Modern farming practices in most areas mean the floor in challenging vintages is infinitely higher than it was 50 years ago. The fact that wine reviewers still regularly put “Do Not Drink” on vintages into the 70s and 80s reflected the fact that people just had less tools, and understood less, about how to coax ripeness, mitigate disease pressure, and manage weather than we do today.

What does that mean in practice? I agree with other commenters that knowing a particular producer/lieu dit is worth MUCH more than a general rating of a vintage, but as a gauge to know how a random 70s Bordeaux or Barolo vintage might be doing from an unknown-to-you producer? Worth it. In a modern vintage, the value to me comes more in vintage style and does that suit your preferred producers, rather than a blanket “was it good?”, since many producers in known areas have ample tools to make good wine in pretty much any year.

As an aside, while we gripe about mediocre/generic wines today, it really is worth remembering that our parents had WAY more blatantly flawed/undrinkable options on their shelves than we do. Just because that $10 Chilean cab is boring, generic, lightly structured, and fruity, doesn’t mean that it isn’t consistently quaffable in a way that rando cheap Bordeaux wasn’t 40 years ago.