Is inflation crippling wine scores? haven’t crunched the numbers but Blake Gray did and found that new critic Antonio Galloni’s “midpoint” (not sure if this is the mean or median) was 92, up from 91 for Parker’s last set of reviews. Let’s hope Ben Bernanke–or, eegad, Paul Volcker!–doesn’t MORE >>

SAQ, the state-owned wine entity that has a monopoly on wine retail in Quebec, paid wine critic James Suckling $24,000 last year. ” The documents obtained by La Presse state that Suckling was paid for “the tasting and scoring of products, the production, the creation, and putting the brief videos live.” Image: PR Web. MORE >>

In an article entitled “Once Upon a Time (1899, 1929, 1949, 1959, 2009),&# he lavished praise on the vintage, particularly the cabernet blends of the left bank, and on many wines individually: 21 wines received scores of potentially 100 points. Robert Parker posted his reviews of Bordeaux 2009 yesterday on his subscription web site. MORE >>

Robert Parker : Critic who popularized the 100-point scoring system; as winemaker Randall Grahm put it in the comments: “His influence on winemaking styles world-over is massive, a bit like the light-bending properties of a ginormous black hole on nearby astral bodies.&#. Now it’s voting time! MORE >>

For those who haven’t checked out the saga (see Felix Salmon’s excellent summary over on Reuters.com ), an influential critic gave a wine brand called Sierra Carche the score of 96, retailers sold the wine touting that score, but many consumers then found the wine undrinkable (as the critic also did 10 months later). MORE >>