Score Inflation

 It is an understood wisdom that in order to maintain credibility the wine critic needs to form opinions independently of any extraneous influence - most notably in the absence of any financial inducement that might result in a favorable disposition towards any particular wine. 

However, there is also sometimes a more subtle incentive involved.  It is a reality that high critics scores sell wine. The owners of very reputable wine stores have confirmed this to me. If a retailer is looking to attach a independent critic’s review of a wine that it wishes to promote the retailer is commercially motivated to include critics reviews that speak highly of the wine and, in particular, that attach a high numeric score to the wine listed.   Any review by a critic that is less favorable can feely be omitted. One too often receives promotional material that very directly relies on a critic’s score to generate interest. “94 point wine for less than $35 !” and such.   In this way critics benefit from scoring wines highly since it is only their reviews, duly attributed, that are enlisted by the retailer to market the wine.  My point is that the selective inclusion in the retailers marketing material of critics who rate the wine very favorably is of course in itself a promotion of the critic. So there is a mutual incentive for the critic to rate wines highly - it sells the wine, to the benefit of the retailer, and (presumably) freely markets/promotes the critic to the retailer’s client base.

This creates a potential bias towards inflating scores - which does a disservice to whatever value one may or may not attribute them. 

More importantly, the wine critic who consistently scores wines more modestly - even if simply as a matter of calibration -  fails to gain the exposure generated from being chosen by the retailer. I am not sure how all this works financially but one cannot ignore a prospective downside for the consumer - who surely witnesses both selective grade inflation in published scores and a bias by retailers against displaying critics who review wines in more measured language and who numerically rate wines across the board at lower scores.  Perhaps the consumer should be protected by some rule obliging retailers to post a variety of critic’s reviews if they post any at all.

There are many worthy and long established wine critics whose scores for wines are used by retailers.  These ‘bigger name” critics are normally have their own publications that are subscription based. The subscribing clients would not accept any score inflation purely for the purposes of self promotion. Nor do these critics require such promotion. So if a retailer then uses that critics score in promotional material, the wine buyer has some protection from score inflation by virtue of the critic needing to have paying subscribers to their publication to make a living. This note is not intended to infer that all critics artificially score wines highly in order to be selected by a retailer when promoting wines for sale. But it is an unspoken influence of which the consumer may wish to be mindful, particularly perhaps in the context of critics with as yet less established reputations who need to make their voice heard. 

The Big Parkerization Lie

Lisa Perrotti-Brown in June 2018 wrote a brief piece titled “The Big Parkerization Lie” as a preface to The Wine Advocate, for which she is a contributor. The piece is a defense of Robert Parker against those that assert that by reason of his extraordinary influence with the consumer he essentially moulded all wines to be made in a manner and style that appealed to his taste, and that as a consequence all wines on the world stage increasingly tended to taste the same….the Mondovino contention.  This assertion may be revisited in the upcoming Somm 3 movie, which apparently prompted her to write this pre-emptive defense.  

Her argument runs that Parker in fact was simply ‘endorsing” a trend already in progress among consumers in preference for well made wines that had some ripe fruit.  “Wine production [in the mid 1980s} trended away from many of the thin, often faulty, lean, green, mean styles of the pre-Peynaud era, which some other writers of the day had made a career of lavishing praise upon, and trended toward cleaner, richer, riper, more fruit-forward styles. To this end, there is indeed a correlation between the snowballing consumer wine trend for riper styles and Parker’s scores for wines of this style. …Wineries throughout the world wanted a piece of the action and developed styles that fit the trend, but it was not Parker who created the trend. Consumers did."

As as example of the existence of this consumer trend Ms Perrotti-Brown herself states that “ in the early 1990s, when I embarked on a career in the wine trade, I loved big, bold, oak-driven, butterball Chardonnays—I couldn’t get enough of them.” She was not drinking them because Parker liked this style - she was a part of the consumer trend favoring big bold fruit flavors with a lot of new oak.  And so her argument runs that within the context only of those consumers who liked the Parker style and were on board with this trend anyway, he steered them towards the best examples. 

