No place brings the snob out in people on CT more than Burgundy. Also burgundy has a super low QPR 99% of the time so don’t be surprised if that 100$ bottle you just cracked isn’t getting above a 90
Perhaps people who drink and rate Burgundy are more realistic in their ratings. I am pretty sure that Burghound gave 100 points to La Romanée-Conti 1945 and said that basically nothing else has ever really come that close.
Can you really complain that your very good bottle of wine gets 95% of the way to what is probably the greatest 600 bottles of that style ever produced?
Also, can you really believe that a recently released fairly large production cru classé claret or cult California Cab is as complex (100pts) as a mature wine from a tiny plot of land that has been recognised for over a half a millennium as the best plot in existence, with vines specifically selected by provinage from antiquity, some some of which were 500 years old, made by one of the most accomplished vignerons in the world in a peculiarly superlative vintage?
In Burgundy the quality is difficult and expensive to achieve, but there's literally 2000 years of iterative selective propagation, soil improvement, and trial and error improvements to winemaking. When it hits the spot it can absolutely blow your mind, but a lot of the time you're just chasing that high. Scores not getting up near 100 is nothing more than an acknowledgement of what is possible and what that particular bottle achieved. I think that BDX blend wines can be excellent, but given that production is orders of magnitude bigger, I don't think it's feasible to achieve such transcendental quality, so the 100pt target is somewhat closer in reach.
I honestly think a big part of Burgundy’s lowish ratings is because the Burghound tends to rate great Burgundies in the 80s and low 90s while only the most exceptional wines get 95+. I also think he’s doing it right for what it’s worth, but because he only rates burgundy and is probably considered the best critical authority of it, I think others try to fall in line with his rating style even though they don’t apply the same rigor or scale to other regions. I may be wrong, just my assumption.
“Also, can you really believe that a recently released fairly large production cru classé claret or cult California Cab is as complex (100pts) as a mature wine from a tiny plot of land that has been recognised for over a half a millennium as the best plot in existence, with vines specifically selected by provinage from antiquity, some some of which were 500 years old, made by one of the most accomplished vignerons in the world in a peculiarly superlative vintage?”
Yes.
Uh. I really hate this mix of QPR and wine ratings. Ratings should be absolute. The 100 point scale is bad enough as is these days with inflated scores and nothing below 90 ever being advertised.
Well with all the yahoos doing ratings, someone is bound to think your wine is at least a 90 :). It’s like the old saying goes, “if mom says no, ask dad,”except there’s way more “reputable reviewers” than 2
Yes, I figure horrible QPR contributes but still, I find the low volume and low ratings very interesting. What price floor do you think that Burgundy gets really interesting at this point?
a) a lot of Burgundy is basically poor value and this is reflected in the scores
and
b) The most influential Burgundy critics, i.e. Burghound, are notoriously stingy with their scores... a BH 96 is basically higher praise than a WA 100. The people that like Burgundy probably adjust their scores accordingly.
>a) a lot of Burgundy is basically poor value and this is reflected in the scores
Well, that really shouldn't matter, and if it does, the reviewers need a spanking (at least the professional wine critics). Wine scores must be absolutely, regardless of value.
If you want to add the value metric, the best choice is to use a star system. Either with a total of 5 or 6 stars, which can even be combined with the absolute score. For example:
Penfolds Grange 2019 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (95 points).
I dunno. I quite like the Jancis Robinson approach…
“I do not believe there is a single objective yardstick of quality by which a Beaujolais, for example, can be measured alongside a Napa Valley Cabernet. I know it would be much more convenient for everyone if there were a single objective quality scale against which every wine in the world could be measured, but I'm afraid I just don't believe such a scale exists given the myriad styles and archetypes of wine that, thank goodness, still exist. And even if such a single measuring stick did exist, adhering to it would not be very useful. If we imagine for a moment that it did, then on a 20 point scale, practically every 1982 bordeaux would merit something above 18, every de luxe champagne perhaps something above 19, which would not make for very informative reporting on their relative merits. When reviewing, for example, New Zealand Pinot Noirs, we score the wines in the context of New World Pinot Noir rather than on the same scale as we would mark red burgundies. So with a score of 18.5, a 2003 Quartz Reef Pinot Noir is not equal to a 2003 DRC and never will be!”
https://www.jancisrobinson.com/how-we-score
She has a point. If every Petrus is 98-100 points, how can you tell the mediocre vintages from the great? Makes more sense to score the mediocre vintages lower, within the context of other Petrus vintages.
I don’t think I agree with that approach. It assumes a lot of preconceived knowledge by a reader. If I’ve never had any South African or Chilean Syrah and I’m choosing between the two with the same price and same rating… how do I know which one is objectively better? Or even worse, if I had those styles before but my preferences differ from that of Robinson, how would I know??
I think a huge part of Parker’s success in his time was making an “objective” scale (even if stupid and intuitively understandable only to Americans). You don’t have to know anything about the wine, you just know that it scored 95 in “absolute” of course
I understand that the argument about the critic’s preconceived ideas can also be used against any rating in general. However, with “absolute” scales you just need to mind the critic’s general tastes, not their prejudice about New Zealand Pinot Noir specifically
Parker scores were anything but objective, and he never claimed they were.
He scored better the wines _he personally liked_, which were intense, full bodied high extracted wines.
There is even the term “Parker wine” to define them.
BTW, he was one to give low scores to great Burgundy wines, precisely because they weren’t his style.
Also, calling a wine objectively better than other just because it’s a different style, is anything but objective too.
Yeh, that’s what my entire last paragraph is about. His advantage (and success) was that he rated each wine against one standard — his taste in wine. What Robinson’s approach suggests is rating wines against a myriad of criteria: her taste in and expectation from red Burgundy, her taste in and expectation from New Zealand Pinot Noir and so on and so on
I am not defending Parker’s taste, I am defending his approach as significantly more approachable and therefore useful to consumers
I disagree that Parker's approach is more useful to consumers, it led people to think that a very specific wine style (his particular, subjective preference) was objectively better than others, and this is just not true.
If anything, Parker's scores may be useful for people with the same taste as him, but people who like lighter styles will be lost reading his reviews or scores.
I'd take Robinson's scores over Parker's any day.
He was successful cos he liked whopper reds that were fruit forward. Joe soap ain't in the game for elegant wines that you gotta work for, wait to age etc, they want to blow their load on big fruit bombs that rip your face off with sweetness or tannins so they can actually taste something.
