The Frontal Cortex : Wine Ratings Are For Suckers

The Frontal Cortex : Wine Ratings Are For Suckers:

Everytime I walk into a wine store, and see that collage of numerical stickers (This Chianti is a 91! This Pinot Grigio is an 88!), the neuroscientist in me wants to tear them all down an go on a long rant about unconscious biases. The idea that the human olfactory system can reliably decipher the difference between a wine worth 90 points and a wine worth 89 points is patently ridiculous.

Actually, there are groups of people with well-trained and/or very sensitive noses that can. But for the other 99.55 of the population, this is right, but maybe irrelevant.

I guess it boils down to how seriously you see the difference between a wine rated 88 and one rated 89 or 91. Is the difference really statistically significant? Depends on how serious you are about wine and how well trained your palate is.

Me, I take the ratings as a continuum, to be adjusted based on what I know about the winery, what I know about the wine itself, and how much it costs. Given two wines I know absolutely nothing about, if there’s one rated at 92 at $15 and another rated at 88 for $10, I’ll buy the 88. On the other hand, a 92 at $25 and a 70 at 10 — I’ll probably buy the 92.

This is also how I deal with a wine list full of wines I’m not familiar with — and I’ve had more than one waiter come back with a bottle and tell me the wine master wanted to know how I knew to order that bottle. In many ways, it’s simple. First, I choose the varietal I want, and I look at the pricing of the restaurant. Throw out the most expensive (aka “ego”, “schedule C” or “I am showing off”) wines like Opus One (which is a damn good wine, but I can easily find and enjoy two or three bottles nearly as good for the same price, and by the end of the evening be even happier than if I’d ordered the Opus) — and by looking at what the general price range is for the restaurant, I look to see what wines are priced at about 2/3 of the high price.

That seems to consistently put me in the sweet spot of the restaurant’s wine list, without overpaying for the most expensive. It is, for instance how I discovered David Bruce Pinots, which are well worth discovering…

I guess it’s all about taking the tools you’re given and adapting them to your satisfaction, and not treating them too literally or too seriously…

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