Hello Everyone! It has been some time since you’ve heard from us, but our venture at Pangaea Wine Bar has been taking up most of our time. It also has given us plenty of new things to think about.
In your wine buying adventures, you have probably come across scores given either by Robert Parker of the Wine Advocate, or the Wine Spectator, or perhaps Wine Enthusiast. All of these scores are based on a 100 point system. Wines with a score of 90 points and better are considered great wines, wines that score in the 80s are “good” wines, and less than 80 points are “okay” wines. While this may sound very scientific, we think that there are many things that most people aren’t aware of in relation to the scoring system.
The Point Scale
Robert Parker developed the Wine Advocate in the late 1970s, and came up with the 100 point system for rating wines. At the time, the Wine Spectator was using a 20 point scale, but switched to the 100 point scale soon after. However, most wines that are scored fall within the 80 to 100 point range, so a 100 point system is rather arbitrary. In addition, unlike cooking competitions like Top Chef or Iron Chef, there is no predefined spread of points awarded for color, clarity, aroma, etc., in wine ratings. There is no rigid scoring where the wine gets 20 points for each of five characteristics and then the points are added up and the score assigned. The process is far less scientific; the critics taste the wine and then assign a score as if the number just magically appears to them. Finally, for the most part, scores are assigned by a single person or very small number of people, rather than being evaluated by a large committee as was done with the famous “Judgment of Paris.”
Experience would be able to help you discern 100, 95, 90, 85 and 80 pretty easily. We would liken a simple scale such as this to the scale used by Dorothy and John formerly of the Wall Street Journal – Delicious, Very Good, Good, Fair and Blech, which is very understandable. But how do scores like 89 or 91 or 92 get sorted out?
The Tasting Method
Once you understand the point scale and system that will be applied, the method of tasting is critical to understanding how the scores are generated. The first key is whether the tasting is blind or open. With a blind tasting, the critic does not know which wine is being tasted and there are often several wines in the tasting. This method reduces bias in the knowledge of the label, ensuring that the taster doesn’t subconsciously judge the wine on factors other than taste. Additional critical keys in tasting are the order of the wines, and having enough of a palate cleanser in between each wine to ensure that each wine is tasted and judged solely on its own merits. The processes for wine tastings and ratings vary depending on the evaluator. For The Wine Spectator for example, a single taster or a small group of tasters evaluate a group of wines in a blind tasting. (Wine tasting for ratings purposes is rarely done by a large committee of diverse palates.) The film documentary “Mondovino” shows a scene from a Wine Spectator tasting, and the pair of evaluators tasted each wine using the same glass, and came up with a single number to rate the wine following the tasting (“This tastes about like an 80-point wine”).
Robert Parker, on the other hand, does not do blind tasting. He either tastes at the winery (often invited), or wines may be sent to his home in Maryland. When there is no blind tasting, the critic can possibly factor many other pieces of information into the score beyond taste and smell. Critics frequently say that they don’t care about a wine’s pedigree, etc. However, knowledge of the wine presents preconceived biases, both good and bad. Does the critic know the winemaker or have a long-standing relationship with the producer? Is Michel Rolland a consultant to the winery? Is it a new winery from California or “Garagiste” from Bordeaux? It’s human nature to factor all of these variables into the score. Wine tasting and evaluation is by its nature subjective, and knowledge of the wine being tasted can only add to preconceived opinions.
The Critical Bias
All critics have a bias, whether he or she is a food critic, a movie critic, or the like. Everyone has individual bias. So it’s not surprising that wine critics have bias too. Some favor Italian wines, some think the best wines in the world come from Burgundy, and some critics like bold, highly extracted, high alcohol wines that are dark in color.
If you were to look at a trend of Robert Parker’s highest scores, it is pretty evident that his tastes lean toward big Bordeaux blends that are deep in color and more often than not higher in alcohol and lower in acidity that other wines. In effect, he prefers a sweeter wine. It’s easy to see the impact that ratings can have: when you compare different wines in California, there has been a definite trend towards higher alcohol, lower acidity, and riper fruit than in the past. In comparison, Parker does not frequently rate wines from Burgundy, where the wines are designed to last longer and be consumed several years into the future.
The Final Score
After tasting the wine – a critic may rate the wine with one to three tastes – a score is assigned with a few words for the write-up. There’s no question that ratings drive trends in winemaking. In the ‘90s, there was a rush for rich, oaky, buttery Chardonnays when those same wines began receiving high critical scores. Based on the influences of the likes of Parker, the current trend for red wines has been towards riper, slightly sweeter, more alcoholic wines. People often complain that wines have been “Parkerized,” which means the winemaker has adjusted his techniques to fit the palate of Robert Parker. Wines such as this are achieved through over-ripening the fruit or using techniques such as micro-oxygenation (adding oxygen during fermentation, giving the wine the impression of more time in the barrel). And finally, a not unexpected side effect of the ratings system is the effect that high ratings have on pricing – scores in the 90s, particularly 95 and higher, lead to wines that are out of financial reach for many of us.
Another potential downside of the trends we’ve alluded to is what many have called the internationalization of wine. Fifteen years ago, wines from Bordeaux were clearly different than California wines, and the wines of South America would never be confused with either of them. Wines from areas such as Greece, southern Italy, and Sicily carried a certain rustic flavor that clearly reflected the terroir of those countries. Today, due to the trend of internationalization, many wines are starting to taste very much the same. Wine consultant Michel Rolland, often called the “Flying Winemaker,” consults for hundreds of wineries all over the world, and deploys many of the same techniques. Today, some of the wines are sadly beginning to lose their rusticity and their sense of terroir, and taste much the same.
Luckily the world of wine is big enough that you can generally still find a wine to fit your style, whatever it happens to be. We personally favor drier red wines with more acidity, particularly a Cabernet Sauvignon that has a hint of bell pepper taste, which is a sure sign of lower ripeness. We also don’t typically put much stock in wine ratings but the wines we favor are those with scores in the mid-80s, because the pricing is often better and they usually haven’t been manipulated to fit the critic’s palates. We like a wine that still shows where it came from, has the vintage character, and has not been so manipulated by blending, adding frozen carbon, or by micro-oxygenation.
We hope that this gives you a bit more insight to what the critics like and what the numbers mean. As we always say:
Drink what you like, like what you drink!
