(Wine-Searcher) - It might be time to change the emphasis on wine tasting methodology, Oliver Stylessuggests.

 

One of the frequent digs made in the Cabernet-infused cock pit of the bad old days (the Robert Parker bulletin board in the mid-noughties) was that, while the likes of Decanter magazine and certain wine competitions were all very well, their group tasting approach could smother the individual greatness of certain wines and the individual insights that came with the lone star approach.

The argument, more or less, was that making a wine score from an average of three or four people's notes would, by its nature, supress outliers (i.e. bad or very good wines) and promote the kind of wines that would be palatable to a wider audience, as they would garner good, but not stellar, scores across a number of people, equalling in score more polarizing (yet potentially brilliant) efforts.