I've always thought HH to be one of the critics with comparatively greater integrity and have been a long-time subscriber. I also really like St Peters - got plenty a bottle of it lying down. It's great but is it really the pinnacle?
Australian critics are said to be relatively high markers compared to others (and yes, some other countries also have a problem with 100 pt regulars thanks Mr Maroni). I think it's a bit of a growing problem.
IMHO 99 should be for truly incredible wines, and 100 given for astounding ones and almost never. (Otherwise, if you're playing on 10 where do you go... 11?)
Glad you're ok with all this RB!
I agree with your assessment of HH.
I think Wine Companion has had a slight scoring reset since the new team took more of the load this year, may have more of a reset when JH finally bows out of tasting/reviewing.
I haven't tried the 2021 St Peters, but eventually will and I'll try to understand what HH saw in it that was so special to him.
Personally I've only ever tried a small number of wines that I would rate 99/100, all of them fortifieds, including several vintages of the Seppelt 100yo ports and several editions of Morris Show Muscats and Tokays. The best examples of those wines are such a complete olfactory and taste sensation that I found it impossible to see anything that would remove a point from a perfect score. You don't want to taste anything else after those, so the sensation lingers for literally hours and you want to steal the glass from the tasting so you can keep sniffing it. All the 100pt Wine Companion wines are fortifieds.
I haven't had the chance to try most of the other wines that various critics (other than Luca Maroni, who seems to be the Italian Sam Kim) have rated 99 or 100. But I have tried some of the 99 pt wines from the Wine Companion list, including the $30 or so Yangarra Grenache 2021 and most of those left me just shaking my head in confusion at how they could possibly have arrived at that score. There are only 21 table wines scoring 99pts from 2018 to 2021 vintages. Double that when you include the 2017 vintage rated highly by JH, but not by many others, including my experience of the vintage. So also some evidence of a slight reset at the 99pt level.
Given that "serious" wine buyers clearly understand the fallibility and point-creep in the current rating scene, it reinforces the need to wherever possible try before you buy, or buy from VM where it's easy to return mistakes. I'm lucky to have two tasting group sessions each week, with 6-7 bottles at each tasting and we are currently alternating between 2021 reds as they are released (to see what to buy from this generally excellent vintage) and back vintage tastings of previous regular buys (to see if we picked/bought successfully).
