The Under $20 A Bottle Wine Thread:

[TheRiddick]

Hmmm... I did not compare MY own tasting notes to Parker's, I simply explained what Parker's mean. Ask any serious wine geek and they will tell you same thing I did.

For example, any time you see Parker say ""leather", you are absolutely sure he is talking brett (although he'll never say brett since he can't tell it even if it hit on the head, he actually loves the taste by his own admission), yet for most people brett is a serious flaw in wine and a real turn off (ever smelled a cow/horse barn gone bad?). He and I had a pretty heated public discussion on the subject, all the winemakers were pretty appalled by his stance and lack of any undestanding of the subject. Same with filtration and such, notice how he touts most of the wines he covers as "unfined and un filtered" while most of them actually are. He is clueless on many subjects and I am not sure why people follow his advice (he was chased out of Burgundy a while back for his BS and stupidity and I wish same would happen in other regions, its time for him to retire).

Not that other wine reviewers are much better, no one is consistant and many guess where they shouldn't.

Main reason I am saying trust YOUR OWN PALATE, same as with cigars. True enough, though, you do need to find similar palates to follow, but that takes time and effort.

Try that Steltzner Claret I pointed out above, see what I mean.