Trick to get high ratings?

I live in Hong Kong and recently bought (from the largest supermarket chain in HK) a bottle of 2007 Delas Cotes Du Rhone St. Esprit (about US$6.25), which has been recommended here before (I think the 2006 vintage) and also get an RP90. The wine may be considered good value for money, but definitely not an outstanding wine.

We then discovered the label is very different from the one we saw on the internet. Through a local discussion forum, someone said that the one we bought was the "new batch" (same wine, same vintage). This person has tried both the old and new batch (both bought from the same supermarket that we bought the wine) and said the old batch is much better.

I really wonder is this an intentional trick by the producer that they first produce a high quality (small quantity?) batch, send to the wine critics for tasting so to get a high score, and then the rest with the "normal" quality. I know some wine critics buy their own wines for tasting but for a huge production like CDR, it still pays off to make a higher quality first batch as they are most likely to be tasted and get the ratings.

Anyone has similar experience or knows if this is really the case or just a conspiracy theory?

Anyone has similar experience

Google "Eric Solomon" and "Hecula", and you'll quickly come to this story:

http://www.vintageassessments.com/np-feb11-2006.html

We got burned really badly by the second, inferior release of that Hecula.

Never did hear much in the way of an apology from Eric Solomon.

[David M. Bueker]

It's not so much a trick as it is the reality of large production wines. They generally come in multiple batches & quality can differ. Caveat emptor.