Parker: 100 point grades not always replicable?

[Robin Garr]

Blake Gray, in his Gray Report blog, is jumping all over Parker for a quote in which Yoda confesses that his market-moving 100-point grades are replicable only about half of the time.

I find this fascinating, as on the one hand I'm down with the notion that mood, surroundings and many more unmeasurable factors influence one's attitude about food and wine. On the other hand, it's a startling admission by The Bob, who has built a brand on the accuracy and consistency of his 100-point system.

What's your take? Blake is known for being edgy, but I think he's got a fair point.

Perfection isn't perfect: Parker says only 50% of his 100-point scores are repeatable

If you read that a wine scored 100 points out of 100, you think, wow, that's an absolutely great wine. A perfect wine. Right?

It turns out that perfection, for Robert Parker, is as fleeting as the beauty of cherry blossom leaves drifting softly to the ground. Today your wine is a pink blossom; tomorrow it's a bare branch, possibly covered in birdshit.

Full blog post:
http://blog.wblakegray.com/2015/05/perf ... -says.html

During my years of training in experimental science, I had beaten into me the rule that one never, ever reports measurements to a higher precision than one is entitled to. If your scale reads 1.224 grams, but it's only accurate to 1/10 of a gram, you report the measurement as 1.2 (+/- 0.1). Translated to Parker rating terms, if RP can't reliably give the same wine 89 points (vs. 88 or 90) every time he tastes it, he is not entitled to make the distinction between 88 and 89.

For this reason (among a host of others), I have always considered numeric wine rating systems to be pure BS. It's why, if I bother to give a rating to a wine tasting experience at all, I use Stuart Yaniger's Three Stooges rating system.

In the past, Parker has been very aggressive and strident in defending his 51-point system (it's not a 100-point system because the lowest possible score is 50). I'm therefore shocked to hear this admission.

-Paul W.

I'm not shocked. I applaud his honesty; at last . I seems to me obvious that appreciation of something like wine is influenced by mood and surroundings, particularly the company with whom one is drinking. The same goes for music with me. One day Beethoven's Ninth leaves me cold and the next I find it unbearably moving.

Robin wrote;
I find this fascinating, as on the one hand I'm down with the notion that mood, surroundings and many more unmeasurable factors influence one's attitude about food and wine.

Absolutely, besides “the critics score” is not given to “a wine” but to a “bottle or glass of wine”.

Salute

Every bottle is unique..

Wine critcism has less to do with the wine than it has to do with the critic.

During my years of training in experimental science, I had beaten into me the rule that one never, ever reports measurements to a higher precision than one is entitled to. If your scale reads 1.224 grams, but it's only accurate to 1/10 of a gram, you report the measurement as 1.2 (+/- 0.1). Translated to Parker rating terms, if RP can't reliably give the same wine 89 points (vs. 88 or 90) every time he tastes it, he is not entitled to make the distinction between 88 and 89.
For this reason (among a host of others), I have always considered numeric wine rating systems to be pure BS. It's why, if I bother to give a rating to a wine tasting experience at all, I use Stuart Yaniger's Three Stooges rating system.
In the past, Parker has been very aggressive and strident in defending his 51-point system (it's not a 100-point system because the lowest possible score is 50). I'm therefore shocked to hear this admission.
-Paul W.

What you say is absolutely true, Paul. But I don't think that that renders the 100-pt scale pure BS. You just realize that some
readers & critics attribute to it a degree of precision that it is incapable of giving. When I see a wine given a 90...I realize that it may be an 88, maybe an 89, maybe a 92. But most critics who embrace the 100-pt scale, especially Parker, don't view it that way.
I go for the CGCW 3-MeadowMuffin scale as good enough for me.
Tom

We all know that 100 is the highest score that Parker has ever given to a wine, but what's the lowest? The lowest score I ever saw when I subscribed to The Wine Advocate was a 52. Parker's tasting note called the wine "the vinous equivalent of Liquid Plumber". I had the misfortune to taste that wine and I agree with Parker. I suppose it got 2 points for not actually being toxic. Has Parker ever given out a score lower than that?

-Paul W.