To score or not to score

Scoring wine is controversial. This article by Tom Wark, and the subsequent comment discussion really sums up the issue very well. On one hand a score is an almost arbitrary indicator of what you personally thought of a wine. On the other hand it's a very convenient shorthand for you to say "I liked this wine a lot. A little bit more than that last one, but not as much as that one last year."

Most scoring systems also don't take into account what kind of wine it is, and what kind of wine the reader likes. For instance we had some people over for dinner a while back and had a bottle of Sainsbury's Muscat De St Jean De Minervois with dessert. I think it's a real easy drinking bargain, full of honey and fruit, with enough refreshing acidity to cut through most desserts. I could drink it on it's own I think. And only £4 a bottle! For some of the guests who aren't sweet wine fans it was just way too much, they found it sickly cloying and pretty much undrinkable.

So I might include scores, but I am fully aware that they will be very limited in how useful they are to any theoretical readers who might stumble across the blog. After all, I've only posted one review so far and I think my wife (who will hopefully also be contributing) already doesn't agree with it.

Why another wine blog?

Hello.

There are thousands of wine blogs on the internet. Most of them are written by people who know a lot more about wine than me. So I'm not really expecting many people to read this blog. It's more an aide memoir for me so that I can keep track of some stuff that I have tried and say what I think of it. Like a wine notebook really but I figure that, in these interactive days, I might as well put it online. A blog seemed the easiest way to achieve that.

I got married in September and instead of a traditional gift list we discovered that Majestic did a wine gift list. Which was an incredible idea. We ended up with a cellar full of great wine that we have labelled up with who gave us what. I expect you'll be hearing about some of that in due course!

I might invite other people to contribute at some point too. Whether or not they can be bothered remains to be seen!