The Moneyball of wine: Thoughts on the value of thinking

“The numbers start out as tools for thinking. They wind up replacing thought.” The line comes from a podcast by Moneyball author Michael Lewis. In it, he goes back to the sphere of baseball to look at our tendency to latch onto ratings and cease to see the true value of things. He draws on an essay by Baseball Abstract creator, Bill James (himself the inspiration for Moneyball), containing an eloquent complaint about "nitwits who glom onto something superficial in the book and misunderstand its underlying message”.

The wine world is awash with numbers. They're not necessarily nefarious in themselves. But there is a danger that we miss all the important, enriching, revelatory lessons of wine if we fail to dwell on - and encourage others to see - the multifaceted world that it is.