| My rating system explained |
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The 100-point score, popularized by Robert
Parker, has been tremendously successful (if widespread usage can be
taken as a measure of success). But I'm no particular friend of this system: I
think it has an illusion of precision that just isn't possible with
wine tasting. Inevitably, people treat Parker scores as a property of
the wine itself (e.g. "This is a 93-point wine; d'ya like
it?"), and not as one taster's impression on one particular day.
It's a bit of a nonsense really, but this simplified view of reality
is rapidly becoming central to the whole wine trade. Because of this,
I've recently started using the 100 point scale as an adjunct to my
verbal system (see below). It's a language many wine-lovers find
useful, so I'm giving this as an alternative in the hope it will aid
communication between me and my readers. It doesn't mean I'm
completely happy with the 100 point scale, nor that I'm unaware of its
problems.
The widely-used 20 point scale is probably worse. Why? It is supposed to represent a rigorous, 'scientific', objective appraisal of a wine. To this end, a set number of points is awarded for various characteristics such as colour, nose and palate. How ridiculous. What happens in practice is that well-made but ultimately boring wines tend to do quite well, and personality-filled wines of character get marked down. I'm not saying that these scoring systems are totally without use; just that the dangers of their use often outweigh the benefits. So if I'm so smart and I know best, you ask, what system do I prefer? It's a scale based on loose verbal categories (see below). It isn't terribly original, but I think it's more honest that any of these points-based systems. It's supposed to be an absolute scale indicating that most tenuous of properties, absolute 'quality'. Thus, a Bordeaux rated as 'excellent' should be of the same quality as a Californian Cabernet rated 'excellent'; by the same token, in a tasting of Bulgarian wines I'm unlikely to rate any as 'excellent'. Inevitably, this isn't a totally objective or scientific system. Indeed, the imprecision of the scale usefully reflects the intrinsic imprecision endemic to the whole practice of assessing wines.
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