Scoring

I’m one of those individuals who likes to take notes when I drink wine. I believe that putting down my impressions of a wine in written form helps focus my powers of vision, smell and taste; helps me appreciate the wine. A tasting note is what I like to think of as one part of a complete wine experience and, importantly, it is an aid to remembering the taste and smell of the wine. I’m also a wine drinker who likes to compare wines. Yes, I’ll even taste multiple wines in one sitting and, God forbid, I’ll even rank them in order of how my palate perceives their quality. And just to add insult to injury I’ll give the individual wines a score. After all wine, to me, is a beverage and even though some may try to argue the point, not all wines are the same. In fact very few wines are the same. And even though a wine may provide great pleasure (even intense disgust) resulting in an emotional response I don’t view wine with the same emotional attachment that a film, or a painting, or a book may evoke. Yes, I’ve admired the bottle, read the label, become one physically with the cork (or screwcap), appraised its color and legs, and maybe even viewed enticing pictures of video about it in cyberspace.

But I’ve also smelled and tasted it. I’ve taken in too much information for a simple like or dislike response, or even an emotional association with some pleasurable event in my life. During the viewing, smelling and tasting I’ve been accommodating an entirely new combination of attributes recorded by my senses, and fitted them into a new space in the wine library in my brain. And to help me recall that experience I’ve documented the smells and tastes. I’ve put my senses through a series of tough hurdles, trying to discern if its plum, blueberry, blackberry or mulberry that is the predominant aroma. And is there a little bit of vanilla here, perhaps a hint of violets, and maybe just a few molecules of Brett! I’m not being subjective. I’m forcing my senses to be as objective as they can be. An objectivity gained by over 30 years of absorbing as much written knowledge about wine that I can, collecting wine, comparative wine tasting, visiting wine regions and talking with winemakers, even trying to make sense of Robert Parker’s tasting notes. I’ve invested too much into this mad pursuit to wax lyrical about a wine, comparing it to a summer’s breeze or a woman’s breast. I want to score it! I want to give it some credibility with its peers. Place a number on it, give it a medal. Not frame it on a wall, or confuse its qualities by comparing it to a subjective, emotional fragment of existence that only I may have experienced.

And so I score, and score, and score. Wine deserves to be scored, some wines call out for a really BIG score. Others whimper, and accept a lesser accolade; both they and I know they deserve it. I trust my senses of sight, smell and taste so I know I’m correct in my judgment. OK, I will go back through the wines again, from least to best, just to confirm the agreement of my palate with the ranking I’ve recorded.

But how do I score wine? Those who read my Tasting Notes blog know I score out of 20 and then convert that to 100 by simple multiplication. Out of respect for Dan Murphy, a wine taster has to give a score out of 100. Yes, I know that my inactivity with the TN blog means that fewer and fewer of you visit there, but who knows I may want to share all my hard work scoring with you again, so be patient.

Do I need to use just numbers? No, I could score with stars, or medals, or any other method as long as it can provide an objective ranking, none of this subjective imagery. Of course all the forms of ranking should be comparable. How is that done? Its very simple really, you steal someone else’s graphic of wine scoring. I’m going to steal Geoff Kelly’s. Why? Because it actually makes sense. I look at it and think yes, that fits neatly with being objective about wine. That is a thoughtful, clear assessment of how wine ranking methods compare.

W. Blake Gray, A Chronicle Staff Writer in Need of an Education in Wine Scoring

It happens all too frequently, and I’m only too happy to point it out. Yet another journalist has written on the 100 point scoring system and given all the credit for its creation to Robert Parker, Jr. In his article titled “Are ratings pointless? The highs -- and lows -- of the 100-point scale.” W. Blake Gray, a Staff Writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, states “The 100-point rating scale, created by wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. in the mid-1970s, was a great innovation that has done a world of good for wine lovers.”

I’m sure that Parker does wish he had created the 100 point scoring system. But, as has been noted on this blog before, all Parker did was develop his own version of a 100 point scoring system. The use of 100 points to score wines had been in use for a quarter of a century before Robert Parker, Jr. came on the scene.

When will we see an article by someone who actually knows what they are talking about?

Not Again. Oh, Yawn.

I’ve posted before that Robert Parker did not invent, introduce, or in any way originate the use of 100 points in the scoring of wine. He simply made popular something that existed at least a quarter of a century before he began the Wine Advocate.

But recently there have been two more people who seem to think that Parker has to be credited with the 100 point system. First is PaulGregutt.com who wrote “The man credited with having invented the 100 point scale is Robert Parker,”

And now over at Slate, Mike Steinberger writes “as the critic who conceived the 100-point system, Parker has a special obligation”

Wouldn’t it nice if there were some wine writers out there in cyberspace who actually knew what they are writing about when it comes to the origins of the use of 100 points in the scoring of wine?

