"98 Points WS"

"96 Points WA"

"99 Points ST"

"Excuse me Mr. Uncorked guy, but can you please explain what all the different scores are about?"

It's hard for the average consumer to figure out what wine to buy. With tens of thousands of producers worldwide, crazy foreign labels and huge differences in vintages, how are you supposed to know what's good or what you will like?

The History of Scoring

Well, many years ago in which land no one knows for sure, some wine geeks got together and decided to come up with a rating scale, a spectrum on which to place a value on particular qualities of wine. In 1979, a guy named Robert Parker came along and was widely credited with inventing the particular rating scale of 1-100. Whether he did or not doesn't matter, but his scale up to 100 has become the unwritten abacus by which all modern wine is measured.

If a wine scores in the 90s, it sells like hotcakes. If a wine has the misfortune of being scored less than 80, it becomes the pariah of every bottle on a shelf and will likely sit there for all eternity.

Parker is hardly the only one with a rating system (although he is arguably the most consistent -- more on this later) Even more devoutly followed than Parker's publication, The Wine Advocate, is the infamous Wine Spectator. After the Spectator come many others, including Decanter Magazine, Steven Tanzer, Jancis Robinson, Gambero Rosso, Michael Broadbent ... the list goes on ad infinitum.

The rating system changed the face of retail wine purchasing forever. The average consumer, once completely dependent on deep pockets or the whim or their local wine distributor / retail / wholesaler, found empowerment in the ability to assign a value to a bottle. The buyer now has at his fingertips valuable information allowing him to get an idea of which wines are worth the money.

As much as this new power may have been a savior to those ignorant to quality wine, it has since become such a bastardized, corrupt and inconsistent system, that the numbers assigned to a wine are in many cases completely meaningless.

For starters, have you ever looked at Wine Spectator's classification of their rating system? According to the magazine, a 95-100-point wine is "Classic, a great wine." Tell me dear reader, what exactly is that supposed to mean? A 90- to 94-point wine is "Outstanding, a wine of superior character and style." Doesn't it read to you that the 90-94-point wine should actually be better? Isn't "superior" on a higher plane than "classic?"

It only gets worse, I assure you. Every year, they come out with a Top 100 wines of the world and in many years a $15 bottle with a case production of half a million cases somehow ranks higher than the best Bordeaux, the rarest Barolo, or the finest Rioja. If you have an explanation for me, I would be happy to hear it. (It is funny how certain wines with full page ads in the Wine Spectator just happen to be regularly mentioned ... hmmm?)

I openly rip on Wine Spectator because their rating system is the grossest example of inconsistency. One glaring example was the 2001 vintage for Chateau Montelena Cabernet. James Laube from the Spectator, on a campaign to shame local California wineries for trace amounts of TCA, professed, "I realized that I'm far more sensitive to TCA (2-4-6 Trichloranisol or "Cork Taint") than most people," panned the wine with 69 points while Steven Tanzer gave it a 92-95 and Robert Parker a 96.

It would be one thing if Wine Spectator had a clearly defined classification and the numerous tasters employed didn't have specific agendas, but alas, you never know what a number means with the good old "Spectacle." In fairness, they print some quality articles quite often and can be a very good resource for learning about what's happening in the world of wine, but take their scores with a grain of salt.

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6 comments about this article. Post a comment / write a review.

Recent Talkbacks ...

Posted by thiefwine on July 7, 2009 at 5:01 p.m. (report)

As always, nice article Nate. I used to agree that Parker is consistent, but in the last few years he's farmed out much more of his reviews so that it's less so - what Jay Miller (his Spanish guy) rates a 93 is a different opinion than what Parker rates a 93. In any case, they all seem to favor massive blockbuster wines over a more nuanced and elegant style. Keep in mind how they taste, though - only a small sample of each wine, and dozens at a time. Which one is going to stand out? The one that's the biggest, of course, not the one that's pretty, charming, you would enjoy more than two sips of (as opposed to alcoholic fruit bombs), and goes well with food. Finding a wine critic you trust is kind of like finding a movie or music critic - everyone's got their opinions, and over time you find one that closely matches your tastes; if they recommend it, I know I'm probably going to like it. For music, it's pitchfork.com; for movies, it's Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal; for wine I trust my own palate more than any critic's, but Steven Tanzer (www.wineaccess.com/expert/tanzer) and Jancis Robinson (www.jancisrobinson.com) are two who I highly respect and admire. Phil

Posted by mollymorris on June 27, 2009 at 4:45 p.m. (report)

Never mind the fact that the Wine Spectator's Top 100 list comes out when the vintages have been out for quite some time and are nearly impossible to find....as a retailer, I've found that difficult to explain to my clients when I try to find a wine on the list and it's been sold out (even at the winery) for months...

Posted by 17_newmar.17 on June 26, 2009 at 1:21 p.m. (report)

Very good article. Please people, don't worry about the scores. Basically any wine out there is more than drinkable and it's not going to kill you. Try stuff, be adventurous, find a hidden gem that only you know about. It's your palate that you are trying to please not the wine reviewer's. Remember that wine is, is in the end, produce. Do you read reviews and look for ratings when you buy a stalk of celery? Does it have be rated "95 Pts" before you'll buy a bag of potatoes?

Posted by bb059 on June 26, 2009 at 10:55 a.m. (report)

Great article and very timely....I have always beleived that people should drink wine that they like not wine that has been 'scored" by experts. Wine is a very personal experience and frankly it is my hope that more and more people will put their faith in friends and family who can offer a much more objective opinion. also kudos on the nefarious business practices of the wine Spectacle... remember: The publisher Marvin Shanken is also the executive editor...no issue with publishing church and state there, huh?

Posted by TishWine on June 26, 2009 at 8:53 a.m. (report)

Found your column thanks to a local retailer's "tweet." Tremendous treatment of the big issue of wine ratings. You nailed many excellent points about ratings being bad. As a "recovering wine critic" who now deals more with wine at events than in sterile blind conditions, I would like to simply add that numbers tattooed on wines out of context are completely antithetical tothe idea of ENJOYING wine.