Wine Critics

I used to pay attention to Parker back when he rated wines down in the 80s, pointwise, but almost all of the critics today seem to have adopted his late career habit of over-rating. I keep seeing scores of 95+ from Suckling (the local wine agents send me emails touting their products) and although Jancis seems to have a median score a bit lower than that, she still seems to have raised scores since her earlier days and I don't think it is because of better winemaking techniques.

Who is left that you can actually rely on when you don't have a chance to personally taste a given wine before buying?

I used to pay attention to Parker back when he rated wines down in the 80s, pointwise, but almost all of the critics today seem to have adopted his late career habit of over-rating. I keep seeing scores of 95+ from Suckling (the local wine agents send me emails touting their products) and although Jancis seems to have a median score a bit lower than that, she still seems to have raised scores since her earlier days and I don't think it is because of better winemaking techniques.

Who is left that you can actually rely on when you don't have a chance to personally taste a given wine before buying?

Is this not what wine boreds are for these days, Bill? Seriously, we live now in the age of crowdsourcing criticism, where everyone is a qualified critic of everything. Like you, I long stopped listening to Parker and the Spec. I now subscribe only to one publication, John Gilman's View from the Cellar, which is to wine criticism what Marcel Proust is to memoir writing. Mostly, I listen to trusted voices on the Internet, several of which are found here.

Mark, the problem is that only some amateur critics are worth listening to and there is a sea of dross you have to sift through to get a relevant review. I have seen many reviews that are from amateurs that don't know what they are talking about, for instance, correctly describing a corked wine but failing to realize the cause of the problem and simply rating it poorly. You and I would spot that but unless you read the more experienced boards (and that takes a lot of time) and try to sift out the good from the bad, you aren't going to get far.

This board is very useful though, as it is small enough that you get to know the posters and can judge which ones to pay attention to and which ones to just pass over as being noise rather than substance (thankfully rare here).

I used to subscribe to the Wine Spectator until the 'noise' level rose there to the point that I cancelled and looked for other sources like Tanzer. Problem is that almost none of the old reliable reviewers are reliable any more.

Like Mark, the only subscription I have is VFTC, John is a close friend (on way to his house in a few) and our palates align fairly well, but as Mark said VFTC is as much about the long form writing as the reviews. I appreciate both the looks at older wines, and introductions to areas I don't know well (Galicia for example).
I don't subscribe but I do respect William Kelly's opinions.
Mosel Fine Wine Review is fun.
Not a fan of Galloni.
I know that a 95+ score from Jeb D probably means I'll find undrinkable.
Suckling is... well Suckling.
While there is a lot of dross in crowd sourced, if you know the writer it helps (generally on CT I read the starred reviews from people I'm fans of, and seldom read the rest).

[David M. Bueker]

It’s about palate alignment, not the numbers. WK and JR haven’t steered me wrong. Read the notes, and focus on the description of ripeness and structural elements.