But the issue is not whether or not there was a concurrent consumer trend towards more powerful wines with more upfront fruit with Parker simply reflecting that preference or whether he actually generated that preference among consumers. The issue is not about cause and effect - on which I am anyway not qualified to express an opinion. Parker’s detractors make a different point - that he was apparently unable to acknowledge the intrinsic high quality of a wine that was not of his preferred style i.e. a fruit forward wine. A wine which did not align with his style preference was, more or less, categorized as a faulty or inadequate wine with no future. To achieve a high score it was not enough that a wine was full of finesse and elegance, clean and merely adequately ripe with a subtle but long finish. It had to be in the fully loaded fruit style he liked. Powerful wines resulting from high levels of extraction. Anything else lacked concentration. It was as if Parker’s assessment of a wine’s quality was limited to how the wine presented itself on the nose and the front palate only, without regard for the more subtle retro-olfactory sensations which are so important in evaluating the quality of every wine but especially, perhaps, a wine which does not lead with a lot of upfront fruit. A subtlety fruited wine can have a lot of persistence. Power and fruit concentration give a strong and lasting presence on the front palate, but this is not the same as strong retro-olfactory presence on the back palate.  The inability to separate style preference from intrinsic quality assessment is in my view a fundamental flaw in any wine critic - as I have written elsewhere.   

And that is why it is so bizarre that Ms Perrotti-Brown would relate an occasion in Tokyo in 2004 when Parker told her a Tyrell No 1 Semillion, selected by Ms Perrotti-Brown for inclusion at a tasting he was to moderate, was not in a style he liked “but that he understood why I and others might like it”.  But Parker then invited her to join him on the podium in presenting the wine, surely reflecting his inability himself on the podium to be enthusiastic about the quality of a wine not to his taste. The problem is that his published notes as I recall and, in particular, his scores, did not share the facility she asserts him as having to acknowledge the quality of wines he did not like.   

No doubt the nascent wine drinking public wanted wines with fewer faults. And Parker is to be credited with contributing to reducing the instance of these - and for calling out a few estates who really were resting on past reputation. But that is not the same as saying the consumer should only want wines in the Parker preferred rich and extracted style and that only these wines should score highly. In only scoring these wines highly - and having the wide influence he had acquired - Parker did the market considerable disservice.

I stopped subscribing to the Wine Advocate in about 1996.  And apparently Parker is a decent guy. But I know I love my 1993 red burgundies - believe many of them to be wines of objective merit - and will forever defend the memories of Gerard Potel and Hubert de Montille against unjustified criticism from a person who cannot distinguish what he likes from what is good.

The tricky role of the wine critic

Some opening comments in the historical context. 

Changes over time

First, I really appreciate wine critics who taste at the winery. Clive Coates made the point a long time ago - at the time a pointed criticism of reviewers who did differently - that without contemporaneous input from the winemaker one cannot know facts that may be important in evaluating a wine. It’s malo has only recently finished …it was racked yesterday….These circumstances normally I suppose excuse a wine’s apparent underperformance.  Most critics worth their salt of course take this approach today but this was not always so. Tasting at the winery limits the amount of wine that can be tasted. But those all morning large mass tastings one hears about surely serve a different purpose than as a venue for careful assessment of individual wines - being primarily to seek out new growers that merit further exploration at the winery or get a general sense of the qualities of a vintage a whole. 

Second, all wine critics have their biases - which can go so far as to amount to prejudice. There are many examples in the past of critics with strong viewpoints on particular issues - and a wine that offends this mantra cannot be good.  Parker was all against filtration.  Coates disliked a wine with a lot of new oak - and did not hold back on this. Hanson was offended by a wine that had been noticeably chaptalised. Others are adamant that the use of commercial yeasts is fatal to the authenticity of a wine. This list is long. Back then, in order to compensate, the reader had to know these biases and make allowances. But these viewpoints - even when slavishly adhered to to an extent that seems prejudicial   - collectively have done the consumer good service. Winemakers have responded. And today I think wine critics are less dogmatic and more measured in their assessment of the impact of possible variables adopted in the cellar. The critics' role today is seen as needing to point out how these choices have influenced the wine in the glass rather than make categorical value judgements about the wine’s quality based on these decisions alone.  The critics today are in this sense more objective. But it was not always so. 

