WTN: Wine from a Parker 100 dinner.

[Clint Hall]

OK, Manuel, when the time comes I promise to laugh.

Yes, I've had some lovely Droins -- Le Clos and Valmur and, for everyday stuff, Vaillons. I find the Le Clos and Valmur oak to be pretty tough if I don't keep my hands off the stuff for a few years, but then that seems to help.

My taste in French whites in recent years has been swinging more and more to the Loire -- Dressner type wines -- and when Parker starts giving them 100 points I'll fall out of my chair laughing.

[Bernard Roth]

Manuel,
The only bottle purchased from the wine list was the Champagne. The corked Chablis, like every other bottle, was brought by a participant.

Under such circumstances, the protocol calls for the sommelier to pour the wine first to the person who brought the bottle and await approval to pour for others. The sommelier does not sample the wine without the instruction of the person who brought the wine. In this case, the TCA was first noticed by another participant, not the person who brought the bottle.

I guess you had to be there to see that the wine service was professional and correct.

Bernie

[Manuel Camblor]

Well, remember that that recently-fired other "Planet", Mr. Ravioli, gave huge points to a number of 2002 Huet Vouvrays and suggested that people 'drink them all within the next six months or so", or whatever...

You want a beautiful Dressner white thatt's from Burgundy? Try the 2004 Roailly Mâcon. Gogrgeous, deeply earthy, vibrant stuff. Joe poured it for us on New Year's Eve and, along with a 2001 Barbera from Teobaldo Cappellano, it was one of my favorites of the night.

[Manuel Camblor]

Ah, okay... So the somelier person was at the mercy of the guests in terms of what he sampled or didn't. That explains a lot.

[Bernard Roth]

I think we could probably all agree that 100 point ratings are themselves overrated because they fail to convey anything useful about a wine as a beverage. The 100 pt rating is, of itself, only useful in creating demand for scarce collectibles.

I would never expect a Dressner wine to garner a 100 pt score. Partly this is due to Joe's selection criteria for domaines in his portfolio and partly to the style and food-friendliness of his palate.

[Bernard Roth]

Ah, okay... So the somelier person was at the mercy of the guests in terms of what he sampled or didn't. That explains a lot.

Manuel, you are being testy today. The sommelier sampled everything he wanted to, but not before observing the protocol. We were very generous not just with the sommelier, but the chef and the wait staff. There were samples poured all around.

[Manuel Camblor]

Testy? Not me, really. Perhaps I'm not expressing myself clearly enough. No judgments being passed here, only rumination.

I like that whole "the protocol" bit.

[Paul Winalski]

"Planets"? Don't you think that's being a bit unkind to the point-givers and their girth?

"A large ball of gas that attracts many lesser bodies to revolve around it" is the definition of the outer planets.

Not inappropriate for certain large bodies of opinion in the wine world, either.

-Paul W.

[Paul Winalski]

I actually think the idea of scoring wines fuzzes too much to really differentiate a 98 pointer from a 100 pointer. For example, the 95 Baumard QdC got a 98 point rating, which I concur about. Yet I consider it to be a perfect QdC. The 2001 Yquem is a more magnificent wine than the QdC, so even though both are perfect for their genres, I think it still makes sense to allocate extra points for magnificence beyond what is earned for mere perfection.

Very well said.

I think that the 50-100 point scale gives a false sense of the accuracy and precision actually obtainable.

Then there's the problem of awarding a perfect 100 score to wine X, only to have wine Y come along that 's clearly better. What do you do then?

I prefer Broadbent's 1-5 star system. With the occasional 6-star wine that's really fantastic.

My favorite system of all, and the one I use myself, is Stuart Yaniger's Stooges wine rating system. IMO the most accurate and precise of them all.

-Paul W.

[Manuel Camblor]

Oh, so we're back to the old debate about which scoring system is better?

Well, yesterday I ducked into the Park Avenue Borders' to avoid some rain (it's what I do, forget umbrellas...); while waiting for the rain to subside, I perused the wine section. I found this:

http://www.amazon.com/Tasting-Grading-Wine-Clive-Michelsen/dp/9197532606/sr=8-1/qid=1168088113/ref=sr_1_1/103-0230158-5242256?ie=UTF8&s=books.

A quick leafing-through revealed that this book is pretty serious about clarifying the mysteries of wine-scoring on the 100-point scale. It even talks about calculating the "bonus" one gives a wine when scoring it, for somereason or other, beyond points garnered on specific, established categories.

I have a feeling that this could be a truly hilarious read, if only I could bring myself to pay $50 for it...