WS points were agreed upon at the end of the writing of the tasting note (during the blind tasting itself). If there was dissent among the tasters, they would either hash it out between them, or agree to re-taste another sample in another session. Often the point scores were within a point or 2 of each other. If someone made a good enough case, the agreed upon score could go up or down.

And if you need another palate, mine is available!

Yes, double-blind tasting would destroy a lot of industry myths and there is probably a lot of industry back-scratching going on to discourage that behavior. But there is precedent for upsetting the status quo, including Parker himself. I think he brought a lot of ethical honesty to the tasting table. He takes a beating for it – all the derisive talk of Parkerization, “Mondovino,” etc. But he has obviously reaped incredible rewards as well.

Like some others here (and maybe I’m starting to repeat myself), I find the CT average score to be the most reliable tool for assessing a wine, assuming enough scores have gone into the average. (How many? I don’t know… I think at least 10.) It’s a crude tool because each score is arrived at so differently, but even from these idiosyncratic data points, meaning and form eventually emerge – like a Seurat painting. That said, there’s always room for improvement, so I look forward to seeing how your experiment turns out.

I wasn’t hoping to show that my opinion of wine should lead consumers in their buying decisions though. What I’m hoping to show is that the system itself is useful is creating valid and relevant data points. Those data points can then be aggregated in a much more useful fashion, especially if you want to rely on the wisdom of the crowds.

Imagine if a multitude of people reviewed wine this way online! How useful would an aggregate review be then?

Very useful, IMO.

Referment in bottle is a very big flaw, its a winery level flaw – macro – and I shouldn’t have to purchase a second bottle to point it out.

What I owe readers – and we are already assuming that my opinion holds some kind of sway in the market, which it doesn’t – is a re-evaluation of Albariño in general. But CdA isn’t owed a re-sample simply on the basis of sending a flawed product (the worst flaw a wine can have from a producer perspective, in fact) to market.

Can you imagine any similar discussion taking place about orange juice? What if the Odwalla in your refrigerator suddenly started fermenting? Would you require that a consumer go and buy a second bottle to confirm the flaw?

There are in fact some wine falts that, on their face, deserve instant recognition. Re-ferment in bottle is IMO, one of them.

Thanks for the discussion!

I’m not suggesting we do away with the 100 point system – in fact I say we embrace it. So really, there is no cause to criticize for too much information, or for some commodious volume of technical data. These are optional to the the wine buyer who simply doesn’t care. The lede of the review includes price, the score and what I thought the wine was blind. If you just want my opinion on the wine, its all there in 4 or 5 sentences.

That’s why I think the system is powerful and valuable. Not because of what’s been taken away, but because of what’s been added.

Thanks for the comment, and for the kind words. I did note them and they are appreciated, as is the critique.

At this point, I’m just very curious to see how an unflawed bottle (if available) of the same 2008 Condes de Albarei Albariño would fare under your review system, Josh. We’d probably all give a badly flawed bottle a 63 or lower. So that doesn’t tell me much. But if I knew what your system awards to a decent-to-good Albariño, then I could start to meaningfully calibrate your review against my own experiences.

James, I always naturally understood the 100 point scale as similar to test scoring (A, B, C, D and F). Anything under 70 is below average. What if a wine deserved a 71? Not a great wine, but definitely average and acceptable enough. If we changed to a 30-point scale, the same wine would earn a 1. On a scale from 1-30, 1 would be perceived as non-drinkable poison — a death sentence.

But you do have a point about grade inflation. No matter the scale, how to condition people to use more of it, rather than to cluster most scores between 85-92? I don’t know the answer to that one.

You owed it to everyone involved to get a second bottle.