. Whether you agree with list is another thread altogether.

Not a problem for CARM reserva 2007 as it is pretty much sold out in Portugal. The 2008 is in most stores. Interesting to see if the price remains the same (around 9 Euros)..

Daniel,

That was the beauty of the WS placement and why the wine came out so high on the list ... large volume production (per se) and excellent QPR.