Highly Rated Wines

Oh, Robert Parker. Did you know how you would change the world with just a few simple numbers and your nose? No, you couldn’t have, could you? It was the funky ‘70s, man. We were all too busy getting over Vietnam, watching “All in the Family,” and trying to flip our hair like Farrah to realize that entire revolution in wine was going on. Imagine that?

And so began the age of Highly Rated Wines. Some see this as the End All, Be All, Amen, in wine opinion; others view Parker Points as a despotic tirade the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte or Attila the Hun. What do we think? Well, it’s safe to say we’re somewhere in between.

Wine ratings can be extremely useful. In a sea of choices that grows ever-more crowded on wine-shop shelves, we like to think of highly rated wines as a sort of compass; a guide to tell you where a wine falls in its ageability, its balance of fruit, acid, body, and, as the case may be, tannic structure. It tells you what a wine is drinking like, what its flavors and textures will be. Most importantly, a highly rated wine may tell you if it’s worth the do-re-mi.

What we like to do here at PJ is think of wine ratings as a guide. Parker is, and for very good reason, a well respected wine-journalist who, for better or worse, changed the way many imbibers and producers think about wine. But he’s also a person with his own, individual palate. Use points and ratings from the Parkers of the world and their ilk as a compass, but let your true north be found in your own, personal exploration of what’s in the bottle. After all, a wine is only great if you deem it so, making it the most highly rated wine of all.