I don't get it

Someone on CellarTracker scored a wine 98 and the tasting note simply reads "sweet aroma".

It's like someone said Citizen Kane was one of the best films ever and the review was "black and white film".

[Jenise]

I wonder what 99 pts would move him to note, the color?

So is this better or worse than just a score of 98 without any note?

BTW, what are they doing opening that wine at this point in time anyway. I would think it would be closed down right now.

[David M. Bueker]

It's "information" of that kind that makes me cringe when folks elsehwere on the interweb crow about the online community being so much more valuable and influential now than established critics. People may ot like Parker* or Tanzer's* take on a wine or a wine style, but the wine geek community is all over the map in terms of preferences and expeirence level, leading to something that is mre akin to noise than useful data.

*Not currently a subscriber to Parker, Tanzer, Meadows, Gilman, etc.

It's "information" of that kind that makes me cringe when folks elsehwere on the interweb crow about the online community being so much more valuable and influential now than established critics. People may ot like Parker* or Tanzer's* take on a wine or a wine style, but the wine geek community is all over the map in terms of preferences and expeirence level, leading to something that is mre akin to noise than useful data.

*Not currently a subscriber to Parker, Tanzer, Meadows, Gilman, etc.

In this, as in much else, Sturgeon's Law seems to be most applicable. As Dale has noted previously, I only look at CT postings by a few people who I know and whose judgement I trust (there's this one Rieslingfan guy whose reviews are just ridiculous, f'ristance ). Compare them to Yelp reviews of restaurants or Amazon reviews of books and they don't seem any less "accurate."

Mark Lipton

There are some pretty funny notes on CT if you dig around. Rather "Onion"-like at times.

Then again (as I too am guilty of) assigning a numerical score to something like wine and differentiating between 97 and 98 is also rather silly if you step back and think about it.

Someone on CellarTracker scored a wine 98 and the tasting note simply reads "sweet aroma".

It's like someone said Citizen Kane was one of the best films ever and the review was "black and white film".

200 point scale?
Best, Jim