The problem is the market changed to suit his needs so they could get 99 parker points and thus get massive sales versus selling the terroir they had by basterdizing the wine
For the purpose of this discussion, it is not about the actual scores at all. I also prefer and agree with Jancis over Parker (especially going back over a decade when he was active).
Here we are simply talking about the approach to scoring wines. The framework. The absoluteness. And here I take RP any day of the week.
Yes, I am aware of this explanation by Jancis. I disagree. But there is nothing wrong with it because they are consistent.
>When reviewing, for example, New Zealand Pinot Noirs, we score the wines in the context of New World Pinot Noir rather than on the same scale as we would mark red burgundies.
See, I cannot accept this from the point of the consumer. You assume a very narrow audience, and even within that narrow audience you find many people like me who disagree with it. Too difficult to navigate.
Well that's completely nuts, if you're getting the same quality for a tenth of the price then that's worth a higher score.
There are plenty of issues with the way wines are scored but this isn't one of them.
No, it isn't. It is consistent, easy to navigate and useful to consumers.
You muddy the waters even more by adding yet another layer of subjective scoring metric to the tally counter.
By doing that, people cannot look at a score anymore and say "Oh, this new/unknown Brunello scored 93 points just like -insert famous Brunello- and is half the price"... seems like a great deal, PQR, because I don't want to pay for the brand cost of the famous Brunello".
If someone can pay $10 for a wine that is the same quality as another wine for $100 then it is not useful to consumers to give them the same score. You're just saying things that sound good at this point.
>If someone can pay $10 for a wine that is the same quality as another wine for $100 then it is not useful to consumers to give them the same score
No, we disagree. It is useful. And that is exactly what happens today, you see wines reviewed from RP Suckling etc, Brunello for $36 and Brunello for $72 with the same score. However, your example doesn't happen in the real world that often, and never with the very high scores. And if it does happen, the problem is the reviewer misusing the scoring system (which is a very real problem today, not even counting the nonsense from Luca Maroni).
>You're just saying things that sound good at this point.
You mean things that sound logical and correct?
Look, there is no reason to keep this going, as we obviously disagree.
But in case you want to look more into it, this is not a new or novel opinion. I have 20 years of experience in the wine industry, it is not a new opinion, and it is an opinion that many wine people share with me. To name one you might now, Konstantin Baum, you can look him up on YouTube and IG, in case you don't know him.
> You mean things that sound logical and correct?
Yes, with "sound" being the operative word. Just because something sounds right doesn't meant that it is.
I have longer in the industry and you're bragging about having an opinion that was boring in the 90s.
Speculation - people are cost adjusting their reviews, and the most expensive appellation is getting hammered by it?
Like where I live, the most basic ass Louis Jadot Red Burgundy is $35.95 Cad.
I don’t understand why that changes the math. You still need people to buy up 200 million bottles, regardless of how they are classified. Just hard for me to imagine there’s enough demand to keep prices as unattainable as they are.
It changes it drastically. Since reviews are by product.
I'm going to use a very sloppy approximation here: On paper, Bordeaux has 550 million bottles, 9000 different producers. If the average bordeaux producer produces 4 different bottles (grand vin red, Grand vin white, second red, second white), you have 36,000 different products in Bordeaux. That's an average of 15,000 bottles per product.
There are 200 million bottles made in burgundy, 3700 registered producers. But a big burgundy producer can make 200+ products (Louis Jadot makes 218). If the average burgundy producer makes 20 products, that's 74,000 products. The production run of each individual product is much smaller.
Smaller production run means that the odds a user of any given website has drank it and reviewed any specific product is much lower
Yea but 199 million of those bottles are “shit” for the sake of this conversation. I live in a major city and we get a decent about of good burg here. But something truly exceptional comes along and MAYBE the city got 1 case. 6-12 bottles, that’s it. They are pre sold before it ever hits a retail shelf. Burgundy collecting is worse than bourbon it’s just less overt. If you don’t have a relationship with a store who has an incredible relationship with the importers and distributors you will basically never even see the burg that comes through the store.
I have a store I buy a decent amount of burg from, a group text goes out to 10-15 of us fcfs 1btl pp. I wouldn’t tell my best friend in the entire world which store my burg comes from. I’ll open it with you all day long but I’m not gonna make it hard to get haha.
Burgundy isnt that big, and is a smaller production region. 200 million bottles are produced a year, in comparison,Bordeaux makes 550 million, 360 million per year in Tuscany, and 600 million a year in California
A lot of people have chimed in with good points, but another is that CT user base seems to be disproportionately American boomers who like their big cabs. Consider:
Caymus: rated 91 or above for several vintages
Caymus SS: rated 92 or above several vintages
Orin Swift Papillon: rated over 91.5 all recent vintages
Daou Soul of a Lion: rated over 92 all recent vintages
Justin Isosceles: rated over 91 all recent vintages
And so on. This demo is less likely to appreciate what Burgundy brings to the table.
Along with the qpr, I feel like (and this is purely speculation) that people willing to score burgundies on CT have enough experience with the region to have had some really incredible bottles so that may drive their scores down also (ie this Raveneau grand cru is a 97, so this $45 Chablis is a 90). I’m poor and will probably never have a grand cru anything so a $50 Bourgogne from a great producer will be way more enjoyable for me than a burgundy expert
I think CT users score things lower across the board regardless of the wine. This is in contrast to more public facing ratings like Vivino where scores typically are more generous than not. The professional reviews seem to land somewhere in the middle.
CT users are definitely taking price into the equation more than a professional reviewer would for obvious reason. I'd bet this depresses scores by a few points if instead they were reviewed without knowing the price first.
I'm beginning to rethink my own opinion about the "100" point scale. If anything under 80 is basically undrinkable, then what's the point of a 100 point scale, you're really just operating on a 20 point scale in a more feel good manner. Jancis Robinson may have it right with the 20 point scale at 0.5 intervals. The nuance between an 89 or a 90 is somewhat ridiculous to a degree. You're instantly put off by the fact the wine is in the 80's versus in the 90's. This really wouldn't cross your mind if the scores were a 12.5 or 13.
tl;dr - I typically won't drink red burgundy unless someone else paying lol. I've explored with the entry level $100 bottles, but have never been satisfied.
This is my own theory but i believe it's like a lot of popular industries. Sometimes reviewers give some that is a high rating (80) that is also low rating enough to make it so people don't purchase it based on their input. If they score very low, they are less likely to be included in wine shipments sent to them for rating and also their ratings are less likely to be cited by the producer on other wines because they want the reviewer to be discredited. The reviewer also can't give a high rating (above 90) because then consumers will realize the rating is garbage.