Third, score inflation is with us - see the post elsewhere on this subject.

Fourth, wine prices for the better bottles have risen so far that a subscription to a wine critic’s reviews that you appreciate is a prudent investment. Avoiding just one mistake pays for a year’s subscription. Allen Meadow makes this point on his subscriber page and it is hard to refute. So sign up.   

Tricky issues 

The most difficult issue for a critic is surely how to rate a wine numerically which is a fine example of a wine made in a style the critic hates. Which is another reason - as if one were needed - to read the text and not rely on the score. I certainly subscribe to a point made by Matt Kramer that one of the qualities of a connoisseur of any category of object is a recognition of absolute quality, even if one dislikes the style of a particular object. A teapot can be a fabulous example of a particular style even though one hates the look of it. One can dislike Baroque (quite easily in my view) but appreciate its absolute quality.  And so it must be I think with a wine critic. 

When does a disliked style become an objective fault ?  The answer should be never. But perhaps the measure is whether the style is so far removed from what one would expect a wine of that designation to taste like that it ceases to be a representative wine of that designation.  Should it be scored lower because it lacks ‘authenticity” or faithfulness to its place of origin. Those in Barolo who use no new oak never argued that a wine made from nebbiolo in the region in barrique with a lot of new oak was not a good wine, only that it was not Barolo. So how does a critic score that wine given that some of his readership will perhaps like the wine a great deal in the more oaky style ?  In the accompanying text of course the critic can fully expand on these issues and avoid any misunderstanding.  But many do not. The style of the wine, if it has a pronounced aspect or marked signature, should in my view be a part of the note. Gratifyingly, I have often read notes that expressly say the wine is wonderful - and accordingly that the critic has seen fit to rate it highly - but is not at all consistent with what one might expect from the appellation. Phrased like a warning. But I have also read notes of highly scored wines that I know to be of a style that is hardly representative of that type of wine with no accompanying explanation or where the signature of the winemaking is so strong that one feels some acknowledgment of this in the text is essential. 

The second problem is how to score a wine that a very fine example of a modest wine.  Should any Beaujolais or Nebbiolo d'Alba or a Rias Baixas ever merit a score of 95 ? The answer is yes only if one is scoring in the context of a limited set of wines - and what the score really is communicating is that among wines of this category this one is a really fine example. I have  a lot of sympathy for giving high scores to more modest wines because the messaging is made clearer.  I am not likely to be fooled a Beaujolais is as "grand" as a Bordeaux First Growth because the scores are the same. And I absolutely share the view expressed by Eric Asimov in the Pour in April 2018 that 'greatness" should be measured at least in part by how appropriate a wine is for a particular occasion.  Which could be a picnic. So any scoring system must surely in some way communicate that. A critic's approach to scoring requires explanation and consistency.  I do think that consumer appreciation is moving toward assessing a wine's merit based at least in part on what it purports to be, and that a relatively minor wine can, in the right context and on the right occasion, be perfect.  But we cannot expect full contextualization by the critic.  There are limits. How to rate that very modest wine that was so truly perfect when drunk out of a plastic cup in the company of one's lover on the hilltop with the astonishing view ?  

Some critics address this issue by having two levels of score - a numerical score for absolute quality and a star for how good an example is the wine of its type. So a really good Beaujolais may rate 89-91 but have a 5 star rating, informing the reader that the wine is about as good as Beaujolais gets. This approach at least protects the (very) uninformed customer from buying cases of 95 point Beaujolais because he sees it as good value relative to 95 point Chambertin Clos de Beze.

Also there have been attempts - by Michael Broadbent as you might expect - to score a wine both for how it ranks today and how he expects it to rank in the future. So a wine might be rated ***(*) meaning it will be a four star wine in time but isn’t there yet. For Broadbent - who drunk so very much really old wine and being English preferred it that way - the concept of readiness was important. I think this approach in the normal case overlays too strong a personal sense of when a wine is ready, which I think has changed somewhat recently and is anyway always a very individual preference.

