89 Point Wines, ENOUGH ALREADY!

89 Point Wines, ENOUGH ALREADY! - Episode #320

September 25, 2007

Gary Vaynerchuk explores the 89 point phenomenon. Some fun wines today!

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Comments on this episode(148) Leave a comment ›

“QOTD: People who give restaraunt reviews online like citysearch.com. …” by Dessert Wine Nerd
“QOTD: It is illegal to drink alcohol until one second after the midnig…” by CBone
View all 148 ›

Wines tasted in this episode:

2005 Chehalem Riesling ReserveOregon Riesling
2006 Te Kairanga Pinot NoirNew Zealand Pinot Noir
2005 Minchin Le Clos DelormeOther Loire Red Wine
2003 Miguel Torres Syrah ReservaChilean Shiraz
2003 Chateau SaintaymeSt Emilion
2004 Turkey Flat GrenacheAustralian Grenache

Links mentioned in todays episode.

148 Responses

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about 4 days ago

Dessert Wine Nerd
QOTD: People who give restaraunt reviews online like citysearch.com. I know that a lot of the reviews are helpful, but I recently looked at reviews for two restaurants in my area which are both fantastic, and all the negative reviews were absolute nitpicking. It was like they expected more than they deserved, or something. Either that or they were used to Americanized versions of the cuisines of the restaurants and didnt like true flavors from other parts of the world. Just disgusts me…. Enough of my rant, great show. I agree that wines under 90 do get a bad rap, and I know Im part of that and trying to change it. Loved the comment about throwing the quarters out the window. Bet that winemaker loves you…. ha.
about a month ago

CBone
QOTD: It is illegal to drink alcohol until one second after the midnight on your 21st birthday. Why not 14? Or 7? It is so silly, and the forbidden quality of it makes college kids (CKCs!) often see alcohol as a way to escape, rather than engage their lives. Too bad, isn’t it?
about 8 months ago

HuskerJ
QOTD: I know NJ isn’t exactly college football country, but here we find the BCS standings to be the stupidest thing in known existence.
about 10 months ago

Valentin
Hi Gary, sorry for the harsh words but a retard put a ‘ after the 89 on the black board behind you. It is 89s not 89’s! Just my 2 cents.
about 10 months ago

bryon wine
Hey Gary,

I’ve been sucked in by a couple of Miguel Torres wines. I guess I gave them a shot because I really like Veramonte and one other Chilean that I can’t recall right now. But your description about covers them.

I have found Wine Spectator to be fairly consistent with their ratings, unlike some magazine shills that must be receiving payola for their kind words (and numbers). Keep up the good work.

I complement you on your objectivity even though the Torres is on sale on your site.
about 10 months ago

Mike S.
FREE MARKETING RESEARCH!!!
QOTD: There are so many wines that have a 90pt score for under $20, that my first choice would be to try those wines before I journey into $20 89pt or below wines. Why??????? I dunno. I do not trust my palette enough to say “hey spectator, Partker, etc, I think you under-scored this one…. This one is more my style.” My other ‘line in the sand’ is no-score wines. I know I sound like a score freak, but if there is a wine at a store selling for 10, 15, 20 bucks, with no score and boring tasting notes ,then that wine has NO CHANCE of being bought by me. That’s just the way it is bro.
about 10 months ago

Mason
Great show for the 89s Gary. I have to admit, I have fallen victim to the “89…hmm…Oh, wait, here’s a 90 pointer!” More recently, though, as I learn more about regions, I try to go into my favorite wine shops and look for specific regions in my price point, and then determine what I think about them.

QOTD: Here I go, and I apologize beforehand. I cannot stand the way restaurants are rated. There are restaurants in my home town (Memphis, TN) that get praised for their bar-b-que, and totally don’t deserve the adoration that they get. Why? Because of their name, and the fact that they have ridden on their name for so long that they just don’t give a crap about making good food anymore. (and no, I am not talking about Corky’s!) So, here is to my pallet…the only one that matters.
about 10 months ago

Lawrence Leichtman
I don’t look at scores as anything but a starting point. If anyone rates a wine under 80 I won’t try it but I do look at tasting notes to see if they are flavors I’m interested in. Some varietals I just gravitate to and some like Pintoage I can’t warm up to.
about 10 months ago

Elliot Essman
Points are very handy, but so are tasting notes.

Points are necessary for the magazines that have to deal with thousands of wines. I think of a high score as a starting point. It will make me read the reviewer’s notes and seek out other notes.

But I am always aware that, because of my very broad tastes, I may like a wine that scores a little lower than the usual buy signals. Hence, 88 and 89 indicate to me that not only might I like the wine, but it may be a good value besides.
about 10 months ago

Pastafari Pirate
QOTD: can’t really think of any other such lines, arbitrary or not.