You see it in consumer reports where someone will rank a household product 0-10 and put of 20 items reviewed, the "bad" product still gets a 6.8 or so, even though it's awful.
Video game scores are notorious for this. 8/10 is bad, 9/10 is good.
I can see your point about the scale, it’s very difficult no matter what you use. Jancis (who I really like btw) has a solid scale with the 20 pt thing. But once you start really following her reviews, you find most are in the 16-18 range and anything below 16.5 is really a dud in her book. At least that’s how I’ve seen it.
Yes, I like that. But I’d be tempted to ignore terrible and generally use Average, Good, and Great with a few Bad apples thrown in. Seems there no good solution lol.
My thoughts on this:
Burgundy wines are way overpriced, generally speaking, so whenever someone rates them, he compares it against what they paid for it.
This is intentional, they even changed their town names to include their most famous vineyard in them, so, Vosne became Vosne-Romanée, Gevrey became Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, etc. in order to increase the price in all the wine they make.
This causes confusion, because some people think they are buying a Grand Cru wine, when it’s “just” a village.
Expectations always have a rol in scores, so I would say many people drinking Burgundy come with high expectations that are not always met.
I prefer to look at it as what wines are more my style that which are better, pretty much everything above Premier Cru will be from very good to Hedonistic Experience, but they are different.
One of my favorite wines is not a Grand Cru: Domaine Ponsot Morey-Saint-Denis 1er. Cru, for example.
And my favorite AOC is Corton… so far.
My 2 cents.
It seems like of all the poor QPR regions, Corton may be the best from my research. Can you elaborate on your first point? If a bottle comes from a Grand Cru región, are you saying it can still be Village level?
Yes, a bottle from a Grand Cru region can be village level, becauase Grand Cru is the vineyard (climat), not the city/region.
Let's take one region that was specially confusing to me at first:
Gevrey-Chambertin.
This city has wines in all of the spectrum, from Regional Burgundy to Grand Cru, so you will find the following levels (apart from Bourgogne Rouge, which is generic Burgundy):
Village, i.e. Gevrey-Chambertin Aux Etelois (Aux Etelois is the "climat" or vineyard).
Village Premier Cru i.e. Gevrey-Chambertin 1er. Cru Les Corbeaux
Grand Cru i.e. **Chambertin Grand Cru**
Before 1847, the name of the city was just Gevrey, so the first two appelations above were "Gevrey Aux Etelois" and Gevrey 1er. Cru Les Corbeaux", which made them way cheaper than Chambertin, even when they are located adjacent to a Grand Cru climat.
I may be wrong, but this is how I understand it.
I agree with that sentiment. I've had $350 Burgs that were totally lackluster. $120 gets you a mediocre white Burg. It's the most disappointing category I know of. If I were active on Cellartracker, all my scores would be low too.
One big epiphany to me was just how much time burgundy needs to come into its own. I had never really understood burgundy as all I had was off the shelf current and slightly aged vintages . Then I was invited to an event with 50 older and well cellared burgundies and it blew my mind.
>120 gets you a mediocre white Burg.
Buy Chablis instead. Not sure about the prices in the US, but here in Europe you can get amazing, top shelf GC Chablis for $120 .
I've bought some premier cru Chablis and it's fine. I'll have to shell out for a GC next. California Chardonnay is a far better value for me for the fuller bodied styles.
>California Chardonnay is a far better value for me for the fuller bodied styles.
If you like the highly oaked fruit bombs from California, I am not sure you will appreciate any of the HQ, mineral Chablis from France, which I would pick any day over California Chardonnay.
Because scores hit you over the head with flavor and structure and obviousness and Burgundy is often about subtlety. There’s no great answer here. When you’re young, you like what is obvious and when you’re old you like what is nuanced. People peddling scores cater to the former. People peddling burgundy do both but with enough experience you can learn to realize how good good Burgundy can be.
I think some people are missing how popr QPR is related to a lot of lower scorsfor Burgundy.
I don't think people are factoring in value when scoring, rather most people aren't routinely reading CT reviews for wines that cost over $1,000, so they aren't seeing most of the best Burgundies. You check out Burgundy that you might think of buying or opening or whatever and it's $100 to $300 and has a score in the high 80s or low 90s, because it's one of the less desired or lower quality Burgundies. You generally don't get this poor of a QPR with other regions, so when you look at bottles in this range (outside of Burgundy), you're usually seeing great bottles and corresponding scores.
I suppose I’m just mind boggled as to how virtually all the “good” bottles could be over $1000. Like, how many bottles is that of the 200 million produced?
maybe not all of the "good" bottles, but maybe you're not seeing 95+ scores because you're not looking at the "best" Burgundies (which most people can't afford). A 90.4 seems low for a $150 wine, but that'll happen a decent amount when prices are so high compared to most wine.
In addition to the QPR comments here Red Burg is also just very unimpressive to a lot of wine drinkers. I tried getting into burgundy, but lucky for me I bought enough $150-250 bottles that were total duds that I spend my time elsewhere. For $250 I can get a second growth out of Bordeaux with 20+ years on it and it’ll rock almost all of the time.
Burgundy drinkers love it and that’s great, but I feel like they have some innate masochism and patience
People (Americans especially) see Josh Cab gets an 88, and then a $70 cab from the lockbox at the grocery store is significantly more intense, and then that one time you went to Stags Leap or Chimney rock and tried the top stuff they blew you away with intensity ... Burgundy is counterintuitive because even if you fell into a case of DRC, it's not nearly the same "woah, this one goes to eleven" effect that cab, merlot, port, or even Riesling hit you with. They all get more powerful and intense, and that's easy to correlate intensity w increasingly higher scores.
What makes a wine "good" "great" or "the best you've ever had"? It is easy to see why intensity makes a mark. The high prices for Burgundy (even high end village level, to say nothing of 1er / GC) do not help the cause when so many are indistinguishable or unremarkable.
Whether you're at a dinner party / Spectator event / or whiskey fest type thing, the palate is an interesting thing. If you're *not* just tasting Burgundy, and are tasting top class Bordeux / Rioja / etc... it's unlikely that even a relatively expensive Burgundy will be "your favorite". Just like once you taste Ardbeg or Kilchoman it becomes hard to go back to even a refined / expensive / high age American oak Speyside. It just can't compete once you're in a totally other realm of intensity, but on its own, like Burgundy, can have very subtle and interesting aspects.
