DISQUS

Great post, Russ. I participated in the Rockaway project because I, too, often feel that I would love to be able to see multiple perspectives on the same wine at the same time. This is especially true if I'm on the fence about a wine, or it's expensive. A few bloggers who say give it a try is normally all I need to take the plunge--my latest example of this is Scholium wines, which are way above my normal pay grade, but which I seem to be buying in bulk on blogger recommendations!

And yes, we all grab the 92 point bottles at BevMo--especially if they're on sale. I'll take almost any recommendation for a wine--once--and then decide what I thought about it.

Thanks for a great WBW, by the way. I grabbed a wine I remembered reading about on your site. And I loved it. Sometimes one trusted voice is all you need!

Thanks for the introduction to this historic wine--I had no idea it was still made and know it only from people talking about it (in the 16th century, mind you!) and its medicinal properties. How cool that people STILL make it at home. It reminds me of Sicilians who make Limoncello at home. I've never tried this, but this story makes me tempted to try some home-made liqueurs this summer.

Thanks for this great post, and the coverage. I was just thinking last night (while drinking Portuguese wine from the Douro!) that it had been a long time since my last Rioja. I like their earthy softness, though I can see why this might be an acquired taste.

Sorry to be chiming in so late--beginning of the semester. I think this idea is well worth pursuing, even though there are a lot of (excellent) questions that need resolving. I think I agree that having something to hold is not necessarily the big thing--and I suspect that some kind of quality control/vetting is. My suspicion is that if wine bloggers really put an effort into writing something longer than a blog post and of magazine quality they could do it--and that the resulting publication would in fact be better than any of the wine mags currently around in terms of diversity of opinion, regional coverage, etc. And though it might be seen as elitist, I feel strongly that selectivity is key--with all the disappointment that that might cause, etc.

Again, very interesting. I guess I'll have to wait and see how the Freebase grows. Already other ratings sites have managed to mine CellarTracker for my rating there and then use them on their site. What's interesting to me is that CellarTracker doesn't do this. I'm not sure if this will make them dinosaurs or keep them at #1. During the past two years, I also have only ever added wine data to create a new wine in about half a dozen instances. Every other wine I've had has been in the database--maybe no the latest vintage when it's just been released, but still. And the other thing I notice is that when you Google a wine's name, CellarTracker, Snooth, and Cork'd are always on the first page, if he wine is in their database. So Freebase is going to have to really push to get folks to see their way is a better way than a simple Google search. Just my .02 on what are a very interesting set of developments. Thanks for bringing them to our attention.

Interesting new program, Joel. But I don't understand how CellarTracker fails to let you look up a wine. It does. And it has more notes than anywhere else. And it aggregates scores. I for one think that CellarTracker is phenomenally useful--and I'm clearly not alone, given the sheer number of users and bottles of wine entered.

I think what we need is for the dust to settle, a few clear leaders to emerge, and then we will get greater consolidation.

Great idea, Ryan and Rob. I can't be there, because it will be the first day of classes (hard to miss), but will be eager to hear all the reports.

OK, sorry for the delay. The ruby port was excellent with the bittersweet chocolate pudding. The textures as well as the flavors worked nicely with each other. However, I can certainly see that milk chocolate would not have been the thing AT ALL. You needed that dark, slightly sweet richness of the port to have a dark, almost tannic foil and the dark chocolate provided it.

I love Brachetto with bittersweet chocolate, Jeff! Great pairing. OK, to answer this post, I went and made some Valrhona Chocolate pudding (71% bittersweet). Am going to go open a Warre Warrior Ruby Port. Stay tuned. I'll be back with results. Thanks, Ryan, for putting me on a mission...

Thanks, you two! And happy Turkey day to you!

Just opened my second of the Blogger Pack wines--the Trincadeira--and it was just as good as the vinho verde. Posted my tasting notes today with the recommendation that people spice up their lives a bit in the midst of the turkey and the mashed potatoes. Thanks to you two and Jill at Domaine547 of course for making it possible for those of us interested in Portuguese wines to get a good selection of them in the US!

Looking forward to more Portuguese picks and was happy to see today that you can now search for Portuguese wines at d547!

Thanks for these reviews--especially of so many WineQ wines. I'll be putting some of them in my Q, for sure.

Great post, Gabriella. Very interesting, and I would agree that Portugal should emphasize their difference, rather than just chucking cab in everything. However, this makes tastings and journalism coverage imperative. I just listened to an interesting podcast that featured Kim Marcus from Wine Spectator talking about the great Portuguese table wines (the Splendid Table podcast). If Portuguese wines are making it onto public radio shows, then they are about to break into mainstream US consciousness, I think.

The ruby port I drink all the time--mostly because it is always on the shelf at Trader Joe's in both full bottles and splits--is Warre's Ruby Porto Warrior. I find that it is just perfectly balanced between sweetness, luscious fruit, and spice. My favorite thing to go with it is Huntsman Cheese (Double Gloucester and Stilton) and whole wheat digestive biscuits from England (preferably McVitie's if I can get them). After a long day, sitting in front of the TV, and drinking a small glass of ruby port with blue cheese and nutty biscuits you are instantly transported to heaven.

