Award-winning Wines
We do not put too much stock in either ratings or awards, because we know quite intimately the limitations of that approach, and we would prefer that, over time and with experience, you gain confidence in our ability to select wines of character and describe them honestly. But it is also hard to resist sharing the information when someone else raves about a wine that we love. So we have created this section for a sampling of the awards and recognition our wines have garnered.
What we will NOT include in this section are any numerical scores from the ubiquitous 100-pt ratings scale. We think that the use of this system has been harmful to the wine industry in general and detrimental to the appreciation of diversity in wine. THe industry professionals we deal with are virtually unanimous in their disdain for this scale, agreeing with us that it is in the very least misleading because it creates a a false sense of objectivity. Does anyone really seriously maintain that a 93-pt wine is objectively "better" than a 91-pt wine? Or an 89-pt wine, for that matter? Yet it is almost impossible to resist the pull, ingrained in us from the time we start school, of the 90-100-pt scale, and the insistent feeling that if one wine gets 94 points it is more deserving of our attention than the one that got "only" 91. So we have decided to take a stand. We will present the comments of the important critics. We just won't include the point scores. (If you really want them and can't find them elsewhere ask us - we'll tell you. We have nothing to hide.) Many of our wines have been "rated" and virtually all receive scores in the mid-eighties to mid-nineties. That translates roughly as "Very Good" to "Excellent." That's about as scientific as we think this stuff gets. So, here are some examples of the recognition won by the wines and wineries we represent. For a more complete look at our philosophy on wine evaluation and awards, see our blog entry on the subject.