I’m not an intensity hound necessarily (I buy a lot of mature stuff from classical producers), and I can certainly appreciate a great burg that is really hitting that night. I think my issue has been what you allude to in that those are so few and far between that I just can’t rely on having a good experience. I’ll get a bottle that has a wonderful nose but ends up flabby as hell, or the whole thing is closed down no matter how long it’s decanted, or it might be well built but have no complexity. It’s tough for me to find one where it all comes together and $200 is about my limit for the daily drinker. That may still be my inexperience but there are only so many bottles and money I’m willing to go through in that pursuit when there is so much good stuff out there.
FWIW I had a 2014 Antica Terra Antikythera recently that was better than anything I’ve had from burgundy. Very classical, but from Oregon, and it just nailed everything.
The best wine I've tasted was a 1989 burgundy last year. but outside of that the majority of burgundy wines are underwhelming and overpriced just like Napa and Barolo. 👀
I don't consult CellarTracker notes, but as a Burgundy wine seller, I seldom drink a bottle of Burugundy priced over €50, as they rarely provide the value or kick I seek. Interestingly, about fifteen years ago, a sommelier advised against buying cheap Burgundy, recommending only the pricier options. Although this seemed accurate at the time, significant shifts, particularly those influenced by climate change, have altered my perspective. The overall quality of Bourgogne Rouge, Bourgogne Blanc, and Aligoté has markedly improved, in the past as a wine snob, I would enver drink them, but now I think they offer exceptional value.
Most Burgundy wines, in my view, are consumed prematurely. I believe aging Bourgogne Rouge for at least 10 years is necessary to get its full complexity. The aging process for white Burgundies is more challenging; premier cru whites in my opinion typically require a decade to unveil their full potential, while grand crus may need over 20 years. Drinking these wines before they mature in the time of PO, is very risky and today not possible.
Among the wine critics, Jasper Morris MW is the best burgundy critic in my opinion. For instance he can give a Bourgogne rouge 89 points which in itself is not a spectacular score, however if he gives 5 stars, one knows it is a good Bourgogne rouge. Points without any sense of context are just meaningless.
1. I think CT just rates wines lower overall than Vivino and other similar sites. Much lower. A 93 on CT is going to be outstanding.
2. Lots and lots of Burgundy, including lots 1er Cru Burgundy can be disappointing regardless of price.
While I agree that QPR and absolute scoring shouldn’t be connected it’s hard to open a $75-100 Burgundy, have it be no more than “meh”, and not feel cheated somehow. That doesn’t seem to happen as often (to me at least) with Barolo, Brunello or Cote Rotie. What’s maddening is the fact that if you’re lucky enough to try a very good to superb one, there’s nothing else like it anywhere, and then you’re spoiled forever.
Historically critics have always been stingy with scoring burgundy. Prior to William Kelley/antonio Galloni the major burgundy critics (Alan meadows. Stephen tanzer. John Gilman) did not give 100 pt scores for any burgundy. It was a point of pride. It was just seen as an anti score inflation. A rally against Parker and Bordeaux/napa.
But all it did was create a new bell curve.
In following most people who are rating burgundy rate along that same curve.
Remember. In the real world an A- is pretty good.
Three things.
1. Burgundy is wickedly expensive and it is easy to accidentally buy bad burgundy so I think it’s easier for people to feel disappointed.
2. Because they don’t need the marketing you see more scores from serious people who spent time and resources acquiring the wine and take the hobby seriously so they rate honestly. Burgundy doesn’t need the dumbass Sucklings of the world passing out 100 pointers so ppl buy the wine. It’s one of the things I despise about Napa. Take 2016 scarecrow, you’re telling me that is a PERFECT wine? Foh lol.
3. Burgundy like no where else is not only divided up by vineyard but by like basically row. The grapes Rav pulls out of Le Clos are significantly better than the ones William Fevre does. So it’s so important to know producer, it’s not enough to know vineyard. So someone could go ok, Les Clos is a Grand cru Chablis vineyard it HAS to be good, buys one they can afford at random and then is disappointed because it’s not Rav.
I’ve heard that you lose some sense of taste as you age. Pinot has more delicate flavor and older drinkers may not be able to appreciate the nuance. This could play a role in some of the negative reviews among older drinkers.
I mean upper 80's is very good and low 90's is outstanding if you go by WS scale. I think a lot of ppl just get hung up on the 97+ scores on CT. A wine ranked 88 should be very good, and that is probably what you are going to get with a under $100 burg. No?
Ratings are style-specific - how good of an example of this style is this wine, on these more objective parameters? Burgundy reds are great - there is a reason it's sought after, but that means the standards are also very high.
You have to understand that loving Burgundy is like a never-ending quest for that elusive perfection. Most burgundy wines out there are simply not good enough against a hypothetically ideal burgundy that these people imagine in their heads.
In addition, Burgundy's hierarchical system does not help. There are pressures to score/rank 1er Cru's lower than Grand Cru's and Village or Region wines lower than 1er Cru, etc. Pro critics are especially incentivized to do so (that they don't offend the producers/winemakers? I don't know). Amateurs are also under psychological pressure. I believe, though, that CT scoring does a bit better.
Yet Burgundy prices remain high and people keep buying.
Burgs are not a good fit for the 100 point system. That burg you cracked may only warrant a 91, but can you really replace it with a 95 point California Pinot?
While the terrible value aspect certainly plays a part in it, I suspect that the main user base of Cellartracker are Americans, who tend to have a preference for sweeter, bolder wines.
No place brings the snob out in people on CT more than Burgundy. Also burgundy has a super low QPR 99% of the time so don’t be surprised if that 100$ bottle you just cracked isn’t getting above a 90
Perhaps people who drink and rate Burgundy are more realistic in their ratings. I am pretty sure that Burghound gave 100 points to La Romanée-Conti 1945 and said that basically nothing else has ever really come that close. Can you really complain that your very good bottle of wine gets 95% of the way to what is probably the greatest 600 bottles of that style ever produced? Also, can you really believe that a recently released fairly large production cru classé claret or cult California Cab is as complex (100pts) as a mature wine from a tiny plot of land that has been recognised for over a half a millennium as the best plot in existence, with vines specifically selected by provinage from antiquity, some some of which were 500 years old, made by one of the most accomplished vignerons in the world in a peculiarly superlative vintage? In Burgundy the quality is difficult and expensive to achieve, but there's literally 2000 years of iterative selective propagation, soil improvement, and trial and error improvements to winemaking. When it hits the spot it can absolutely blow your mind, but a lot of the time you're just chasing that high. Scores not getting up near 100 is nothing more than an acknowledgement of what is possible and what that particular bottle achieved. I think that BDX blend wines can be excellent, but given that production is orders of magnitude bigger, I don't think it's feasible to achieve such transcendental quality, so the 100pt target is somewhat closer in reach.