Wine Scores

A *, 0 and 50. They all seem to be the similar when it comes to wine scores, at least according to the pundits at The World of Fine Wine. To be more specific the folks at The World of Fine Wine “believe that our 20-point scale, calibrated specifically for fine wine, strikes the best balance for our purpose”. Its not entirely clear how this specific calibration was done, although the simple answer seems to be that they have equated 0 (zero) with 50 points in the 100 point system because that is the score that advocates of the 100 point system give to a wine for simply being wine. Further expansion of the 20 point score against the 50-100 range can be deduced from the scale they provide. Below 7 does not seem to count for much, except perhaps for a single star! Other comparisons are more simple to make 9=75, 12=82, 14 is a touch over 85, 17=90, 19=96. Comparison with the five point star system is a little more difficult to discern. But perhaps that is the point. If you use the star system you really are not too sure of a precise score out of 20 or 50. While for the 20 point system you have somewhat more confidence but not quite the infallibility of those who say they score out of 100; of course the fact that they really only use 50 points does raise a small question about exactly how fallible they are. In truth the reviewers at The World of Fine Wine break their scores into half points, so they use a 40 unit scale. I wonder where you sit if you use a 20 point system, but break it down into tenths of a point? That’s a 200 unit scale.

A Point About 100 Points

I dropped by Tom Wark’s Fermentation blog the other day and found a post on wine ratings. Tom posted on the topic because he had received emails linking to an article by Gary Rivlin on wine rating in The New York Times. There really is nothing new in the Rivlin article, in fact there is one statement that I see over and over again, and that is the argument that Robert Parker, Jr. “introduced the 100-point system to the wine world in 1978”.

Now let’s get this straight, once and for all time. Robert Parker, Jr. made the 100-point scoring system popular. He did NOT invent, introduce, or in any way originate the use of 100 points in the scoring of wine. To confirm this all you have to do is look at a copy of Dan Murphy’s A Guide to Wine Tasting (Sun Books, Melbourne, 1977). Chapter Fourteen is devoted to Score Cards. In discussing examples of existing score cards, Dan writes “Many judges in various countries think that a scale of 100 has its value, since a judge may include far more individual facets of the wines and allot points (or subtract them) accordingly. This may help his accuracy and consistency.”

He then goes on, in Figures 7 through 13, to show “a series of score cards which I have used in my business for twenty-five years and which I find useful also for scoring wines at shows.”

Unlike Parker’s simple allocation of 100 points, Murphy’s scoring is different for different wine styles, no doubt one reason why it is not in popular use today. But let’s give credit where it is due. Robert Parker, Jr. made popular something that existed at least a quarter of a century before he began the Wine Advocate. He may have massaged it a bit to make it suit his style, but he did not invent, introduce, or in any way originate the use of 100 points in the scoring of wine.

The 50 Point Wine

Many who search out the pinnacle of wine perfection chase the myth in wines given a perfect score, 100 points! On the other end of the scale are the wines that never seem to be talked about, those that fall below the cutoff score that signifies a recommended wine, below 84-85 points for Robert Parker or 75 points for Wine Spectator. But the true bottom of the wine barrel is 50 points in the 100 points scoring system. A wine scores 50 points just for being liquid in a bottle.

Do 50 point wines exist? It is difficult to get any definitive numbers because non-recommended wines are rarely described in any detail by wine critics. Why? Well in the case of Robert Parker they make up some 65-75% of the wines he tastes. Recording the tasting notes, or even just the scores, for those wines would consume a significant amount of space in any publication, hardcopy or otherwise. This is a blessing for winemakers because the wine buying public never learns that certain wines have achieved non-recommended status. Of course it is possible that a wine does not receive a recommended score because it was not submitted for review, which leaves the wine buying public even further in the dark about the quality of a winery’s portfolio.

Enter the enthusiastic amateur wine critic or, as we are known these days, the wine blogger. Wine bloggers, it seems, will drink pretty much everything and then they will blog about it. Why? Well most of us are not occupied in the wine trade full-time. Wine is our passion, not our mistress; although there may be some to whom it is a passionate mistress. Wine bloggers are willing to experience the spectrum of wine and comment on the knowledge gleaned to the world of cyberspace. We are an information conduit to the masses yearning to gather bits and bytes of wine knowledge at the click of a Google enquiry.

And if you Google Graeme Miller Wines you will find a 50 point wine courtesy of a wine blogger. Cam Wheeler of Appellation Australia gave 50 points to the 2005 Graeme Miller Wines (Yarra Valley) Rosé. According to what is fast becoming legend Cam tasted the wine at the Victorian Winemaker Exhibition 2006. He commented at the tasting that he thought the wine had a problem but was told (by the winery owners) that the wine was sound; no additional bottles were opened to confirm the quality of the wine. Cam posted his, rather apologetic, tasting note on his blog; how else do you write a 50 point score? Several months later he received a short, terse email threatening legal action if the tasting note was not removed! Further emails have passed back and forth between Cam and the winery and their content can be found here. Needless to say Cam has not removed the tasting note.

What does all this say about wine bloggers and their critiques of wines? Should we be like the Parkers' and Wine Spectators' of this world and not describe those wines that fall below a certain score? Hardly. As Cam notes on his blog the wine in question was tasted by others and found wanting, severely wanting. The consensus seems to be that its not a wine that should be recommended. It will be interesting to see what the established critics make of this wine. If no recommended scores appear then Cam will have done us a service by putting a score out there for us to see. And that is one thing that wine bloggers should do, assume the role of the long abdicated consumer advocate, and talk about the wines that should not be recommended.

Still, I’m intrigued about this 50 pointer. I don’t know that I have ever had one. Well maybe some of the stuff from around the Great Lakes that is made from the native American grapes, or perhaps from Virginia. But no, some of those may be 60-70 pointers. Fifty points is in a class of its own. I have a feeling that sales of this wine might just increase with all the internet discussion. Will they export? 50 points, there is a real marketing gimmick there, especially if they can get Robert Parker to agree with Cam’s score.