by Administrator
20. August 2008 05:47
I just couldn't let this go without sharing it. For those who are unaware, Wine Spectator has awards that are given out annually for the world's "greatest" wine lists. The coup de grace being their Grand Award, given only to those elite few whose cellars are truly awe inspiring. The more common award is the not so coveted Award of Excellence. For us industry types, this one's always basically been a mulligan. It's just widely accepted that if you meet the basic requirements, and pay your $250 entry fee you are almost guaranteed the award, with some being rejected for posterity I'm sure. That being said, there was never any real proof to back up this assumption.
Until Now.
Recently an economist opened an imaginary restaurant in Milan (small potatoes, my fake restaurant is in a Volcano), even building an extremely convincing website. He then paid his $250 and submitted its wine list to Specator for the awards. Lo and Behold, he was awarded the Excellence level. Ahhh, but here's the rub... he actually very purposely constructed this wine list almost entirely of wines that rated below 80 from Spectator's own tasting panel. For Wine Spectator to give a wine below an 80, it needs to be just a step up from chum (which I believe got a 72). There was one heavy hitter on the list, a single bottle of 90 point rated Sassicaia, but as Yoda would say, an award winning wine list does not a single bottle make. This of course led into a detailed discussion about the effect of expert opinion on consumer confidence, and how it can be misused. Which was also about when my A.D.D. kicked in and I got bored and stopped reading.
The point I would like you to take away from this is not that Spectator doesn't know what they're doing. They have great palates and are a wealth of wine knowledge, and I tend to agree with them in a lot of instances. I'm just saying that its easy to write off a wine, or a restaurant based on a single opinion, but remember that us "Experts" are just here to tell you what we think, and hopefully help you make a better informed decision. It doesn't mean we're right or wrong. Trust yourself, try new things, open imaginary restaurants! Who knows what you're missing out on!
Cheers
