Wine Advocate Still Has Power

Decanter (11/08) reported on an interesting tale of the continuing power of the Wine Advocate and their scores.

Farr Vintners, which specializes in high end wines, was having difficulty selling Taylors Vintage Port 2003, despite it being an excellent wine. From November 2005 to June 2008, they had only sold 15 cases. But in July 2008, over the course of only two days, they sold more than 150 cases of this wine. And they could have sold even more if they had more cases in stock.

What happened was that the Wine Advocate gave this wine 100 points, a perfect score. Jay Miller provides the scores for Ports for the Wine Advocate. So, with this score, the demand for the wine skyrocketed, indicating that the Wine Advocate still has great power, even if the review is not specifically from Robert Parker.

Yet if this wine was so good, then why didn't others see that before the Wine Advocate score was released? There is much I could say here yet it would be repetitious of much I and others have said before. Just know there are great wines out there, still undiscovered by the primary wine print media, and that you should seek such wines out.