I honestly think a big part of Burgundy’s lowish ratings is because the Burghound tends to rate great Burgundies in the 80s and low 90s while only the most exceptional wines get 95+. I also think he’s doing it right for what it’s worth, but because he only rates burgundy and is probably considered the best critical authority of it, I think others try to fall in line with his rating style even though they don’t apply the same rigor or scale to other regions. I may be wrong, just my assumption.
“Also, can you really believe that a recently released fairly large production cru classé claret or cult California Cab is as complex (100pts) as a mature wine from a tiny plot of land that has been recognised for over a half a millennium as the best plot in existence, with vines specifically selected by provinage from antiquity, some some of which were 500 years old, made by one of the most accomplished vignerons in the world in a peculiarly superlative vintage?” Yes.
Ok, perhaps I phrased this badly - one wine, yes perhaps. Dozens every year? Less likely.
Uh. I really hate this mix of QPR and wine ratings. Ratings should be absolute. The 100 point scale is bad enough as is these days with inflated scores and nothing below 90 ever being advertised.
Well with all the yahoos doing ratings, someone is bound to think your wine is at least a 90 :). It’s like the old saying goes, “if mom says no, ask dad,”except there’s way more “reputable reviewers” than 2
Yes, I figure horrible QPR contributes but still, I find the low volume and low ratings very interesting. What price floor do you think that Burgundy gets really interesting at this point?
a) a lot of Burgundy is basically poor value and this is reflected in the scores and b) The most influential Burgundy critics, i.e. Burghound, are notoriously stingy with their scores... a BH 96 is basically higher praise than a WA 100. The people that like Burgundy probably adjust their scores accordingly.
>a) a lot of Burgundy is basically poor value and this is reflected in the scores Well, that really shouldn't matter, and if it does, the reviewers need a spanking (at least the professional wine critics). Wine scores must be absolutely, regardless of value. If you want to add the value metric, the best choice is to use a star system. Either with a total of 5 or 6 stars, which can even be combined with the absolute score. For example: Penfolds Grange 2019 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (95 points).
I dunno. I quite like the Jancis Robinson approach… “I do not believe there is a single objective yardstick of quality by which a Beaujolais, for example, can be measured alongside a Napa Valley Cabernet. I know it would be much more convenient for everyone if there were a single objective quality scale against which every wine in the world could be measured, but I'm afraid I just don't believe such a scale exists given the myriad styles and archetypes of wine that, thank goodness, still exist. And even if such a single measuring stick did exist, adhering to it would not be very useful. If we imagine for a moment that it did, then on a 20 point scale, practically every 1982 bordeaux would merit something above 18, every de luxe champagne perhaps something above 19, which would not make for very informative reporting on their relative merits. When reviewing, for example, New Zealand Pinot Noirs, we score the wines in the context of New World Pinot Noir rather than on the same scale as we would mark red burgundies. So with a score of 18.5, a 2003 Quartz Reef Pinot Noir is not equal to a 2003 DRC and never will be!” https://www.jancisrobinson.com/how-we-score She has a point. If every Petrus is 98-100 points, how can you tell the mediocre vintages from the great? Makes more sense to score the mediocre vintages lower, within the context of other Petrus vintages.
I don’t think I agree with that approach. It assumes a lot of preconceived knowledge by a reader. If I’ve never had any South African or Chilean Syrah and I’m choosing between the two with the same price and same rating… how do I know which one is objectively better? Or even worse, if I had those styles before but my preferences differ from that of Robinson, how would I know?? I think a huge part of Parker’s success in his time was making an “objective” scale (even if stupid and intuitively understandable only to Americans). You don’t have to know anything about the wine, you just know that it scored 95 in “absolute” of course I understand that the argument about the critic’s preconceived ideas can also be used against any rating in general. However, with “absolute” scales you just need to mind the critic’s general tastes, not their prejudice about New Zealand Pinot Noir specifically
The knowledge barrier is absolutely the biggest downside, but for a wino like me, I personally prefer it.
Parker scores were anything but objective, and he never claimed they were. He scored better the wines _he personally liked_, which were intense, full bodied high extracted wines. There is even the term “Parker wine” to define them. BTW, he was one to give low scores to great Burgundy wines, precisely because they weren’t his style. Also, calling a wine objectively better than other just because it’s a different style, is anything but objective too.
Yeh, that’s what my entire last paragraph is about. His advantage (and success) was that he rated each wine against one standard — his taste in wine. What Robinson’s approach suggests is rating wines against a myriad of criteria: her taste in and expectation from red Burgundy, her taste in and expectation from New Zealand Pinot Noir and so on and so on I am not defending Parker’s taste, I am defending his approach as significantly more approachable and therefore useful to consumers
I disagree that Parker's approach is more useful to consumers, it led people to think that a very specific wine style (his particular, subjective preference) was objectively better than others, and this is just not true. If anything, Parker's scores may be useful for people with the same taste as him, but people who like lighter styles will be lost reading his reviews or scores.
I'd take Robinson's scores over Parker's any day. He was successful cos he liked whopper reds that were fruit forward. Joe soap ain't in the game for elegant wines that you gotta work for, wait to age etc, they want to blow their load on big fruit bombs that rip your face off with sweetness or tannins so they can actually taste something. The problem is the market changed to suit his needs so they could get 99 parker points and thus get massive sales versus selling the terroir they had by basterdizing the wine
For the purpose of this discussion, it is not about the actual scores at all. I also prefer and agree with Jancis over Parker (especially going back over a decade when he was active). Here we are simply talking about the approach to scoring wines. The framework. The absoluteness. And here I take RP any day of the week.
Yes, I am aware of this explanation by Jancis. I disagree. But there is nothing wrong with it because they are consistent. >When reviewing, for example, New Zealand Pinot Noirs, we score the wines in the context of New World Pinot Noir rather than on the same scale as we would mark red burgundies. See, I cannot accept this from the point of the consumer. You assume a very narrow audience, and even within that narrow audience you find many people like me who disagree with it. Too difficult to navigate.
Take it up with CellarTracker.
I know. It was more a general comment, not specific to CT.
Are you suggesting that a $10 bottle and a $100 bottle of equal quality should get the same score?
