james suckling retires?

[winoweenie]

An announcement in the news today said James Suckling had retired from the Wine Speculator. Too bad as he was one of the few palates published in the rag that had any credence to it. WW

[wondersofwine]

I just started getting "Wine Spectator" again about two issues ago after dropping it for several years. It was "free" for completing some consumer surveys online. I also subscribe to "Wine Enthusiast."

[andrawes76]

WW, I think Wine Spectator is always a fun read, and I enjoyed JS's wine reviews. I have always found wine scoring to be quite a conundrum since wine is like art, beauty is in the taste of the beholder... wine scores just tend to drive up prices to sickening levels.

I've found less reliability with Wine Advocate scoring...

Bacchus himself would be pissed.

[hotwine]

Suspect there's more to Suckling's "retirement" than the announcement would indicate. He seemed well-regarded in Bordeaux and has shown a very consistent palate, which I appreciate. So we wait for the real story to come out.

As for numerical scores: I find them useful if they're from a single person, and I've been able to calibrate my palate to the user's. For example, for me, Suckling's "WS92" is a sweet spot, so when he assigns that score to a wine, I pay attention - more than I would pay to a 94-96 from him, for that would indicate an over-the-top wine that's undoubtedly over-priced. It's all about consistency, so I know what to expect.

Will be interesting to see where he lands now.

[Thomas]

Prediction:

Venture capitalists and Mr. Suckling announce a new and exciting winery for which the world renown winemaker (fill in name here) will be at the helm. Wine Expectorant refuses to review the new wines on the grounds that, "he didn't tell us."

[TheEngineer]

Not that I follow this stuff religiously (proof by my timing which is well off), James had announced his oneworldonewine which is made from US sourced grapes with the wines made in Mexico. I'm not sure that this is a full time endeavor. Proceeds go to charity

[TheEngineer]

anyone here seen his Website? All information is gonna be distributed in Video format. I'm not sure that that is the best use of bandwidth and video does take more time but it will be interesting to see the people behind the wines.

[Thomas]

You know, I listen to many people talk about this blog and that blog, this video and that video and I wonder, especially after considering how many times I've said to myself that the Internet is a time suck, I wonder how much time people really do give to the keyboard and screen.

When I was in the 8th grade I remember writing a science fiction essay in my English class. It concerned the future of the world, when people no longer needed bodies and were reduced to blobs of brain matter that communicated through electronic impulse. We didn't know about the digital world then, but I see now that I wasn't too far off in my prediction.

[TheEngineer]

HEY.....how did you know how I look........ [img]/ubb/smile.gif[/img] I am a very fashionable shade of grey though...