Why is it that a perfect woman has been referred to as a “10” and a perfect wine is considered a 100?
Hold on! Isn’t rating a person numerically a bit bizarre? Insensitive? Inappropriate? A person is a living entity who’s complicated and evolving. – It seems insulting to reduce someone to a mere number.
Yet in the world of wine, numerical ratings are part of the landscape.
You can’t walk into a wine shop without seeing or hearing something about points. Critics and wine publications, specifically Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator have made, and continue to make a fortune assigning rating points to wines.
It is a stupid practice that I wish would end.
Why am I so against it? Let me count the ways…
Everyone’s palate is unique. If you worked in a wine store for just a week you would have a deep understanding of that. I have given up on such seemingly obvious concepts such as: what is sweet? Most people cannot define, to their taste, what sweetness is. So now I’m going to engage them in a discussion about the differences between a 91 and 89 point rating for a wine? Ha!
Wine can be addressed in much the same way food is discussed. I have always held the belief that wine is food. Now when you feel like eating grilled salmon, do you start researching publications that reviewed the salmon options in your neighborhood?
“Rouget Parker gave the salmon at Mindy’s 92 points honey. Let’s go there.”
“But darling, The Fish Spectator just awarded The Captain’s Wheel 93 points and named it a best value.”
Wine is a living thing. It changes and evolves; especially well made wines meant to age. Often I’ll open a bottle of wine and it tastes a certain way. Then twenty minutes later it tastes differently. Two hours later, it’s all together different again. So when do I start rating this wine? Immediately after opening? Two hours later? I have friends that tell me they’ve tasted big Bordeaux or Cabernet Sauvignons the next day and that’s when they peaked.
Then there’s the silliness of using a 100-point scale. The intention is to have us relate to the tests we took in school. Everyone understands the difference between a failing grade of 68 and an outstanding grade of 97 points. But if you ever actually read these publications cover to cover, you will see that 99% of all the wines reviewed are rated between 80 and 100 points. So isn’t it really a twenty-point scale?
No! It’s a 100-point scale! And here’s how they do it:
Ten points are given if the wine is in a liquid state made from grapes.
Ten points are given if the wine is in a bottle.
Ten points are given if the bottle is somehow topped with a cork or other enclosure system.
Ten points are given if the bottle has a label.
Ten points are given if the label has information printed on it that identifies what wine it is and where it was made.
Let’s see, we’re at 50 points and this is where the publications start defining their ratings:
50 – 74 points: Not recommended.
75 - 79 points: Mediocre.
80 – 84 points: Good.
85 – 89 points: Very good.
90 – 94 points: Outstanding.
95 – 100 points: Classic.
I went to the review section of a recent Wine Spectator and observed that out of 520 wines reviewed, only two were given a “mediocre” score of 79 points. That’s significantly less than half of one per cent. An additional 16 wines were rated between 81 and 84 points, which is “good.”
As I said before, it’s really a 20-point scale. And why bother reading the magazine? – All of the wines they review are at least very good. – That’s all I need to know.
If you are going assign numbers to wines, why not have fun with it?
You can do Las Vegas bets. Prior to reviews, place bets on what the score will be. For example: 2008 Opus One has 3 to 1 spread to get 92 points or better.
Or Wall Street gambling – I mean investment instruments: you can set up a put and call system, or package derivatives based on mix cases of wine. If the average score of the 12 bottles comes in under 91 points -- sell!!! Or better yet: credit-default swaps! Pool cases of mediocre wines together and have them insured for a sum far more than what they are worth.
The possibilities are endless and should be detailed in a new publication entitled: “The Wine Speculator.”
Numbers can be so boring! In order to make wine scores more interesting, I think they should be treated in the same manner as sporting events. For example:
2006 Altamura came from behind to defeat 2007 Beaulieu Vineyard 94 to 91.
In a tightly contested match, 06 Clos Pegase squeaked by Buehler 90 to 89.
In the Russian River conference, Merry Edwards poured in ten points in the final barrel samples to tame Williams Selyem 92 to 91.
Do ratings really matter? The wine trade believes scores sell wine. Here in my store they are a zero factor and I don’t think that we are an anomaly.
But all this talk of numbers have made yearn for a 96 point wine, a 90 point soup, a 95 point roast chicken and a 98 point cheese course. – All to be enjoyed in the company of a woman who definitely has my number.
