Thursday, April 22, 2010
Everyone's a critic
The use of scores, whether measured in stars or on a 100 (or 20) point scale is nothing new. There is a very human instinct to categorize things, put them into boxes that are easily understood. There seems to be a consensus among American critics that the 100-point system is best. Parker, Wine Spectator, Steve Tanzer and the Burghound are all on board. But now everybody's getting into the act. Wine Enthusiast, the Will Rogers of wine publications that never met a wine they didn't like is starting to show up on shelves. CellarTracker, the popular online inventory management tool, now has a cumulative score that takes an average from their users who post notes on the site. But the best, by far, is when Dave Sokolin, the proprietor of Sokolin wine in Bridgehampton, NY (home of the Bridgehampton Killer Bees, National High School basketball champs), offers his own two cents, in the form of a number score. Talk about impartial. Talk about integrity. Talk about how to sell the Push List. If nobody else offers a number, or if he doesn't like the number, he prints his own. Talk about moxie!
