I don't personally know either of those critics, or have any access to their cyber-messaging, etc. Nor have I even seen the two reviews you reference, Eric. But going by simple human psychology, might not one critic dislike another, whether their personality or palate, and want to make a point about showing them up? Or perhaps one of the critics may not want to let a certain winery or wine appear too favorably, for whatever reason. Many reasons to skew something that is supposed to be somewhat objective but is, actually, hugely subjective. Happens all the time in all sorts of fields, so why not wine?

Having had a bottle of the Rancia '06 just recently that had been hand-carried from Tuscany to Tokyo, I personally think there must have been something wrong with Suckling's palate at the time he did the tasting. The wine is lovely, and much better than an 88 in today's inflated scoring climate. Then, of course, there's always the possibility that it might have been an off bottle...

schellbe - that's because for the most part, wines fall into categories that are broadly understood and agreed upon. You need to search a bit if you want to find wines that are really far apart. We did a blind tasting a while ago of Spanish wines that were at least six points different between the WA and WS, and I scored them myself as well. In most cases I aligned with the WS, which was the lower, but in one or two cases I was lower than both and in a few I split the difference. Remember that WS is not a single critic, so you need to know who is covering the particular area, and Parker doesn't cover Spain either, so I guess this would be Miller vs Matthews. But for most wines the two review, their scores are not really far apart.

In some cases people differ due to palate preferences - for example, some people are more sensitive to bitterness or saltiness than others. But in such cases, their differences should be consistent and also, they should be able to tell a bad quality wine vs one that is good but not to their personal taste.

The times when critics really differ are interesting. In some cases, I think it is simple jealousy. Reading them, you get the impression that some prominent British critics are still miffed that Parker is the pre-eminent critic in the world. They after all, might be "Masters of Wine", which is a designation I'm increasingly unimpressed by, and he has taught himself. But after a few thousand wines and years of study, whether you were able to regurgitate someone else's ideas on a test becomes meaningless. So the 2003 Pavie for example, becomes almost personal. Parker loved it and Robinson called it a "ridiculous wine", whatever that is supposed to mean. I guess it means "meow".

As far as talking, that would be a bad idea for the most part, and some critics actively avoid participating on panels or in tastings with other critics. I believe that's true for both WA and WS and it makes good sense because otherwise those events would just become catfights. Outside of those, you do run into your colleagues from time to time and it's just like anything else. If you're confident enough to be a critic, you're not going to change or alter your opinion because of someone else's opinion.

However, I think that a lot of bloggers and amateurs and people who post notes on things like Cellar Tracker do that. Think about it - you went out and bought a bottle based on someone's score. You already predisposed yourself to like it. How useful is your opinion and more importantly, how independent? Not to mention that I can't make sense out of most people's tasting notes anyway. They list a hundred things they claim they were able to discern in the wine. I'm drinking the same wine and I'm thinking WTF is in their glass.

As far as the Rancia, I haven't had it but I'll hazard a guess. The 2006 vintage, from everything I've been able to taste for the past few years, is just outstanding in Tuscany. Galloni loves those wines. To men, Rancia has always underperformed in that it's supposed to be the more special bottling and it costs a few bucks more than the regular Classico, but it's never actually lived up to it's role IMHO. I always like those wines and I think they're always really solid values and in a restaurant, those are always perfect choices if the rest of the list is iffy. And personally, I've never scored that wine more than 88 - 90 points. Sucking is hard to predict because I think he's all over the map, but I can understand his score based on my experience with the wine and the vintage. Galloni is a good critic because he's consistent and in his world, that score probably makes sense. But like I said, he loves those wines I always subtract a few points from his scores and I can pretty well tell where my evaluation will be as a result. Again, I don't recall trying that wine but if I were to come across his score, I'd probably think to myself that it's going to be a nice 91 point wine.