Excerpted and adapted from the excellent The Wine List: Stories and Tasting Notes behind the World's Most Remarkable Bottles by Grant Reynolds, followed by the author's recommendations for still-spectacular wines from the 1990 vintage.

Think back.

Waaaay back.

I know it’s tough to remember, but before social media caused our collective attention span to drop to under ten seconds, people read things on paper, like books and newspapers and magazines.

One of those was the newsletter the Wine Advocate, which was created in 1978 by Robert Parker, a lawyer by profession, and America’s first (and perhaps only) Famous Wine Guy™. Parker quite literally invented the 100-point quality scale for wine; using a simple calculation, he would declare a wine to be great or not so great. We hold many bottles in high regard simply because he said so.

He was a consistent man: a great Parker vintage was almost certainly a red wine so dark it stained your teeth, high in alcohol (at least 14.5% ABV), and aged in new oak barrels, with notes of chocolate, prunes, and baking spices. Basically, he’s a guy who wanted hot fudge sundaes with all the works.

Whether or not you like that style, it was amazing to see dusty classification systems that had frozen a specific hierarchy of wine disrupted by a single simple idea. Instead of the Burgundy system that classified wines according to vineyard and the Bordeaux one that classified them by price, here was this American guy saying, “What if we just categorized them by taste?” That said, objectivity was not the name of the game here.

As mentioned, Parker’s notoriety exploded with the lavish praise he heaped on 1982 Bordeaux. However, the distillation of wine analysis to a numeric score, and that score’s impact on global wine prices, really set in around 1990.

While any wine drinker today should respect what Parker achieved—and many do, as his point system is still widely used by other critics—they should also be aware that his scores don’t account for the fact that, with time, wines change—for better and for worse. In many instances, a wine that started out as the dorky kid in high school goes on to become the boss. But few wines were rescored, and even when they were, it was the initial score that mattered to the market.

Still, critics are important, and for many wineries, receiving high points has been a game changer. Sassicaia’s 100-point 1985 vintage trades for around $3,000 a bottle, while the 1984 and 1986 vintages go for around $500. The 1985 is inarguably superior, but its cost is also inarguably inflated.

And in most instances, once a high-scoring wine, always a high-scoring wine. Seeking a high score on the first day of a wine’s life shifted the way wines were made during the 1990s and early 2000s—few for the better and many for the worse.

Also during this period, in wealthier areas like Bordeaux and California, a market of consulting winemakers emerged. These academics instructed winemakers on the newer tools available to them—suggesting using a different strain of yeast, adding nutrients during fermentation, analyzing the chemistry of an unfinished wine to ensure it arrives at the intended ideal taste. The list of services goes on.

Consultants like France’s Michel Rolland worked with new wineries that wanted to launch as top contenders and old ones trying to achieve the tastes coming into popularity. Rolland is called a “flying winemaker,” as he consulted for more than 150 wineries across the globe. Rolland had a recipe, and the end result was a consistent taste: fruity, clean, and bold. By no coincidence, Rolland’s suggestions shifted wine toward Parker’s preferred flavors, regardless of what the geology of a vineyard could (and perhaps should) produce.

The nineties and early aughts was an era of extremes. While some wines could have benefited from using new technologies to manage the surprising temperatures brought about by early-stage global warming, others could have left a bit more to the elements. In short, as new ideas clashed with standards of the past, and combined with the impact of climate change’s early signs, many wines from these years taste uncertain, and a few, who kept their cool, prevailed.

Grant Reynolds' Picks: Great Wines from the 1990 Vintage

1990 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage 

In the wrong hands, Syrah can get big and dense. But even in the hottest years Chave makes wines that remain balanced, and its 1990 is as elegant as anything the famed domaine has produced. One of my all time favorite wines—from any year. 

1990 Thierry Allemand Cornas  

Thierry Allemand's second vintage of Cornas—and his last vintage produced as simply Cornas, before he began bottling his prized Chaillot and Reynard cuvées—is an exceptional wine; as with Chave, the style is savory and fresh rather than juicy and dense.

1990 Montevertine Le Pergole Torte  

Made entirely from Sangiovese, Montevertine’s top bottling can be lean and tannic. But in a warmer vintage like 1990, it balances the lighter side of Sangiovese with some juiciness to make it one of the winery’s best. 

1990 Joseph Drouhin Musigny  

Drouhin makes a ton of wine, but its Musigny is the top of their roster—and high on the (very) short list of values in grand cru red Burgundy. The floral, gentle style of Drouhin matches the vintage well. 

Grant Reynolds is an award-winning sommelier, restauranteur, and author who founded Parcelle, a national online wine retailer and wine bar in New York. He was also a partner at Delicious Hospitality Group, overseeing the wine programs for Pasquale Jones, Charlie Bird, and Legacy Records. He is the coauthor, with Chris Stang, of How to Drink Wine.

Excerpt reprinted with permission from THE WINE LIST: Stories and Tasting Notes behind the World's Most Remarkable Bottles by Grant Reynolds © 2023, illustrator Joan Wong. Published by Union Square & Co.