Wineries that advertise in Wine Spectator have their wines score better–but only by less than one point. SPIT: binge drinking; SIPPED: wine tasting. An elite girls’ school in England has a new approach to tackling the problem of binge drinking: wine tastings. SIPPED: number crunching. Revolutionary!! SPIT: closures. MORE >>

In “ The Emperor of Wine ,” Elin McCoy writes that Parker and his friend Victor Morgenroth tried various systems of rating and evaluating wines in their (blind) tasting group in the mid-seventies. ” Ironically, score inflation is the most likely threat to the 100-point system today. wine writing MORE >>

SPIT: en primeur scores? Further, “The wines will be reviewed in our standard blind-tastings in the company’s New York office.&# Given that Molesworth does not rate barrel samples, is the the end of the magazine’s participation in en primeurs, the system of selling Bordeaux wines two years before the arrive? MORE >>

Here’s a reminder from our earlier coverage: “What happens when a reviewer tastes a good bottle, but some consumers buy what appears to be a completely different product? joined Kenney and a dozen other tasters for a blind tasting organized by Daniel Posner, a partner in the wine store, Grapes The Wine Co. MORE >>

What happens when a reviewer tastes a good bottle, but some consumers buy what appears to be a completely different product? Kenney wrote last week that “During a ten month period I had exchanged seven emails with DrBigJ, reminding/imploring him to taste the sent bottle…to no avail.&#. Think it couldn’t happen? Big mistake. MORE >>