The aging question is interesting, too. How often does it turn out that the really structured wine dries out before it becomes approachable, while the more approachable wine is delicious in its youth because of the fruit and initial complexity? Or there’s the question of over-oaked vs. consumed too young before the oak integrates. The critic must assess where a too-young wine will go, but this must be extremely difficult given how many variables are in play, especially when a producer with little history is involved.

While I agree that rating wines contains some elements of subjectivity, I fail to see how that is different than rating automobiles, as you seem to suggest.

From where I sit, a Honda is far superior to a Mercedes (even putting aside initial cost): both get me where I want to go at legal speeds; the Honda gets better gas mileage and has a lower cost of ownership (maintenance, repairs, insurance); the Honda’s cloth seats don’t get burning hot like the Mercedes’ leather when parked in the hot sun…

So if you are going to use the “subjectivity” argument, I don’t see how you can say that a Mercedes is better. It all depends on where you sit.

On the other hand, if you’d like to make the argument that there are some reasonably objective criteria that are used to judge quality, I think you can say that one wine is better than another and a Mercedes is better than a Honda. Perhaps you might consider acceleration, braking, turning radius, etc.

as a drinker of cheap wines and a perpetual bargain hunter, this post really resonated with me – so much that i wrote one in my own blog about it: http://winewithramen.wordpress.com/ .

thanks for posting such an informative blog! looking forward to reading more!