I have also been confused by the approach taken by some to rate a wine ( in terms of its score) in the context of the vintage. It is as if one then is expected to multiply the particular score by the overall vintage quality factor. Clive Coates did this and I never really understood the benefit.

Styles of writing

The better known wine critics certainly have a style of writing that is very individual. Often you don't even need to see the attribution to know who has written the note. I do take notes on most quality wines I taste if the circumstances allow because it is a good discipline to follow. I am forced to render an articulated opinion. I have filled many notebooks. In looking over these it is clear I have no flair for it at all. So I admire the critics that do this so well. It is a literary skill as well as a tasting skill. If I could chose I would write a note with a style like Steve Tanzer, whose notes I have long admired for the way they combine levity with serious content. 

Descriptions of very specific fruit flavors are in my view almost redundant. I have expanded my frustration of the insistence of critics to do this in another post. I have read side by side many notes from well respected critics that identify very specific fruit flavors in the same wine that have no commonality at all. There is a lot of evidence that no two persons are actually sensing precisely the same flavors and even if they are, their descriptive vocabulary may not be the same. It is very subjective. What I find more reliable and helpful is the basic divide of whether the fruit in a red wine is broadly red or black in flavor. Is it fresh or stewed ?  Is the fruit spicy ?  Is it a pure expression or complicated by other flavors ? Is it floral as well as fruity ? No doubt it is a tasting deficiency in me, but I am not particularly astute at differentiating types of berried fruits.  The difference between prunes and damsons escapes me. I really should perhaps eat more damsons. What I appreciate more is notes that describe the flavors in this broad way and focus more on the structural elements of the wine - the intensity of its aromatics, fruit quality, complexity, depth, concentration, elegance, balance, alcohol, tannins, oak, acid and (a particular quality marker of a young wine in my view) length.   This reflects perhaps that Clive Coates was my initiation to reading wine notes from about 1988. There were few references to specific fruits. So I am all about whether the wine has 'grip"!  The WSET introduced some discipline into my note taking. But I have a long way to go. And I do greatly admire the critics that do it well. 

My personal journey of preferred critics for Burgundy has been from Clive Coates to Steve Tanzer, then on through Allen Meadows to Jasper Morris. It’s a hard task to do well. I admire them all.

Blending sites is not blending terroir

The salesman looked deeply puzzled as I put my $120 down on the counter.  “Great choice - you will love this” he had said. I had replied “No I will not’.  

As I walked out of the store, clutching my bottle of current release Nuits St Georges Les Vaucrains,  I regretted my rather ungracious response.  Then thought better of it. Surely Les Vaucrains is truly no ones favorite wine. I was buying it on my friend’s instruction for a higher purpose than intrinsic enjoyment - to drink alongside other burgundies at her Cote de Nuits tasting event the next day.  What mattered was not how much we enjoyed every individual wine but that the wines tasted different, faithfully reflecting the unique and tightly demarcated soils in which the vines were grown - a reaffirmation of the celebration of difference that is at the core of burgundian sensibility.  And we were going to demonstrate this emphatically, even if it meant drinking the brutally structured Les Vaucrains.

This value proposition represented by this strong allegiance of grape and specific place does not look kindly on blending from several vineyards, no matter how closely situated.   Burgundy’s appellation rules are biased against this, mandating downgrading a wine that is a blend from different villages and prohibiting naming more than one vineyard on the label. It is as if the purity and authenticity of terroir is maintained only by binding the concept to very small parcels of land. So appellation law almost obliges you value that the wine reflect site specificity over how good the wine actually tastes. Authenticity is valued more than intrinsic quality. The rules in Barolo similarly prevent one naming two or more vineyards on the label, though a single vineyard need only be 85% from the site named.

