Subjectivity, Aesthetics, and the Evaluation of Wine

Yep... I agree.... but probably I will give some more weight to the 'own reliability'

Cheers!

Dear Paco,
you know how a bad guy I am. During our last week conversation in this post I was aware of the WS incident... That's why I pointed hardly to the magazines & critics reliability.

Cheers,

Jose

Let me be -once more- the devil's advocate.... in this case the lack of reliability seems a problem of the Wine Spectator more than a problem of an specific wine/gastronomy critic....

No person/critic directly involved, but the WS itself and the Director/CEO/whatever who manage what and how are things made in the magazine.

Regards,

Jose

Hi Jose and Paco,

it is the first time i noticed that verema as well exist in english. Great idea!
You are discussing about the reliability of the wine critics.
What do you think about the reliability of the winewaiters.
At least in the restaurants they recommend you wines for dinner, but what do you think is the basis on which the wine waiter judges which wine would be the best for you, your food and your budget? Maybe the last offer he bought? The wine he needs to move? Or the one he thinks which is the best fitting in with your expextations?

Sometimes I left restaurants with the impresion of the last posibilities.

Regards,
Yvonne

When the waiters gently 'suggests' some dishes. You can rely on the waiter... or think about he want to server you that yoghourt out-of-date ;)))))))))
Nonetheless at this point and if you're an informed user maybe you've enough tools to believe in the waiter. But you can't use these tools with wine-critics 'cos they use to taste wines you can't reach as far as they're not shipped in the market or just because you can't pay them as an everyday wine and taste it.

Cheers,

Jose

... My (belated) opinion: I prefer obvious subjective opinions, and then I calibrate. Of course this strategy means I have to calibrate her/his taste against my own taste, but then I know what they mean. When critics try to be "objective" I just get a bunch of more or less standard description that only reveals a little bit of what I expect from a wine critic, and, unless it comes with some quantification (points) I would not know whether it was a pleasant experience or not to drink it ... definitely, for me, openly subjective opinions.

MaJesus

Yep, but for me is far easy to write one of this boring supposedly objective tasting notes... based on description of main wine characteristics than the subjective assessing ones....