WINE SCORING POINTS

The pointy-headed monster
When you walk a wine store’s aisles, you’ll notice that many of the wines for sale have small cards attached to them saying something along the lines of “Wine Spectator 89 Points” You’ll see similar ranking systems in any major consumer-oriented wine (or beer or spirits) magazine, on the internet at wine chat sites such as cellartracker.com and even on billboards and in printed advertisements in places or publications that have little or nothing directly to do with wine. 

It’s certainly the case that numbers on wines are everywhere. They are meant to give a snapshot evaluation of a wine in one, easy two-digit “word.” Sometimes, not always (and to the chagrin of those who award the points), the wine’s original accompanying description is either not included or barely noticed. 

Be aware that this isn’t a new phenomenon. The British and French wine trades have been ranking or scoring wines for decades, as a way for both merchants and consumers to evaluate the quality of what’s in the bottle. Initiated by wine writers such as Edmund Penning-Rowsell or André Simon in the mid-1900s, these folk used a simple 20-point system to rate wines. They would award a few points in each of a small number of categories (color, aroma, taste, finish), adding up to a possible “perfect” score of 20.  

But in the 1980s, Robert Parker, then an influential wine critic, came up with a 100-point scoring system. It fit us perfectly. A 100-point system is just what America wanted—something no-brainer, hard-and-fast and that related to common experience (if you received a grade of 75 from Sister Mary Aloysius, you weren’t going to brag to your mom).  

Of course, a sort of “grade inflation” has crept in since Parker began his publication Wine Advocate in the 1980s. It used to be that buyers paid serious attention to wines rated between 80-90 (just as those would have been very good grades in school). Nowadays, many consider 89 a death warrant. 

But what do they mean?
It’s terribly important to point out that – unlike scholastic achievement that receives grades – wine points (whether on a 100-point scale or with “stars” or other icons) don’t bestow any inherent quality on the wine that they evaluate, nor do they—in an important manner— actually reflect what quality is in the bottle. 

They are one person’s or entity’s opinion or judgment about a beverage that certainly is open to many qualitative interpretations or evaluations. For the most part, on a school exam, an answer is either correct or incorrect. You cannot say the same thing about a wine, especially the enormous quantity of generally excellently made wine that is available to consumers more than ever before. 

That said, numbers have huge power. They make it easy for people to buy what remains for many, many folk a daunting, even frightful task: choosing the right wine from among the hundreds and hundreds of available labels (in especially the American market).  

Of course, the best thing for all of us to do is form our own judgments about wine, by tasting as many different wines as possible, learning about them, enjoying them in the company of others who opine what they opine about the same experience, and forming our own likes & dislikes.  

That takes time; it takes money. To be sure, it’s hugely fun and educational, but it isn’t what everyone can or wishes to do. 

Numbers make it easy. But keep in mind that they are only that: an encapsulation of a stranger’s judgment or opinion (or, if you will, of their own taste).