And wines from small plots usually command higher prices. If you push the point far enough every square meter on earth has its unique terroir.  And the consumer is being asked to believe that the smaller the plot the more “authentic” its terroir expression. “We make just 75 cases of Block 35”. So you should pay more, right ? Even if the wine is perhaps not as enjoyable as it would be if it had been blended with wine from the neighboring block.  You must pay for authenticity - and authenticity is somehow heightened by small delimitations of terroir.  The consistently lower prices of the blended “classico" bottlings in Barolo relative to the same grower’s single vineyard bottlings reflect the market’s preference for narrowly defined sites on the label.  When drinking the brutal Les Vaucrains perhaps one has to take solace largely in the notion that, even if not especially pleasant, the wine is undeniably an expression of a particular place.

This has to stop. The pendulum has swung too far towards favoring narrowly defined sites. Let us trade a little purely cerebral satisfaction deriving from precise site specificity for the increased gratitude of our taste buds. Site specificity seems to have risen in esteem to overwhelm pleasure. 

It is surely irrefutable that blending wine from several sites will likely produce a wine of greater balance and perhaps complexity than a wine from all but the greatest single vineyard. The likes of Maria Teresa Mascarello and Guiseppe Rinaldi would argue it always does. Vineyards of different soils, altitudes and exposures complement each other.  Prior to going their separate ways the brothers Jamet had, according the the Rare Wine website, 25 parcels in 17 lieu dits across the Cote Rotie. Blending plots with different soils, altitudes and exposures in Cote Brune and Cote Blonde in their view produced a more complex wine. Not all the plots are always used in the finished wine. The same is true at Chave and Clape, even though they have vines in many famous designated sites. They blend because the resulting wine is simply better and likely more consistently so over successive vintages.

Nor should there be any heresy in asserting that a terroir may equally well be defined as a larger area than a minute single vineyard designation. As is well known Jean Louis Chave has vines in several individually designated vineyards on the Hermitage Hill and yet he makes a single red Hermitage because that is how he sees the terroir he is seeking to reflect. The terroir he is seeking to reflect is Hermitage - the entirety of the hill. They have done so forever. Their prowess and skill in blending has long been admired. There are of course practical limits being able to do this.  You need vineyards in the appropriate locations.  If you only have vines in Le Meal you had better make a Le Meal, because it alone is a poor terroir refection of the entirety of the Hermitage Hill.  The same is true of Auguste Clape, who could clearly make a series of single vineyards from their holdings in Cornas but choose to make a single bottling. Theirs is not a bottling of the Reynard site - but of Cornas as a whole. It would be interesting to discuss this with Bernard Faurie who bottles different combinations of vineyards from the Hermitage Hill, labels all the bottles simply "Hermitage", but designates the particular vineyard combination by a different colored capsule. 

This same argument applies also at a micro level. Although there are actually several better examples, the single vineyard Bonnes Mares in Burgundy is notorious for having two quite distinct soils in the upper and lower portions of the vineyard. Yet Christophe Roumier, though having parcels in both, blends them to create a wine faithful to Bonnes Mares as a whole. My understanding is that in fact every grower having parcels in both soils either co-vinifies the grapes or blends them later as wine. De Vogue, incidentally - having parcels largely in only the red soil of the lower part of the vineyard - fully concede their Bonnes Mares does not reflect the whole. One senses they regret this.  Those with multiple plots across Echezeaux or Clos Vougeot also typically blend these. The only example I can think of of a grower creating two different wines from the same designated vineyard (other than an old vines version) is Etienne de Montille in respect of his two holdings in Aux Malconsorts - and he has very particular reasons for doing so. Of course if you have a monopole - such as Clos de Tart - no one would even consider making separate bottling based on soil type alone - because the purpose is to express the terroir of the entirety of the monopole. And Clos de Tart has many different types of soil. My point being that a designated vineyard is considered the optimal scale of the expression of terroir and that to go smaller by bottling two versions from the same vineyard because the terroir would seem to be different in some parts of the vineyard to other parts runs counter to that perceived optimum. But if one accepts there are different soil types in the same vineyard one surely has to accept that to arrive at the perceived optimum expression of that vineyard one needs to blend from those differing parts.   And so blending does not dilute terroir. 

