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February 13, 2001 WINESCORE
– IF YOU CAN’T TAKE A WINO TO DINNER, THIS IS THE NEXT BEST THING While
Wino John may know how to design and build gadgets and Wino Bob has refined wine
taste buds at a world class level, I have honed my skills at evaluating and
purchasing gadgets of all kinds months and years before anyone else procures
them. Of course, being a
trailblazer can be expensive, but it’s nice to have the techno rep
particularly when you partied through college rather than suffering through the
Plasma Physics courses that Wino John took. I was perusing through the many wine catalogs that I receive each month (can’t be a wino or techno geek without being on everyone’s mailing list) and saw a product that appeared to combine my techno hobby with my wine hobby. In the December Wine Enthusiast catalog, a product called WineScore (www.winescore.com) was advertised. According to the literature, WineScore has the ratings stored for over 8,000 wines and is a program that you install on your Palm Pilot, so you can carry it into a fine restaurant. At $24.95 (list), I thought this might be an application that some of our fledgling winos could use to boost their standing when forced to order wine for a customer, date, or family member. So, I ordered the product (on sale at $19.95) and gave it a whirl. I
bought my copy of Winescore, site unseen, at www.wineenthusiast.com. My
Winescore software came on a CD. Preprinted instructions on the CD refer you to the readme.txt
file that’s located on the CD for installation directions.
Within a few minutes of printing those instructions, I had Winescore
installed. During the installation,
I found out that I was receiving a 14 day grace period to register my software.
If I did not register the software and receive the permanent key (tied to
my personal name registration in the Palm Pilot, the software would not be
usable. This clever system is
designed so that I don’t hand the CD to Wino John and Wino Bob and let them
install it on their Palm Pilots (well, Wino John has a Palm Pilot, I’m not
sure about Wino Bob. His might have
drowned in a glass of Chardonnay). At
$24.95, everyone should be able to afford Winescore (and maybe expense it on
your expense account if you work for Wino Bob!). Wine Score has designed a simple, but effective program. Included on the current database are West Coast American wines and French wines. Only wines produced over the past 8 years are included (so you can’t rate most of the good stuff in Wino Bob’s cellar, but how many of you get to go there!). Winescore uses the combination of public wine tastings/ratings such as Robert Parker, Wine Spectator, the Wine Advocate, a bunch of famous raters including the French government and their own ratings (over 20 years of experience). A simple scale from 1-10 is employed and is listed below.
1 Don't even think about it 2 A below average, jug type wine 3 An average wine 4 A better than average wine 5 A good wine 6 A very good wine 7 An exceptional wine 8 A very exceptional wine 9 A superb wine 10 A world class wine No
gadget is a good gadget until you can put it through its paces and achieve
success. I decided to test the
Winescore gadget by looking at the scores and comparing them to Wino Bob’s
ratings. That’s where the first
shortfall appeared. Wino Bob has
rated a few Italian wines. Italian
wines are not included in the database at this time.
That’s a real shame. I can
claim a fairly comprehensive knowledge of California wines and Oregon wines and
am able to hold my own with the French reds and German whites. However,
I don’t know much about the Italians and would love to have a database that
rates them (if you’re reading this at Winescore, take heed!).
The second shortfall was with the eight year limitation.
I can live with that shortfall, but winos with big budgets and equally
large egos will have to hire Wino Bob for a review of wines older than eight
years. The third shortfall was a
techno shortfall that could be corrected (but how much it would cost to correct,
I don’t know). When I clicked on
the Arrowood Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (a 9 rating), the program provides me
with a listing of the varietals which Arrowood produces.
I tried to click on the Chardonnay hoping that the program would take me
to the Arrowood Chardonnay and its rating, but no dice.
Adding that feature would save several steps in the program.
The fourth and final shortfall is that the wine rating is an average
rating and not a rating for a particular year.
Thus, Arrowood’s Reserve rating of 9 is an average.
The system provides a rating scale for California Cabernet’s by year
(and other major varietals as well) but not a rating for each year specific to a
brand. In summary, the Winescore software is a handy rating device. It won’t take the place of an expert like Wino Bob (see Bob, you still have a night job), but it’s a great way to give you a feel for selecting a wine you’re unfamiliar with. Obviously, any Arrowood Cabernet on a restaurant menu would be a good choice under the software’s rating guide. Between the French wines and the American West Coast wines, almost all of the varietals are included (Sangiovese, dessert, Meritage, etc. to name a few). Wino Bob will be pleased to hear that White Zinfandel is not listed as a varietal. I found this so useful that I don’t intend to hide it during my next occasion to order wine in a restaurant. I plan to announce that I’ve procured this new toy and want to see how good it is by ordering a wine with which I’m not familiar. I’ll let you know if I experience any difficulty with this strategy. For those of you willing to take a Wino to dinner, we’re all available.
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