This year I was eagerly awaiting the October edition of Wine Advocate because I found out that's when the yearly Aussie review is done. Every few hours I'd scan the web site to see if issue #173 of WA was online. Then at 4pm today, it showed. I eagerly scanned the list to see if there were any surprises and values to be bought before the rest of the masses found out.
But I didn't get what I expected. The reviews of 2006 are lower than 2005, similar to 2004. A lot of wines I expected to do well, didn't. There were the highly rated usual suspects. I did spend about 15 minutes in the local specialty wine store on Cambie street with nothing that satisfied the Parker Price Curve. Then I noticed something very odd. A wine that I had bought 6 bottles of because it satisfied my Parker Price Curve as it was $40 for a 95 rated wine. I'd tried the wine and thought it was good with potential, but 95 seemed high. I'd give it around a 92. That threw me for a loop. I'm loathe to believe that my taste buds are superior to RP's, who I consider the greatest critic of all time.
The WA #173 review showed that it was 90 rated. huh? Then then I read the reviews. It was Jay Miller who did the bulk of the Wine Advocate reviews for WA 173. Robert Parker gave the wine a 95 a year ago, and Jay Miller gave it a 90.
Now I'm starting to wonder if 2006 Aussie wines are "lower" than 2005 because it's Jay Miller doing 2006 reviews and he's harder (or more accurate??) than RP.. How can RP say 95 and Jay Miller say 90? Who to believe if there's going to be this much disparity between the ratings? I'm struggling to rationalize what this all means... The last thing I want is wide divergence in the ratings because I don't have nearly the time to try all the possibly good wines in the world. The few times I'm going to drink wine and I'm looking for a 95 rated wine, I want to be guaranteed a darned good wine.
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