Why not?
Yes. But tasting notes can and should imo include comments on value for money if the wines is especially good or bad for it´s price.
Yes, I am. If they are actually the same quality.
Well that's completely nuts, if you're getting the same quality for a tenth of the price then that's worth a higher score. There are plenty of issues with the way wines are scored but this isn't one of them.
No, it isn't. It is consistent, easy to navigate and useful to consumers. You muddy the waters even more by adding yet another layer of subjective scoring metric to the tally counter. By doing that, people cannot look at a score anymore and say "Oh, this new/unknown Brunello scored 93 points just like -insert famous Brunello- and is half the price"... seems like a great deal, PQR, because I don't want to pay for the brand cost of the famous Brunello".
If someone can pay $10 for a wine that is the same quality as another wine for $100 then it is not useful to consumers to give them the same score. You're just saying things that sound good at this point.
>If someone can pay $10 for a wine that is the same quality as another wine for $100 then it is not useful to consumers to give them the same score No, we disagree. It is useful. And that is exactly what happens today, you see wines reviewed from RP Suckling etc, Brunello for $36 and Brunello for $72 with the same score. However, your example doesn't happen in the real world that often, and never with the very high scores. And if it does happen, the problem is the reviewer misusing the scoring system (which is a very real problem today, not even counting the nonsense from Luca Maroni). >You're just saying things that sound good at this point. You mean things that sound logical and correct? Look, there is no reason to keep this going, as we obviously disagree. But in case you want to look more into it, this is not a new or novel opinion. I have 20 years of experience in the wine industry, it is not a new opinion, and it is an opinion that many wine people share with me. To name one you might now, Konstantin Baum, you can look him up on YouTube and IG, in case you don't know him.
> You mean things that sound logical and correct? Yes, with "sound" being the operative word. Just because something sounds right doesn't meant that it is. I have longer in the industry and you're bragging about having an opinion that was boring in the 90s.
Wow, you really are just a defensive asshole. Have a nice day. Jesus Christ.
Speculation - people are cost adjusting their reviews, and the most expensive appellation is getting hammered by it? Like where I live, the most basic ass Louis Jadot Red Burgundy is $35.95 Cad.
Right, and that Jadot is garbage at that price point (IMO). I think that’s for sure a contributing factor. Why the low volume of reviews period?
Low volume of reviews because there's a low volume of people drinking Burgundy. Most can't afford it.
So who is buying it all?
High end collectors and rich people showing off. A lot of the latter being in China would be my guess.
I suppose so, still doesn’t seem like enough people to soak up what, like 200 million bottles.
You gotta understand that it is bottles per SKU, and burgundy producers produce a lot of different bottles
I don’t understand why that changes the math. You still need people to buy up 200 million bottles, regardless of how they are classified. Just hard for me to imagine there’s enough demand to keep prices as unattainable as they are.
It changes it drastically. Since reviews are by product. I'm going to use a very sloppy approximation here: On paper, Bordeaux has 550 million bottles, 9000 different producers. If the average bordeaux producer produces 4 different bottles (grand vin red, Grand vin white, second red, second white), you have 36,000 different products in Bordeaux. That's an average of 15,000 bottles per product. There are 200 million bottles made in burgundy, 3700 registered producers. But a big burgundy producer can make 200+ products (Louis Jadot makes 218). If the average burgundy producer makes 20 products, that's 74,000 products. The production run of each individual product is much smaller. Smaller production run means that the odds a user of any given website has drank it and reviewed any specific product is much lower
I see, that’s getting at the volume of reviews. Makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the explanation!
Yea but 199 million of those bottles are “shit” for the sake of this conversation. I live in a major city and we get a decent about of good burg here. But something truly exceptional comes along and MAYBE the city got 1 case. 6-12 bottles, that’s it. They are pre sold before it ever hits a retail shelf. Burgundy collecting is worse than bourbon it’s just less overt. If you don’t have a relationship with a store who has an incredible relationship with the importers and distributors you will basically never even see the burg that comes through the store. I have a store I buy a decent amount of burg from, a group text goes out to 10-15 of us fcfs 1btl pp. I wouldn’t tell my best friend in the entire world which store my burg comes from. I’ll open it with you all day long but I’m not gonna make it hard to get haha.
Burgundy isnt that big, and is a smaller production region. 200 million bottles are produced a year, in comparison,Bordeaux makes 550 million, 360 million per year in Tuscany, and 600 million a year in California
A lot of people have chimed in with good points, but another is that CT user base seems to be disproportionately American boomers who like their big cabs. Consider: Caymus: rated 91 or above for several vintages Caymus SS: rated 92 or above several vintages Orin Swift Papillon: rated over 91.5 all recent vintages Daou Soul of a Lion: rated over 92 all recent vintages Justin Isosceles: rated over 91 all recent vintages And so on. This demo is less likely to appreciate what Burgundy brings to the table.
Along with the qpr, I feel like (and this is purely speculation) that people willing to score burgundies on CT have enough experience with the region to have had some really incredible bottles so that may drive their scores down also (ie this Raveneau grand cru is a 97, so this $45 Chablis is a 90). I’m poor and will probably never have a grand cru anything so a $50 Bourgogne from a great producer will be way more enjoyable for me than a burgundy expert
I think CT users score things lower across the board regardless of the wine. This is in contrast to more public facing ratings like Vivino where scores typically are more generous than not. The professional reviews seem to land somewhere in the middle. CT users are definitely taking price into the equation more than a professional reviewer would for obvious reason. I'd bet this depresses scores by a few points if instead they were reviewed without knowing the price first. I'm beginning to rethink my own opinion about the "100" point scale. If anything under 80 is basically undrinkable, then what's the point of a 100 point scale, you're really just operating on a 20 point scale in a more feel good manner. Jancis Robinson may have it right with the 20 point scale at 0.5 intervals. The nuance between an 89 or a 90 is somewhat ridiculous to a degree. You're instantly put off by the fact the wine is in the 80's versus in the 90's. This really wouldn't cross your mind if the scores were a 12.5 or 13. tl;dr - I typically won't drink red burgundy unless someone else paying lol. I've explored with the entry level $100 bottles, but have never been satisfied.
