The Grapevine

Wine Scores and Their Impact on Sales

April 3rd, 2018

You already know that high scores from widely-read publications drive sales – and prices. But what happens, and how do you talk about wines that get different scores from different critics? [level-members]

I don’t know that I have an answer to that question, but this recent Wine Gourd article about the different scores of two writers working for the same publication makes for interesting, if geeky, reading.

At the very least, this provides an opportunity to talk to your wine shop customers about the validity of their own impressions. No, they don’t have the credentials of an “expert” working for a wine publication. But they do have their own tastes. And as long as they are willing to explore the possibilities, they’ll grow to find what they like and what they don’t.

To use our homes as a metaphor, there’s certainly good taste and bad taste in buildings of every size, but Victorian isn’t by definition better than Craftsman as a style.

Convince your wine shop customers that there are good fruit-forward wines, for example, and bad, as well as good and bad wines of every style, and you’ll have a much more comfortable and confident body of customers.

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