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Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Should you trust Consumer Reports wine ratings?
The December issue of Consumer Reports magazine wades into the wine-ratings war with some subtle barbs directed at other wine consumer publications and high praise indeed for its own methodology.
But let’s take a closer look.
(As this is written, there is no link to the wine story available yet on the magazine’s “current issue” portion of its web site, which still lists November’s features and mentions the wine report is “coming soon.”)
Consumer Reports President Jim Guest writes in his opening commentary entitled “Judging wine with another scale” that the magazine chooses wines to evaluate that did well in previous tests, are produced in large-enough quantities to be widely available, and are reasonably priced. And it also includes wines that “have generated a buzz in other publications.”
Hmm. Interesting selection criteria.
Guest goes on to say that the magazine chooses not to use a 100-point scale to rate wines, but instead uses a rating system from “poor” to “excellent.” Then he lobs this little grenade:
You won’t, however, read “Consumer Reports rates this wine ‘excellent’” on (any wine store) shelves or in any advertising, since we don’t allow the use of our Ratings to promote products. Nor do we run ads in our magazine, so you’ll never see a glossy wine ad opposite our Ratings of the same wine.”
Is he suggesting that scores in other publications are bought and paid for? Hmmm.
And don’t you love the way the magazine capitalizes the term “Ratings” when it refers to its own? Almost gives CR’s evaluations a certain, shall we say, Biblical authority, don’t you think?
CR’s tasting methodology appears rigorous: “Secret shoppers” buy the wines anonymously at retail, rather than accepting free bottles from the winery, “so there’s no chance that we’ll get a bottle specially selected to impress us.” The wines are tasted blind, and every wine is tasted four times, each from a different bottle. This does sound more thorough than methods used by other wine-rating publications.
But who, might you ask, is really doing the tasting?
That remains a bit of a mystery.
“We enlist the trained palates of two wine experts with almost 60 years of combined experience,” Guest says, without identifying who these experts are.
I don’t know about you, but I can think of a several people with decades of experience tasting wines whose opinions I wouldn’t put two cents worth of stock into. But I guess we’re supposed to trust this pair of mystery tasters.
Guest says in explaining why the magazine chose not to use the 100-point scale that the magazine, as well as the two tasting experts, “believe there’s too much subjectivity in wine tasting to declare a bottle a 90, say, instead of an 89.”
But there’s not too much subjectivity to two — count ‘em, TWO — palates determining whether a wine is “very good” or “excellent?” Heck, when the magazine rates restaurant chains and grocery store chains, it uses the opinions of thousands of its subscribers nationwide who fill out a CR survey. But its wine ratings depend on exactly two palates belonging to folks we know nothing about?
Hmmm….
For the record, the magazine awarded “excellent” ratings to three chardonnays — 2004 Edna Valley Paragon San Luis Obispo County, ‘04 Kendall-Jackson Grand Reserve Monterey-Santa Barbara Counties, and ‘04 Beringer Napa Valley, all priced from $14 to $20 in the magazine — and to two zinfandels, the ‘04 Seghesio Family Vineyards Sonoma County ($20) and the ‘04 Cellar No. 8 ($10, a “CR Best Buy). No cabernet sauvignons received a score of “excellent,” though the ‘02 Columbia Crest Grand Estates Columbia Valley collected a “CR Best Buy” designation for its “very good” rating and its $11 price tag.
What do you think? How much faith do you put in CR’s ratings? Would its evaluations affect your buying decisions any more or any less than Parker’s or Wine Spectator’s?
Thanks and cheers!
Mark Fisher
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