GREAT episode, btw, one of my favorites. You were on top of your game.
about 10 months ago

melanie
You make such great effort to pronounce names,regions and foreign words correctly,yet I heard you say “supposebly” instead of the actual correct word, supposedly with the ‘D’ properly placed. Please don’t say that anymore, it makes an incredibly intelligent and wine savvy individual such as yourself sound like a dolt.
I love your show and I think you are Fab ! I know that the general public does influence our speech and slang, but please drop this one.
about 11 months ago

JayZee
QOTD: Let’s see… If Vaynerchuk likes it, I’ll PAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
about 11 months ago

EricB
Nice show, I like the values you can find for “89 point” wines. The Ellen clips are hilarious!
QOTD - higher education degrees. Someone takes a few courses and all of a sudden they are “educated”, blah blah. Real life experience counts for so much more!
about 11 months ago

MtnCharlie
Great episode. Points, scoring it seems this is what drives the market. Futures. Is this wine or the stock market?

QOTD: B+/A- on a report card. No straight “A’s”. Hmmm… Your future is… mmmm… *limited*
about 11 months ago

YoungDave
QOTD: The Old-World, New-World line in the sand… or the varietal lines in the sand (like NO Chards or Merlots or Zins, etc.) People need to seek out value and different expressions of varietals and regions from all over the world without making sweeping generalizations. Some generalizations hold water to some extent, but never in every case… and THAT is where interesting values can be found.
about 11 months ago

addamms3
I know I’m a day late, and always a dollar short, but responding to your “riduculous line in the sand” question: the U.S.-Mexico border. I was born and raised in El Paso, Tx. and now live in San Antonio, Tx. Mexicans, by and large, great folks. Texans, by and large, great folks. Undocumented Mexicans, by and large, great folks who work harder than you or I would ever dream of, for less than you or I would ever consider. My uncle, who farmed throughout West Texas and Easern New Mexico, always cried when Border Patrol shut down the border because all the farmers would lose their crops, rotting in the fields for want of hands to harvest.
By the way, I drink wine too.
about 11 months ago

Pat Mc
Tonight am drinking a Rhone Rebel 2003 — opened 24 hours ago. Still a lovely drinking wine. Lines in the sand? the whole glass ceiling thing and now the gray ceiling thing. Jeez, people need to get over the labels and the scoring thing. Just like the wines.
about 11 months ago

PaVo
Gary,

Great show, One correction that i think one other person commented on. The NZ Pinot is not from Marlborough; it’s from Martinborough, which is on the north Island (as opposed to the south with marl) and is just north east of Wellington. Great region, I actually visited Te Kairanga and really enjoyed their wines about 7 years ago, so it’s good to see their still doing well. Martinborough is a great underrated, or more so, little known region in NZ, so thanks for highlighting it, even if you mistook it for Marlborough!

QTOD: I get pretty upset with the line that’s drawn in the sand by some wine drinkers who say “Bordeaux” is fantastic or “Burgundy” is great or Napa. With so many differences in the terroir alone saying that this region or that region is fantastic just seems as absurd as saying “everyone from Chicago is amazing”. (while this last statement is true, it’s still absurd to say!) And I think it upsets me more because it’s told to new wine drinkers and so they grab ‘a’ bordeaux and then have a bad experience and never go back to wine. Seems silly to me. I think that’s why I like wine library so much, you guys are working to dispel that myth, along with many others.
about 11 months ago

cumpari
QOTD: New World AVAs vs Old World AVAs…they serve completely different functions. The only commonality is that they identify place of origin.
about 11 months ago

Wil
Ah Ellen: sometimes I think that her face moves less than the furniture on her show - good to see it jogged into action by the illustrious Vayniac monarch. Keep on rockin’ the wine world G-to-the-V.

QOTD: The 38th Parallel
about 11 months ago

C.W. Miller IV
AofD: The sand-line marked between god and evolution.
about 11 months ago

BW
Good commentary today. I think the ratings game is overall more useful than not. If you are buying / drinking a lot of wine & you have tasted enough reviewed bottles to know how your pallete tracks relative to some of the critics, then the statistics will work for you over time. Some bottles will excede your expectations, some will be below expectations, but on average you will get the quality you are looking for over time.

Of course the key here is - drink lots of wine to make it work (that goes without saying, doesn’t it ?)

QOTD : In politics & philosophy, there are those who think the world is black & white with no shades of gray - they live in a world of hard lines that can’t crossed. The older I get, the more I realize that the reality is everything is really shades of gray - so I just try to avoid them in general.
about 11 months ago

jopappa
Great Show! I love the fact that the nose of a wine is so important to you. I fully agree the nose in a huge influence on my enjoyment of a wine. Loved the ellen part two clip. QOTD…. Preseason college football rankings. What a croc!
about 11 months ago

jopappa
Great show! I love the fact that the nose of wine is extremly important to your enjoyment of the wine. I fully agree. Really enjoyed the producer eating the dirt on ellen. QOTD…Pre-season college football ranking. what a croc!
about 11 months ago

Benny Morosco
There is certainly validity to a score of 90 does more harm than good. I definately would want to see if it is a consistant with more than a single critic! I have had my share of 95 point wines and some of them were out of this world but some were so bad I had to keep checking the label to make sure I poured the right one!! The world of 89’s in my eyes is very under rated and 1 point in some cases can make a diffrence, we have learned that from Gary! But I will never not try a wine because a critic said it was 89. I love to explore his or her 89 could be my 98….haha
One off the cuff thing I would like to say is that THANK YOU GARY for bringing the Wine world to a Blue Collar language we can all understand!!