I don't know HOW I'm going to keep up with this crowd. I want to buy every single one of these gadgets. I'll try though. Be back after inspiration hits.

Thanks Gabriella! Thought I'd read you right. Off to find that Dao wine if I can get it...

Great theme! Just clarifying something: can we drink red table wines from the Douro if that's all we can find? No port, I understand, and extra points if we can find something from outside the Douro (may have a lead on wine from Dao...), but if I fail will you still take a Douro table wine?? Tim E. of Winecast says no, but instructions say yes?

I think this is a great idea for anyone who wants to take their writing to the next level. But I wonder if it is really true that the writing is secondary or tertiary to the message for all wine bloggers? It certainly isn't for me, and I typically spend days on a single blog post editing and revising and trying to proofread it (I'm terrible at the last). Ideally the message should be enhanced by the writing, and vice versa, but this takes a lot of work and not all bloggers can devote that much time to their project.

As for spelling and grammar, this is always going to be a problem as long as blogger doesn't allow the use of accents or other special characters, unless you change the language of your blog. A rose is just a rose without them--but it isn't exactly the blogger's ignorance or bad writing that leads to the problem. There are technical problems that confront the blogger, too.

There is a great blog, Storytellers Unplugged, that is written by 30+ authors that has some good stuff not only on giving constructive criticism but on the even harder part: taking it. Here's a link to their story, in case you're interested: http://tinyurl.com/2fsbca

I saw these wines at my local Wild Oats market last month, so they may also be available in a Wild Oats near you (if you have one, that is). Did you get to taste the wine, Russ? I wondered what it was like?

Great list of wines. I had a Bodegas Castano, too, and it was a good wine. It was a blend, though. Have to look for the 100% monastrell!

Gabriella: A "1" and an "F" are different because if you average out a "1" and a "5" you get a "3." If you average an "F" and a "5" you get a "5" along with with a note that there have been flawed bottles tasted.

There is a difference between bad wine and a corked bottle. In Ryan's rubric above, he lists corked and should be returned to seller. These indicate a bottle problem--not a vintage problem like the one above. Premature oxidation can be a result of a bottle problem or can be the result of a bad vintage.

I don't believe it is the merchants fault that 1996, 1999, and 2000 were bad vintages. You should not return the wine to them for refund.

I don't believe you should return the bottle to the merchant it you left it outside in the hot sun for 2 days and decided it was "cooked."

I do believe that you can and should return the bottle to the merchant if it smells like wet cardboard, since that is a cork flaw and not your fault.

All I was suggesting is that if the wine rating system is used to AGGREGATE SCORES ACROSS BLOGS then it might be a good thing not to conflate flawed wines and flawed/corked/cooked BOTTLES.

Gabriella: I see, but I disagree. Corked wine should get an F for flaw, in my opinion, not a number. At CellarTracker they use this system so that your FLAW comment is registered, but doesn't effect the CT average score.

RichardA: People are tracking these changes on CellarTracker. You should check out the site if you are interested in this. People taste Bordeaux practically every week and you can see the numbers go up as the wine ages, and down as it enters the dumb period, then up again as the wine continues to develop.

OK, that helps a lot. For me the "perfection" phrase doesn't work as well as how you just described it, but that's apples, oranges, and grapes for you. I don't give 100 pts on papers, either, I should say, because I've never read anything that was perfect :). And I didn't say you had suggested it needed to be expensive, age, etc. I just said the only two wines I've ever had that I thought pushed the boundaries and was perfect were the two I mention.

Still worried, though, but happy that you've actually produced a standard for what is supposed to be standardized ratings!

Ryan, this is very interesting and you're the first one to provide a possible rubric for the 5-star or 5-grape system.

However. Your 1 grape rating is not necessarily the wine's fault and shouldn't, in my opinion, be used as a rating. If a wine is corked, it is different than if a wine is just a badly conceived wine made with bad fruit. Your bottle may be flawed, but mine may be fine.

Most of the wines I drink would rate 3 grapes. They are everyday wines. I'm trying to promote everyday wine culture in the US consumer. However, with the use of the 5 grape scale, my guess is that most people would pass up on the 3 grape wines and see them as not as desirable. This would be a shame, since most of them are great values, go well with food, and are easy to find.

I don't believe I've ever had a wine that fits into your 5 grape category, except possibly for a Silver Oak Cab and an aged Bordeaux. Not even a nice young Pinot Noir that I would say was excellent value, an excellent wine, and had excellent varietal characteristics would push the boundaries of perfection in the ways you describe.

So for me this leaves me with a 3 point scale, with most of my wines falling on number 3 and 4. They would be doomed to the same dismissal as the 80-89 point wines by folks who are following scores. And 1/2 points don't help, in my opinion.

I think it's great that we are all thinking about this issue, since it is an important one. But forgive me for believing that the implementation of the 5 point scale, with 1/2 points, may fall victim to the same problems we dislike in the wine magazines.

Great theme. I think the only grape I've tried is Malvasia, so this will be great fun and a great learning experience, too. Thanks for the map and all the additional information.