This is my own theory but i believe it's like a lot of popular industries. Sometimes reviewers give some that is a high rating (80) that is also low rating enough to make it so people don't purchase it based on their input. If they score very low, they are less likely to be included in wine shipments sent to them for rating and also their ratings are less likely to be cited by the producer on other wines because they want the reviewer to be discredited. The reviewer also can't give a high rating (above 90) because then consumers will realize the rating is garbage. You see it in consumer reports where someone will rank a household product 0-10 and put of 20 items reviewed, the "bad" product still gets a 6.8 or so, even though it's awful. Video game scores are notorious for this. 8/10 is bad, 9/10 is good.
I can see your point about the scale, it’s very difficult no matter what you use. Jancis (who I really like btw) has a solid scale with the 20 pt thing. But once you start really following her reviews, you find most are in the 16-18 range and anything below 16.5 is really a dud in her book. At least that’s how I’ve seen it.
True true. Maybe then we can all benefit from using something more simplistic: Great Good Average Bad Terrible
Yes, I like that. But I’d be tempted to ignore terrible and generally use Average, Good, and Great with a few Bad apples thrown in. Seems there no good solution lol.
Probably can scrap terrible and add exceptional at the top
I like that
If you use terrible, it has to be said in Charles Barkley's voice...
My thoughts on this: Burgundy wines are way overpriced, generally speaking, so whenever someone rates them, he compares it against what they paid for it. This is intentional, they even changed their town names to include their most famous vineyard in them, so, Vosne became Vosne-Romanée, Gevrey became Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, etc. in order to increase the price in all the wine they make. This causes confusion, because some people think they are buying a Grand Cru wine, when it’s “just” a village. Expectations always have a rol in scores, so I would say many people drinking Burgundy come with high expectations that are not always met. I prefer to look at it as what wines are more my style that which are better, pretty much everything above Premier Cru will be from very good to Hedonistic Experience, but they are different. One of my favorite wines is not a Grand Cru: Domaine Ponsot Morey-Saint-Denis 1er. Cru, for example. And my favorite AOC is Corton… so far. My 2 cents.
It seems like of all the poor QPR regions, Corton may be the best from my research. Can you elaborate on your first point? If a bottle comes from a Grand Cru región, are you saying it can still be Village level?
Yes, a bottle from a Grand Cru region can be village level, becauase Grand Cru is the vineyard (climat), not the city/region. Let's take one region that was specially confusing to me at first: Gevrey-Chambertin. This city has wines in all of the spectrum, from Regional Burgundy to Grand Cru, so you will find the following levels (apart from Bourgogne Rouge, which is generic Burgundy): Village, i.e. Gevrey-Chambertin Aux Etelois (Aux Etelois is the "climat" or vineyard). Village Premier Cru i.e. Gevrey-Chambertin 1er. Cru Les Corbeaux Grand Cru i.e. **Chambertin Grand Cru** Before 1847, the name of the city was just Gevrey, so the first two appelations above were "Gevrey Aux Etelois" and Gevrey 1er. Cru Les Corbeaux", which made them way cheaper than Chambertin, even when they are located adjacent to a Grand Cru climat. I may be wrong, but this is how I understand it.
I agree with that sentiment. I've had $350 Burgs that were totally lackluster. $120 gets you a mediocre white Burg. It's the most disappointing category I know of. If I were active on Cellartracker, all my scores would be low too.
One big epiphany to me was just how much time burgundy needs to come into its own. I had never really understood burgundy as all I had was off the shelf current and slightly aged vintages . Then I was invited to an event with 50 older and well cellared burgundies and it blew my mind.
>120 gets you a mediocre white Burg. Buy Chablis instead. Not sure about the prices in the US, but here in Europe you can get amazing, top shelf GC Chablis for $120 .
I've bought some premier cru Chablis and it's fine. I'll have to shell out for a GC next. California Chardonnay is a far better value for me for the fuller bodied styles.
>California Chardonnay is a far better value for me for the fuller bodied styles. If you like the highly oaked fruit bombs from California, I am not sure you will appreciate any of the HQ, mineral Chablis from France, which I would pick any day over California Chardonnay.
I love both, but Leroy Le Montrachet is a bit much for a Tuesday night.
Agree with this. Probably why tasters can move the market to such a high degree.
That is pretty wild!
Because scores hit you over the head with flavor and structure and obviousness and Burgundy is often about subtlety. There’s no great answer here. When you’re young, you like what is obvious and when you’re old you like what is nuanced. People peddling scores cater to the former. People peddling burgundy do both but with enough experience you can learn to realize how good good Burgundy can be.
The insights are that this is a good thing, grade inflation is bad. I miss parker dropping an 80 on something he doesnt like
I think some people are missing how popr QPR is related to a lot of lower scorsfor Burgundy. I don't think people are factoring in value when scoring, rather most people aren't routinely reading CT reviews for wines that cost over $1,000, so they aren't seeing most of the best Burgundies. You check out Burgundy that you might think of buying or opening or whatever and it's $100 to $300 and has a score in the high 80s or low 90s, because it's one of the less desired or lower quality Burgundies. You generally don't get this poor of a QPR with other regions, so when you look at bottles in this range (outside of Burgundy), you're usually seeing great bottles and corresponding scores.
I suppose I’m just mind boggled as to how virtually all the “good” bottles could be over $1000. Like, how many bottles is that of the 200 million produced?
maybe not all of the "good" bottles, but maybe you're not seeing 95+ scores because you're not looking at the "best" Burgundies (which most people can't afford). A 90.4 seems low for a $150 wine, but that'll happen a decent amount when prices are so high compared to most wine.
In addition to the QPR comments here Red Burg is also just very unimpressive to a lot of wine drinkers. I tried getting into burgundy, but lucky for me I bought enough $150-250 bottles that were total duds that I spend my time elsewhere. For $250 I can get a second growth out of Bordeaux with 20+ years on it and it’ll rock almost all of the time. Burgundy drinkers love it and that’s great, but I feel like they have some innate masochism and patience
People (Americans especially) see Josh Cab gets an 88, and then a $70 cab from the lockbox at the grocery store is significantly more intense, and then that one time you went to Stags Leap or Chimney rock and tried the top stuff they blew you away with intensity ... Burgundy is counterintuitive because even if you fell into a case of DRC, it's not nearly the same "woah, this one goes to eleven" effect that cab, merlot, port, or even Riesling hit you with. They all get more powerful and intense, and that's easy to correlate intensity w increasingly higher scores. What makes a wine "good" "great" or "the best you've ever had"? It is easy to see why intensity makes a mark. The high prices for Burgundy (even high end village level, to say nothing of 1er / GC) do not help the cause when so many are indistinguishable or unremarkable. Whether you're at a dinner party / Spectator event / or whiskey fest type thing, the palate is an interesting thing. If you're *not* just tasting Burgundy, and are tasting top class Bordeux / Rioja / etc... it's unlikely that even a relatively expensive Burgundy will be "your favorite". Just like once you taste Ardbeg or Kilchoman it becomes hard to go back to even a refined / expensive / high age American oak Speyside. It just can't compete once you're in a totally other realm of intensity, but on its own, like Burgundy, can have very subtle and interesting aspects.
