Ratings and the All-Mighty Dollar

If we found two Napa Cabs from the same vintage that we felt were similar in quality, we assumed the one to buy would be the less expensive of the two. From this simple concept we devised an unscientific formula for equating cost with value.

First and foremost we are absolutely passionate about wine.

We love to drink wine. We have been buying wine for over 20 years, predominately Napa and Sonoma reds.

While we are collectors, we buy wine to drink and share with our friends. We do not buy wine as an investment.

We’re on virtually every mailing list for cult and impossible-to-get wines. These wines cost about as much as a small country, and we constantly question our sanity about purchasing them—while we’re drinking them.

Over the years, we have attempted to quantify the value of wine by the rating. We wanted to devise a way to compare the value of one wine to another.

If we found two Napa Cabs from the same vintage that we felt were similar in quality, it made sense to assume the one to buy would be the less expensive of the two. From this simple concept, over many years, we devised an unscientific but completely pragmatic formula for equating cost with value.

We have found that when we rate a wine 92, whether a Cab, Zin, Pinot, New World or Old World, we generally enjoy drinking one 92 point wine as much as another. Therefore, when wines are of similar quality, there is generally no reason to pay more for one over the other.

As our tastes have become more sophisticated and our collections more expensive, we find, like most, that we drink better and better wine. These days, we generally won’t purchase red wine that we do not believe is at least a 90 point wine. After all, we want to drink really good wine that we know we’ll enjoy.

Throughout our Website we will refer to ratings. While we use the same scale as the big boys (Parker, WS and Tanzer) we limit what we taste and rate to Napa and Sonoma wines, and we only rate what we really like and would buy. This has allowed us to gain consistency in rating wines.

Our formula works as follows: For Napa and Sonoma reds we find that we can purchase wines at retail that fall within the following quality and price range:

While this is a large range for each point rating, it allows us to make decisions about whether it makes sense to buy any particular wine, based on quality and price.

We find that young wines rarely rate higher than 95 points and, when they do, the wine is very expensive, almost always in triple figures, unavailable or both.

We talk about ratings as a basis for comparison. Why pay $50 for a 92 point wine if you can find a similar 91 point wine for $35? Personally, we don’t decide to drink a bottle of wine based on the prestige of its name. We drink a bottle based on the varietal, quality, age and the food.

If we are in the mood for a young Cab in the 93 point range, it simply doesn’t matter whether the wine has a famous name. A young 93 point Cab is a young 93 point Cab, whether the name is Mondavi, Opus or Kelly Martin.

By rating the wine we are able to make a decision on what we believe the value should be. If we taste a new wine and we rate it 93 points, we know that we would pay up to a certain price, say $50, for that wine. We probably wouldn’t purchase the wine if it cost $75 (there are plenty of $75 a bottle wines that rate lower than 93).

By quantifying the quality of the wine we make a determination of its value, and then make our buying decision accordingly.

On this Web site we will only feature wines of excellent to exceptional quality (90 points or higher), of good value (priced fairly for the quality; within the range set forth above), and that we personally would buy at retail.