Can You Trust Wine Ratings?
Can You Trust Wine Ratings?
Today, wines ratings are done on a 100-point scale. This wine ratings system is championed by Robert. M. Parker, the Wine Spectator, and other periodicals and wine experts. The numbers of the wine ratings roughly correspond to the academic grading system commonly used in the United States: 90-100 (A), 80-89 (B), 70-79 (C). Wine ratings lower than 70 are rarely published.
In the real world wine ratings below 90 are hard to sell and reviewers are acutely aware of that fact. The difference between wine ratings of 89 and 90 points cannot be overestimated in the marketability of a wine, even though expert tasters would be hard put to distinguish a qualitative difference.
The American market is clearly not interested in wine ratings below 86 points and those wine ratings above 92 are almost always excellent and priced accordingly.
Gaming the wine ratings system
How does a wine get a high score? By satisfying the wine reviewer’s personal taste preferences. Today’s most popular reviewers prefer bold wines with strong aromatics, and rich, mouth filling flavors. This wine profile is often associated with high alcohol levels. Three decades ago a typical dry table wine would contain around 13.8% alcohol. Since the taxation structure favored wines below 14%, winemakers often intentionally kept their wines at moderate alcohol levels.
With the emergence of wine raters, wineries discovered that the increase in taxation was more than offset by making the richer, bolder and more expensive wines that the reviewers favored and thus could improve their wine ratings. The not-so-happy outcome of the race to higher wine ratings was that American wine, in particular, became increasingly less food-friendly. The gentler wines of the past were far better companions to many foods. Europe became a primary benefactor with France and Italy continuing to supply lower alcohol dry table wines. But the wine ratings game is catching on even in Europe as its wines must compete with high scoring American products in the international market.
What to look for in wine ratings
So can wine ratings be trusted? Not entirely. Here are some good wine ratings tips to remember
- Wine ratings in the 86-91 range are probably sound, decent wines. The different wine ratings in this range probably reflect a reviewer’s preferences more than anything else.
- Wine ratings below 86 are likely to disappoint.
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