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This Absent-Minded Professor Solves a Wine Problem How would you expect a college professor to grade wines? Seems only natural to give the better ones A’s and B’s, which is what you will find in the unique...Wine PocketList. ....Vankat compiles the wines with the best numbers from 10 well-known wine magazines, puts them in a database along with his own evaluation and adjusts them for differences in how they are rated. He recognizes that just like grades in college, an A from one professor might not equal an A from another. He then assigns the wines a grade of A or B, sometimes with pluses and minuses. The Wine...PocketList only contains wines that cost $30 or less. To be in his lists, the $20 wines must be rated no lower than an 88 in the various publications; $21 to $30 wines must rate from 90 to 100. Also, to be included, a winery must produce at least 1,000 cases. That’s cool, because then you might be able to find these wines in stores and restaurants. But remember, if a wine gets a B- and costs $20 or less, some noted critic rated it an 88 in the last 10 months. Makes you wonder how tough he is on students in his plant ecology course. “I could never remember the wine evaluations when I went to the store,” says VanKat, who also writes a biweekly wine column for the Cincinnati Enquirer and a column for Navigator in-flight magazine. “That’s what inspired me to produce this,” he says, admitting that his reason probably qualifies him as an absent-minded professor. VanKat, 56, says some readers expect more than just lists, but that’s all he provides — nothing about aromas or body. This little publication only tells you the name, vintage, state (if it’s not California), individual evaluations, estimated price and a composite evaluation. Those individual evaluations may list as many as six grades, but not the sources, so you will never know what Robert Parker thought. VanKat uses Connoisseur’s Guide to California Wine, International Wine Cellar, Underground Wine Journal, Wine Access (Canada), Wine Advocate (Robert Parker); Wine Enthusiast; the Wine News, Wine Spectator, Wine & Spirits and Wine X. They are all credible sources, so if you are satisfied with his bare-bones lists, he can save you hundreds of dollars in subscriptions, and the time it takes to read them. Three of the Quarterly PocketLists judge American wines, the other European. In the current issue, which looks at U.S. wines, here’s how the lists go:
For taking to the store or a restaurant, the Quarterly PocketList makes it easy to pick out a winner. The question is whether your personal taste runs along the same line as the experts’. | |
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