And indeed a village Vosne Romanee can be at its most wonderful when it is made up of vines grown throughout the village, so long as you regard Vosne Romanee as a whole as having a singular and identifiable terrior. Les Barreaux alone does not reflect it, neither does Aux Communes - but a blend of these might come close. Gerard Mugneret intentionally seeks to create a Vosne Romanee at the village level that is “geographically representative of the village as a whole” by blending plantings from the north, the center and the southern end of the village. In doing so he is defining the terroir he is seeking to reflect in the bottle quite widely. Frederic Mugnier blends his Les Plantes and La Combe d’Orveau parcels in Chambolle because he feels the resulting wine is better, Les Plantes contributing body and structure and La Combe d’Orveau elegance and finesse. Perhaps lieu dits ought be thought of as an indicator that the wine is not a blend of wines from throughout the village -  but from a single site that will not in fact faithfully reflect one’s expectations of the typicity of a village as a whole. 

There is surely equal wonder and no loss of faithfulness or authenticity to terroir by a modest expansion of the physical territory in respect of which a defined terroir is asserted, which itself has an identity no less particular than a smaller site. Blending sites does not dilute terroir. The terroir one is seeking to express is just different. It is no less precise or authentic. It is perhaps even more difficult to deliver that in the bottle.

I refer you to Jancis Robinson’s article entitled “When terroir trumps quality”, published on her website on May 28, 2018, which discusses the tension that can arise between authenticity and quality.

Vintages and Vintage Charts

Magnums of 1991 Guettes at Bize 

I was always very impressed with Kermit Lynch’s Vintage Chart - horizontal and vertical axes but with absolutely no entries. A blank chart. No information it would seem. More accurately, Kermit no doubt feels, a lot of information. Vintages don’t matter. A position which conventional wisdom might describe as a tough sell.  

I was also struck by the Wine Spectator in what must have been early 1993 rating Domaine Simon Bize’s 1991 Savigny Les Fourneaux 57 points.  Barely drinkable. Proud indeed was I as Patrick Bize let me put the capsule on the magnum of that wine I unhesitatingly bought at the Domaine in the fall of 1994. I loved the 1991 red Burgundies. And a few still have life.

To me vintages do not matter much. I buy the same wines from the same producers every year. So not much thought is needed. I have wines at all stages of their journey through time.  But I have barely any that absolutely need to be drunk.  And I have been doing this since 1988. Wines with initial balance last a long time, even in unheralded vintages. 

Normally the grander vintages take longer to be ready - longer perhaps than I would like. Often the lesser years are simply extraordinary, maturing sooner but giving almost as many years of pleasure. I may buy a little more in some years than others. I might buy a little less if I bought a little more the previous year. But there is satisfaction in continuity - developing a relationship over many different vintages with a vineyard you know well from a grower you have often met and whose dedication you profoundly respect. And winemakers are of course most proud of successes in the more meteorologically challenging years. This is farming after all. Given the litany of small decisions that are made by each grower for each vintage, quality assessment based on weather alone seems evidently inadequate.  

Quite apart from the fact that the lesser vintages have provided many upside surprises and so called grander years some disappointments, to buy only in some years based on a prediction made of a vintage that is still in its infancy is an unwise risk to take.  That journey can be quite unpredictable. Some 2007 red burgundies are now lovely whereas there is perhaps some developing concern in some quarters that the much heralded 2005 reds are still very tight, maintaining still big tannic structures - even at the lower levels and after a decade in bottle. 

Everyone has stories to tell of upside surprises.  The only criteria is that the wine initially has to have balance.  The growers whose wines I buy (and you too, dear reader) don’t produce unbalanced wines. They let the vintage speak. A lighter vintage just has a different kind of beauty. Of course there are great vintages - and I certainly try not to miss these.  But these are only a part of the whole experience.

