Decanter Magazine's Top 20 ports for Christmas.

Anything to do with Port.
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Doggett
Morgan 1991
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Decanter Magazine's Top 20 ports for Christmas.

Post by Doggett »

A very bizarre set of scores listed in the Decanter Magazine Ports for Christmas this year. Otima 10yo at 93 points v Fonseca '85 at 91 points for example. Anonymous Staff editorial...

http://www.decanter.com/wine/wine-regio ... mas-55872/
Andy Velebil
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Re: Decanter Magazine's Top 20 ports for Christmas.

Post by Andy Velebil »

and a 20 year tawny got 98 points. Wow!!


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flash_uk
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Re: Decanter Magazine's Top 20 ports for Christmas.

Post by flash_uk »

Isn't that the same list from last year?? I have long thought that Decanter has no clue about port. Or about many other categories of wine. Their scores always seem wildly inflated.
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Doggett
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Re: Decanter Magazine's Top 20 ports for Christmas.

Post by Doggett »

flash_uk wrote:Isn't that the same list from last year??
I think last years was put together by Mr. Mayson but wasn't much different.
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flash_uk
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Re: Decanter Magazine's Top 20 ports for Christmas.

Post by flash_uk »

Doggett wrote:
flash_uk wrote:Isn't that the same list from last year??
I think last years was put together by Mr. Mayson but wasn't much different.
I think it is actually last year's list - the date of the article in the link is December 2015.
CPR 1
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Re: Decanter Magazine's Top 20 ports for Christmas.

Post by CPR 1 »

flash_uk wrote:
Doggett wrote:
flash_uk wrote:Isn't that the same list from last year??
I think last years was put together by Mr. Mayson but wasn't much different.
I think it is actually last year's list - the date of the article in the link is December 2015.
But at the bottom of the page it says updated 1/12/16 and the list includes Churchill 2014 which was only released this year.

I agree it is odd though!
PhilW
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Re: Decanter Magazine's Top 20 ports for Christmas.

Post by PhilW »

The scores people ascribe to wine can be very odd sometimes, and to be of any value the reader really needs to know what the writer means by the scores given. It's one of the reasons I prefer a descriptive rating to a value, though the same argument can be made regarding clarity of description (though I think less than for purely numeric).

I do agree that some people rate very generously - especially when you take into account the scale they are using, if they happen to define it. As an example, while considering whether I ought to give a points rather than descriptive rating, I once tried to align my ratings against various scales to see what worked and highlight the anomalies; I probably ought to write that up in some detail sometime, but in short I found good alignment with AHB's scale, while using the Wine Spectator scale implied roughly 5pts less for the same rating ("good" equating to 87-89 for AHB, 80-84 for WS). The odd thing therefore is that while the Wine Spectator scale allows for more discrimination at the top end, you would expect much lower scores to be typical overall than are usually seen. For example, 88 for WS is at the top of the "very good" category, with only "outstanding" and "classic" above it; yet how many wines are rated at less than 88 by people using this scale - surprisingly few, to my mind; and "classic" on WS starts at 95, and there seem to be more of these than of sub-88. Perhaps this might be valid if 88 means "good" or perhaps even "good/ok", but if 88 is the top end of "very good" then I don't think so, though I must acknowledge that it depends on your definition of "very good".

And yes, whichever way you look at it, an odd set of scores in this article. Perhaps it only works if you consider the points to be judges within their won category i.e. an LBV receiving 98pts is a "classic" LBV, but not necessarily better than a 91pt vintage port. Without the per-category reasoning, the scores are quite bizarre and perhaps mostly reflect a strong preference of the author for tawny over vintage (though the LBV scores then make no sense still).
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