Buying what you like and learning what's good (Re: ksternberg ...)

in news: snipped-for-privacy@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com :

I detest numerical ranking of wines and don't read the Spectator. ... I >don't care if a wine was made last week in a bathtub and bottled in a Mason >jar if it is well made and tastes good. ... what makes for "good" wine is >not entirely subjective. Is it well made in a physical sense, does its >taste represent the true character of the varietals used to make it, does >it have taste at all (among other qualitative aspects to consider)? > > But hey? Just trust your own palate.

(I happened to see this post, not the whole thread.)

Spirit of above sounds good to me. By the way ksternberg1, welcome to the wine newsgroup. Advice friendly (and similar) to above has come from many experienced people on this continuous forum since it started, before numerical rankings were much known in the US.* (And a few other sources before that, like Saintsbury in 1920, Schoonmaker/Marvel 1941, Melville in the 1950s, Blake Ozias in the 1960s, Bespaloff in the 1970s. Bringing us up to this forum.) Even principal wine critics who use numerical rankings warn that they are no substitute for learning wine and developing your own taste.

Cheers -- Max

Along with arrival and departure of many different readers and a few DEN** trolls. The forum started February1982.

** [DEN = Deranged, Embittered, and/or Nitwit.]