Do scores really matter when tasting and choosing wine?
If you have even a passing interest in wine then you have probably run into the 100-point scale at some time. Perhaps you’ve seen wines in magazines posing beside a big bold 95 or maybe your local wine store posts numbers beside the wines on the shelf. Either way it’s hard to be a wine junky today and not be inundated with this popular tool for evaluating wine.
The 100-point scale was first introduced about over two decades ago by influential wine critic Robert Parker and has been adopted by almost every popular magazine or Web site. When Parker started reviewing wines the scale was a 20-point system that he found lacked the necessary flexibility to accurately convey a wine’s attributes. It went up to 50 and then 100.
Flipping through wine magazines or reading Parker’s newsletter The Wine Advocate you rarely run into any wine that rates less than 80 points. If you do it is usually accompanied by a scathing review. In the 100-point system the wine is awarded 50 points just for being wine while the other 50 points are awarded for its quality and how it rates against other examples of its kind. But whether it’s a 20- 50- or 100-point scale doesn’t really matter; what is important is that millions of wine consumers base billions of dollars in purchases on these numbers every year and many of them can’t explain why.
Have you ever stopped to wonder what all these points really mean whether they’re really a good idea or in the best interest of wine drinkers? Have you thought it strange that something we consume would be subject to a numerical-points system and how quickly this has become the standard for how wine is evaluated? The 100-point scale is under more fire from critics than ever before as consumers are starting to see the flaws.
Probably the biggest issue is whether or not wines have attributes that can usefully be summarized by means of a numerical rating. Certainly there are components of wine that can be expressed as a number but is quality really one of them? When wine is evaluated for the purpose of scoring it is usually done in the company of several dozen other wines. These wines are lined up and tasted side by side with their identities obscured — sounds fair enough. But when you add the human element and the difficulty of tasting so many wines together you discover a major flaw in how this system works. Inevitably the wines that show the most power concentration and muscle rise to the top. What ends up happening is the tasting becomes more like a scale simply weighing the wines and letting the consumer know which is the heaviest. That’s great if you love drinking big heavy wines but what if you don’t?
A taster will give a score to a wine based on a small sip which is then spit into a bucket. The wine has only a few seconds to make a good impression. Yet when we as consumers drink wine we sit down to perhaps a glass or two allowing the wine to slowly unfold and display its subtle nuances. This is what we refer to as the measure of the thimble versus the measure of the bottle. Often a wine that makes a big impression in a single taste becomes overly concentrated and overbearing when you want to consume a glass or two.
Producing great wine requires tremendous time and sacrifice and simply slapping a number on it after 30 seconds of tasting does not seem to offer much respect to those who commit to making wine. It may seem like a nice system to help consumers find the best values but one has to wonder what they are missing by simply chasing the points all the time. On his Web site even Robert Parker the inventor of this controversial system says: “The written commentary that accompanies the ratings is a better source of information regarding the wine’s style and personality its relative quality vis-à-vis its peers and its value and aging potential than any score could ever indicate.”
“However there can never be any substitute for your own palate nor any better education than tasting the wine yourself.”
If Parker is warning us to be cautious about chasing points than maybe it’s time the rest of us rethink how much we value the numbers.
