Rated wines, can that be used as a general rule of thumb?

Rated wines, can that be used as a general rule of thumb?

IE. are wines in the high 80's - low 90's going to likely be a good bottle?

If there are 10 wines from the same area on the shelf and two are rated low 90's and the others unrated, is it generally better to go with the 2 rated wines?

Abe, Hi.....

(a) The rating a wine earns is one critic's overall summary of how he/she perceives the wine. It says nothing whatever about the style of the wine or whether you will enjoy it or not.
(b) Depends on who does the rating
(c) Many wines without ratings have simply not been reviewed by the critics.

Far better than buying by scores is to find those critics whose palate is suited to your own and to use them as a guide.

Best
Rogov

I think your better bet would be to find a good retailer and start talking to the salespeople. Find one you trust and start trying the wines they recommend.

I find high scores frequently point to quality but not necessarily style that I like.

Imagine going to a well reviewed movie in a genre that you don't like.

Rated wines, can that be used as a general rule of thumb?

IE. are wines in the high 80's - low 90's going to likely be a good bottle?

If there are 10 wines from the same area on the shelf and two are rated low 90's and the others unrated, is it generally better to go with the 2 rated wines?

Yes, there is a general rule of sore thumb: anything rated above 90 by critics we don't respect is most likely a survivor from the mass tasting wars, so is most likely to be a ripe, overextracted, alcoholic fruit bomb. Stick to the 85 to 89 area, where you'll find the low profile goodies (e.g., Edmunds St. John). Exception made for stuff rated above 90 by critics we respect, like Meadows, Schildknetch, etc. So decide who you respect, then read between the lines.

[Jenise]

Abe, Hi.....

(a) The rating a wine earns is one critic's overall summary of how he/she perceives the wine. It says nothing whatever about the style of the wine or whether you will enjoy it or not.
(b) Depends on who does the rating
(c) Many wines without ratings have simply not been reviewed by the critics.

Far better than buying by scores is to find those critics whose palate is suited to your own and to use them as a guide.

Best
Rogov

Something I think also important to mention is that a lot of wines are never submitted to critics for review. An unrated wine should never be assumed to be lesser or passed over based on lack of rating alone.

Also, the tags that advertise scores, called shelf talkers, are usually printed and handed out by distributors, so the very presence of such a thing or lack of it can be arbitrary or partisan, but again it's significant of nothing about the wines lacking what might amount to nothing more than a corporate push.

Matt gives good advice: the best way to choose good wine is to get the advice of a good retailer.

Also, read and pay attention to reviews by people on this site. A professional critic, after all, often spends but a minute if that with each of the wines he rates and therefore only captures it at a brief moment in time; people here bought the whole bottle and spent the night with it. These reviews by real people capture something else entirely--the joy, the pleasure, the sheer attractiveness of some wines--things you can't distill into a number.

Also, read and pay attention to reviews by people on this site. A professional critic, after all, often spends but a minute if that with each of the wines he rates and therefore only captures it at a brief moment in time; people here bought the whole bottle and spent the night with it. These reviews by real people capture something else entirely--the joy, the pleasure, the sheer attractiveness of some wines--things you can't distill into a number.

Hear, hear, plus we taste them in domestic situations, slowly, with food, conditions that more closely mirror actual drinking conditions.

[Jenise]

In my list of things you can't distill into a number, I meant to include "the way a wine evolves and seduces over the course of a few hours". In fact, that might be the most important thing.

For the most part I completely ignore the ratings. I frequent retailers who I trust. Get to know your local wine merchant. For example now when I go to store X I know that Tim there knows what I like, what's new, what's on sale, what's going to be on sale, what's only around for a limited time, etc. If he says buy this I buy it. If I say I'm looking for a "Baba O'Reilly" kind of wine he generally knows what I mean.

Find friends who like wine and share notes, share bottles, share any information you come across.

Visit places like this frequently. Find posters who seem to like things that you like or who seem to know a thing or two about grapes and use their experience to your advantage.

Have fun and don't worry about the numbers.

To thine ownself be true.

What Rogov said.

All that a high rating tells you is that there's at least one wine critic out there who tasted the wine and liked it. If you don't know how well that critic's wine preferences match your own, the rating number is next to useless.

Just because a wine hasn't been rated doesn't mean it's mediocre. It just means that the critic(s) either haven't tasted it or didn't publish the numbers.

I strongly advise reading the prose review that accompanies the rating. This will tell you what the wine is like (or, at least, the critic's impression of what it was like) and is usually a far better gauge as to whether you will enjoy it than the raw rating number.

-Paul W.