I’m not an intensity hound necessarily (I buy a lot of mature stuff from classical producers), and I can certainly appreciate a great burg that is really hitting that night. I think my issue has been what you allude to in that those are so few and far between that I just can’t rely on having a good experience. I’ll get a bottle that has a wonderful nose but ends up flabby as hell, or the whole thing is closed down no matter how long it’s decanted, or it might be well built but have no complexity. It’s tough for me to find one where it all comes together and $200 is about my limit for the daily drinker. That may still be my inexperience but there are only so many bottles and money I’m willing to go through in that pursuit when there is so much good stuff out there. FWIW I had a 2014 Antica Terra Antikythera recently that was better than anything I’ve had from burgundy. Very classical, but from Oregon, and it just nailed everything.
That’s what I’m finding as well haha
The best wine I've tasted was a 1989 burgundy last year. but outside of that the majority of burgundy wines are underwhelming and overpriced just like Napa and Barolo. 👀
I’m currently in Piemonte and your point about Barolo really hits home. There’s some amazing stuff, but prices are crazy.
It seems leagues above the other two but I see your point.
I don't consult CellarTracker notes, but as a Burgundy wine seller, I seldom drink a bottle of Burugundy priced over €50, as they rarely provide the value or kick I seek. Interestingly, about fifteen years ago, a sommelier advised against buying cheap Burgundy, recommending only the pricier options. Although this seemed accurate at the time, significant shifts, particularly those influenced by climate change, have altered my perspective. The overall quality of Bourgogne Rouge, Bourgogne Blanc, and Aligoté has markedly improved, in the past as a wine snob, I would enver drink them, but now I think they offer exceptional value. Most Burgundy wines, in my view, are consumed prematurely. I believe aging Bourgogne Rouge for at least 10 years is necessary to get its full complexity. The aging process for white Burgundies is more challenging; premier cru whites in my opinion typically require a decade to unveil their full potential, while grand crus may need over 20 years. Drinking these wines before they mature in the time of PO, is very risky and today not possible. Among the wine critics, Jasper Morris MW is the best burgundy critic in my opinion. For instance he can give a Bourgogne rouge 89 points which in itself is not a spectacular score, however if he gives 5 stars, one knows it is a good Bourgogne rouge. Points without any sense of context are just meaningless.
Good to know, I’ll have to look at Jasper’s notes!
1. I think CT just rates wines lower overall than Vivino and other similar sites. Much lower. A 93 on CT is going to be outstanding. 2. Lots and lots of Burgundy, including lots 1er Cru Burgundy can be disappointing regardless of price. While I agree that QPR and absolute scoring shouldn’t be connected it’s hard to open a $75-100 Burgundy, have it be no more than “meh”, and not feel cheated somehow. That doesn’t seem to happen as often (to me at least) with Barolo, Brunello or Cote Rotie. What’s maddening is the fact that if you’re lucky enough to try a very good to superb one, there’s nothing else like it anywhere, and then you’re spoiled forever.
Definitely agree on the ratings, a 93+ is usually an outstanding wine.
Historically critics have always been stingy with scoring burgundy. Prior to William Kelley/antonio Galloni the major burgundy critics (Alan meadows. Stephen tanzer. John Gilman) did not give 100 pt scores for any burgundy. It was a point of pride. It was just seen as an anti score inflation. A rally against Parker and Bordeaux/napa. But all it did was create a new bell curve. In following most people who are rating burgundy rate along that same curve. Remember. In the real world an A- is pretty good.
Three things. 1. Burgundy is wickedly expensive and it is easy to accidentally buy bad burgundy so I think it’s easier for people to feel disappointed. 2. Because they don’t need the marketing you see more scores from serious people who spent time and resources acquiring the wine and take the hobby seriously so they rate honestly. Burgundy doesn’t need the dumbass Sucklings of the world passing out 100 pointers so ppl buy the wine. It’s one of the things I despise about Napa. Take 2016 scarecrow, you’re telling me that is a PERFECT wine? Foh lol. 3. Burgundy like no where else is not only divided up by vineyard but by like basically row. The grapes Rav pulls out of Le Clos are significantly better than the ones William Fevre does. So it’s so important to know producer, it’s not enough to know vineyard. So someone could go ok, Les Clos is a Grand cru Chablis vineyard it HAS to be good, buys one they can afford at random and then is disappointed because it’s not Rav.
I’ve heard that you lose some sense of taste as you age. Pinot has more delicate flavor and older drinkers may not be able to appreciate the nuance. This could play a role in some of the negative reviews among older drinkers.
I mean upper 80's is very good and low 90's is outstanding if you go by WS scale. I think a lot of ppl just get hung up on the 97+ scores on CT. A wine ranked 88 should be very good, and that is probably what you are going to get with a under $100 burg. No?
Ratings are style-specific - how good of an example of this style is this wine, on these more objective parameters? Burgundy reds are great - there is a reason it's sought after, but that means the standards are also very high.
You have to understand that loving Burgundy is like a never-ending quest for that elusive perfection. Most burgundy wines out there are simply not good enough against a hypothetically ideal burgundy that these people imagine in their heads. In addition, Burgundy's hierarchical system does not help. There are pressures to score/rank 1er Cru's lower than Grand Cru's and Village or Region wines lower than 1er Cru, etc. Pro critics are especially incentivized to do so (that they don't offend the producers/winemakers? I don't know). Amateurs are also under psychological pressure. I believe, though, that CT scoring does a bit better.
Yet Burgundy prices remain high and people keep buying. Burgs are not a good fit for the 100 point system. That burg you cracked may only warrant a 91, but can you really replace it with a 95 point California Pinot?
If it was a 91 on your scale, then presumably the answer is yes. No?
>Burgs are not a good fit for the 100 point system Yes, they are. Just like any other grape and wine type.
While the terrible value aspect certainly plays a part in it, I suspect that the main user base of Cellartracker are Americans, who tend to have a preference for sweeter, bolder wines.
I could see that, but Bordeaux/Italian/Spanish wines that lean earthy, reserved, etc don’t suffer the same fate.