On the surface, it seems like ratings are a good idea. If you haven’t had a wine, how do you know if it’s good? One who hasn’t had the wine must rely on someone who has had the wine to tell them if the wine is good. Oops. What did we just learn from the last chapter? What is good wine? We know it’s subjective. Well, WE know it’s subjective but the folks who follow the Traditional Approach didn’t get the memo. So you can probably guess that I think the ratings are useless since why do I care what someone else likes; it’s what I like that’s important. But for the sake of a chapter, I’ll explain how the ratings work.
Experts have been recommending wine for centuries. But the big change happened in the 1970s when a guy named Robert Parker started writing the Wine Advocate…a subscription newsletter. He initiated the use of a 100 point scale to rate wine which now has become the de facto way wine is rated. He’s basically become the God of Wine because of his importance in the rating of wine. There are other sources for ratings. Almost on the same tier as Parker is the Wine Spectator. And below that, the Wine Enthuisast and Decanter fall into line.
A winery can make a great wine but if it is not rated highly by either of the two main publications, it will never be considered a great wine by the snobs. Snobs seek out any wine rated over 90 points by The Wine Advocate or the Wine Spectator. In fact, when each issue comes out, snobs race out to acquire the highest rated wines before they are bought up by other snobs. The frenzy is at its peak when the Wine Spectator releases its Top 100 wines of the year. The snobs MUST have the top wines and the price usually escalates with the demand
I hope it’s obvious to you that wine is totally subjective and that the ratings are just one person’s opinion that probably won’t match your taste. But just in case, I want to show how nonsensical the ratings are.
Is a 90 point wine that costs under $10, the same as a 90 point wine that costs $300? Of course not, but they both exist. I just pulled this off the “Wine Spectator” website: Columbia Crest Shiraz Columbia Valley Two Vines 2001, 90 points, $8. Or another 90 point wine you could buy is the Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Toscana Masseto 2000, 90 points. $300. They both got 90 points. Do you think they’re the same? Of course not! That’s what makes the ratings so stupid. It doesn’t make any sense.
Secondly, the variance of a rating from one tasting to another of the same wine can be 5 to 10 points. A wine is tasted one day and given 93 points, and the next week the wine can get a score of 88 from the same taster. Most wines are rated between 91 and 86. Since a wine can easily vary 5 points depending on when it is tasted, all the wines are essentially the same. Why even have the ratings in the first place?
There is a reason and it’s for the collectors. Collectors are sheep. They don’t care about their own tastes. They follow what someone else likes…right off of the cliff. They need the ratings for two reasons:
1. When they show off their collection of highly rated wine to fellow sheep, it’s a stroke to their fragile egos. And if you’re not a sheep collector, they’ll announce the rating of a wine when they bring it out just so you know how special that wine is…and how cool they are for having that wine. And they’ll enjoy the wine, not because it tastes good, but because it’s highly rated.
A little FYI, typically the folks with the big collections, can’t taste their way out of a paper bag. In blind tastings of highly rated wines compared to not highly rated wine, they are not even close on discerning which ones are which.
2. Ratings also are imperative for folks that collect wine as an investment. At auctions, it’s the highly rated wines for which the sheep pay top dollar.
Should we just toss out all ratings? Yes…all numerical ratings or any other scale if it doesn’t take price into consideration. That's why I created the Progressive Approach to rating wines...based on value. A $6 bottle of wine will be judged differently than a $50 bottle. One would expect much more from a bottle that costs $50 bottle. So a wine cannot be scored until the rater knows the price to see if the wine is worth it. This is my scale:
A = The wine is a great value, almost no matter what the price. A must buy!
B = The wine is a better than what you would expect to pay for it so it’s worth seeking it out
C = The wine tastes like what you’d expect for the price.
D = The wine is good but not worth the price
F = The wine is no good and/or not at all worth the money
I will add a “Y” to the score if the wine is too young. For instance, you can taste a wine that isn’t tasting up to its expected potential so it would be unfair to score it a “D” or an “F” when the wine may turn into a “A” or “B” given some ageing. In those situations that I believe the wine will get significantly better with time, I’ll add a “Y” to the score.
I go to a ton of tastings and have expensive wines but very few of them get more than a D because they aren’t worth the money. Once a wine costs more than about $40, it becomes pretty difficult for it to get a C or better because there are so many wines that are equally as good for less. On the flip side of the price scale, I taste bunches of inexpensive wine as my goal in life is to find the least expensive wine that I love. But if the wine is no good, even if it’s under $10, it won’t get a C because I know there are other wines that cost the same that are much better. It’s all about value.
Now whether it’s me or someone else rating a wine using the Progressive Approach, it’s still an opinion and you shouldn’t follow it hook, line and sinker. Remember, good wine is what YOU like, not what a rater says.