The burgundians of course have no wine to sell. Less heralded vintages normally deliver less than an average crop. There is some price variation between vintages but the minute quantities produced caps any real price reduction based on perceived inferior vintage quality. This is not bordeaux. Today the quality of farming is so good that there simply are no bad vintages. Perhaps you have to go back to 1984 in reds and, in my view, 1998 in whites. So we are fortunate that each year there is something new and different that genuinely has something unique to offer

"I think I like it more than he does"

I can remember reading a review a while back of Gerard Boudot's wine at Domaine Sauzet written, as I recall,  by Steve Tanzer in his “Underground Wine Cellar”. Reviewing a particular wine, Steve concluded with the observation ( or something to the effect ) -  “I think I like it more than he does”. 

The first point to make is that it meant Gerard had some reservations about the wine and was honest enough to share these with a journalist - but that commendable practice is for another post.  I want to focus here simply on the point that normally one expects to like very much the particular wines the grower also likes best.  During a barrel tasting I am very influenced by any preferential comment or statement from the grower that a particular wine showed especially well that year or indeed that one seemed to fall bit short of expectations.  After all they have lived with the wine’s development every day.  How much of a particular bottling I will buy is influenced by what the grower thinks. Which is why I found Steve’s comment to be rare, brave and reflecting a admirable confidence.   

Sometimes this observation is not expressly stated. Bruno Giacosa did not make a riserva wine from the Rocche di Falletto in 2013- and this was no accident. They did not think the wine had enough of what it takes to merit it being a riserva. And yet James Suckling rated the wine 97 points, no less than he might be expected to rate the wine had it been a red label riserva. So it seems he liked it more than Bruno did. No doubt there are many examples.  A critic has no obligation of course to inform his reader what the winegrower thinks of any particular wine or the vintage in general.  But in these days of extraordinary honesty from growers who always sell all their wine anyway, on the whole I find it very helpful to know what the grower himself thinks. So, having invariably to make a buying decision before being able to taste the wine myself,  I scour all the critics reports - even from critics I do not normally follow or especially admire - for the relayed quotes from the growers themselves as much as for what the critic thinks himself. But then you also sometimes get the "I think I like it more than he does" observation from the critic. 

“I don’t see the need to try it"

I was struck in reading Richard Olnay’s autobiography "Reflections" many years ago that on it being suggested to him that he might want to start acquiring Jaboulet’s Hermitage La Chapelle, Richard's reaction was that he did not feel it necessary to try another Hermitage because he was quite happy with Chave’s and saw no reason to drink anyone else’s. 

While it is pretty clear that Richard believed there is actually no better Hermitage than Chave’s, which makes his a low risk comment to make, there is surely also a wider reference to being completely content with one choices even if, conceivably, there actually exists out there a superior wine. One has a long history of drinking the wine, knowing the grower, his vineyards and also his dog. One knows what the grower is seeking to achieve. There exists a real relationship with the wine that strongly enhances the pleasure of consuming it. So one hardly is going to jump at every suggestion made to try someone else’s version in substitution.

For myself this singular attachment to particular growers is also driven by the tedious practical consideration of budget. I buy the same wines every year and so, to spend on something new each year that is beyond everyday drinking level in any quantity at all, requires I reduce my purchases of the current favorites. Over the years as the cost of some previously routine purchases - like Christophe Roumier and Mugneret Gibourg - have gotten away from me, I have had to abandon some names and replaced these with new names from lesser Burgundy appellations.  But broadly I still only have one or two preferred growers from each of the major Burgundian villages. So I have a representative grower from Gevrey and Vosne and Chambolle and Volnay already.  Why would I abandon these ?

There has to be a balance struck between new discoveries and old favorites. I have lately added Domaine Henri Germain to the 'buy each vintage" list, for example. But as I have got older my buying patterns within my favorite regions have been increasingly focussed on the same growers. I have a lot of ‘sympa” for Richard's approach. To change feels like a betrayal. I suppose if one buys a great deal of wine one has more flexibility.  But if budget constrains purchases to a handful of bottles from each grower per vintage, it takes something quite exceptional to have me be willing to cut down on these to make room for someone new.  

And in Hermitage I still only buy Chave. I have in fact tasted very few others. What could possibly cause me to break a 25 year run ?  

But I will happily drink anything anyone puts in front of me. Just don’t ask me to start collecting it !