Master of Wine tastes wines from Cellar Tracker to find out whether their ratings are useful.

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I have used this glass in this Video: RIEDEL Performance Riesling
I have tasted the following wines in this Video:
Piper Heidsieck Champagner Brut France – 42 US$
2019 Kumeu River Estate Chardonnay New Zealand – 30 US$
2019 La Crema Chardonnay Sonoma Coast USA – 20 US$
2020 Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough New Zealand – 16 US$
2012 La Rioja Alta Vina Ardanza Reserva Rioja Spain – 36 US$
2016 Château Cantemerle Bordeaux France – 40 US$
2018 Fontodi Chianti Classico Italy – 40 US$

The 100 Point Scoring System (from www.robertparker.com):
96-100: An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase and consume.
90 – 95: An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.
80 – 89: A barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor as well as character with no noticeable flaws.
70 – 79: An average wine with little distinction except that it is a soundly made. In essence, a straightforward, innocuous wine.
60 – 69: A below average wine containing noticeable deficiencies, such as excessive acidity and/or tannin, an absence of flavor or possibly dirty aromas or flavors.
50 – 59: A wine deemed to be unacceptable.

Cellar Tracker was created in March 2003 by Eric LeVine, whose name predestined him to get into the wine business. He was working for Microsoft at that time and wanted to program a tool to keep track of his wine collection. He soon realized that others would like to use his tool too and it became a big success. Today it is – according to Cellar Tracker – used by hundreds of thousands of users and contains more than 9 million tasting notes.

I found out that there is a ranking of the people with the most tasting notes and number one at this moment is rjonwine who has written close to 48,000 tasting notes since he first signed up in 2004 – which is pretty impressive. Users can write tasting notes, indicate whether they like a wine or whether it is flawed, and then rate it according to the 100-point system.

Out of all the tasting notes that are entered by its users Cellar Tracker creates an average score that you can use to find new, interesting wines. I do not use Cellar Tracker much, but I find it pretty useful as the users tend to be real wine geeks and therefore taste a lot of different wines and I also prefer scores in the 100 points system, just because I also score that way and therefore find it easier to compare scores.

Today I want to find out though whether the cellar tracker scores are useful for finding great wine and I asked Leon to select some highly rated but affordable wines that you should be able to get in most countries so that you can taste along if you want …

24 Comments

  1. I was going through a Rioja journey and wasn't convinced… then I tried the 2012 Vina Ardanza and, as you said, mamma mia! Great wine, and now I "get it" regarding Rioja. I've bought pretty much the entire La Rioja Alta line now (including additional bottles of 2012 Vina Ardanza), other than their 890 wine which is very expensive and harder to find.

  2. I do not use cellar tracker. I prefer to find my wines through my own tastings and recommendation from colleagues with similar tastes to my own

  3. Hmm, I had the Miraval yesterday and I found it very thin and not expressive at all. I wonder if I just had a bad bottle, or maybe I'm not used to that style of rose.

  4. My favorite use for CT is for monitoring wines I'm aging. Many CT users buy those wines by the case and pop them yearly to see how they're progressing, and they post reviews as they revisit. I'm typically only buying a single bottle so I only have one chance to hopefully open them when they're peaking, and so far CT hasn't done me wrong.

  5. Very nice presentation! Thanks Konstantin! I've tried Kim Crawford Sauvignion and it was good, but below expectations. Rose Studio by Miraval [second label] was surprisingly good for me [only 10-12 eu in France] because I was expecting an overrated and snobistic wine.I think Rioja is a good tip,I must try😀!

  6. I’ve been using CT for 15 years now to track my inventory and write notes on my wines, and wines I don’t own that I have tasted. It’s an excellent system, and a great community of wine geeks. Cheers! 🥂

  7. Thank you for reviewing a Rioja wine! I tasted Lopez de Heredia Bostonia Reserva at a tasting many years ago and never looked back! I have also tried the Rioja Alta, Muga, Castillo Ygay, and all of them offer excellent value for the price. Even the more expensive wines are better value than most other regions.

  8. maybe I am using it wrong but I find cellartracker very unintuitive. it's hard to get the listings I need to search out good wines I might want to try out. thanks for the vid!

  9. Vina Ardanza Rioja is by far my favourite affordable red. I have a few 2015 and 2012 layed down, I keep buying this to drink on top of it. Stunning wine, I can get it as cheap as £18 or so, absolute no brainer.

  10. At $9 per glass, that user with 48,000 tasting notes is claiming to have sampled around $450,000 in wine.

    48,000 glasses in 20 years is 7 glasses a day, every day, of different wines, for 20 years straight.

    Sounds like someone has just been leaving tasting notes for things they've never tried.

    Do the math, and it doesn't add up.

  11. Hello Konstantin I am sending you this message to ask you if you could taste test a bottle of 2009 Chateau St. Jean Cabinet sauvignon Red Wine. I have had it 1 time years ago. But I want a Sommelier's Opinion on how good the Wine really is. Thank You
    Mr. Funny Guy.

  12. I drank a whole bottle of Red Wine from chili and it was so cheap. I did not even feel like I was drunk. And usually by a half of a bottle of wine I am a little drunk.

  13. I don't have cellar tracker. I prefer to experiment myself instead of following other people's preferences. Of all those wines I know the Miraval as I quite like it and in UK is £16-18. BTW, you forgot to mention the Miraval in the description of the wines you tasted. Thanks to you, I'll now try the NZ Chardonnay and the Rioja 🙂

  14. kumeu is one of my favourites, and frankly, is an open secret among my burgundy friends. once you get to the single vineyards, the quality gets into stratospheric levels

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