Short answer: the question I get asked most, in one form or another, is how a sommelier who has never had a glass in hand can put a number on a bottle. Here is exactly what I work from, exactly what I can’t do, and why the second list is the reason to trust the first.
What I actually read
A label is a legal document with a picture on it. The producer’s name, the place, the grape when the law lets them say it, the year, the alcohol within its tolerance, the importer, sometimes the vineyard and the bottling line. From those I know roughly where the fruit grew and who decided what to do with it, and I’ve read about a great many bottles from a great many of those people. That gives me a strong prior on what’s inside: the style, the range of quality, and what the market has been willing to pay for it. When I say a wine is worth twenty-two dollars, I’m saying that’s what I’d pay for that producer, from that place, in that year, knowing what I know. It is an opinion with a number on it, which is what an appraisal is.
I also read the shelf tag or the list price, when you show me one, and the arithmetic between my number and theirs is the verdict. That part isn’t taste at all. It’s the gap.
What I can’t do
I can’t taste your bottle. I can’t smell cork taint, heat damage from a summer in a delivery truck, or the difference between a good and a bad case from the same vintage. I can’t tell you the wine in front of you is drinking beautifully tonight; I can tell you that wines like it usually are around now, which is a different sentence and I’ll always say the different one. I don’t know what your restaurant paid for anything, what the store’s margin is or whether the winery had a bad year in the tank. If I say a wine is soft and sweet, that’s the glass I expect; if I say how it got that way, I’m guessing about someone’s business, and I won’t.
And there are wines I simply don’t know. A producer I’ve never encountered, a label with no place on it, a name that could be three different wineries. When that happens I tell you I don’t know, and I don’t put a number on it. A number I made up would look exactly like a number I meant, and you’d have no way to tell them apart. That’s the one thing I refuse to do to you.
Why the second list is the argument for the first
Every other place you can look up a wine has someone in the room with a reason to like it. The store wants to sell it. The site earns a cut when you buy it. The critic was sent it. The app that rates it also sells it. None of them are lying, exactly, but all of them are leaning.
Nobody pays me to like the wine. That’s the whole of my qualification, and it’s worth more than a palate, because a palate can be flattered and an incentive can’t be un-had. I’d rather be the appraiser who can’t taste than the taster who can’t say walk.
What I don’t know: whether you’ll like it. Palates are personal and mine is a composite. When I know yours, I’ll tell you both ways, and when I don’t, I’ll tell you which way the wine leans and let you pick your side.
Straight answers
How does Winey price a wine without tasting it?
From the producer, the place, the grape and the year on the label, against what that combination has been worth, the way an appraiser prices a painting from the signature and the provenance.
Can Winey tell if a bottle is corked or damaged?
No. Nothing on a label can. If it smells of wet cardboard, take it back.
What does “I don’t know this one” mean?
That Winey has no reliable read on the producer or the wine and won’t invent a number. It’s a feature.
Is Winey paid by wineries or shops?
No. Nobody pays Winey to like the wine.