I know there are some solid (been used a long time) wine rating scales out there. I just find most of them to be rather subjective, and quite frankly, they confuse or concern me. On the Robert Parker model wines are rated from 50 to 100 points with wines that score 50 - 60 deemed as being unacceptable and wines that score 95 - 100 as being an extraordinary wine. The UC Davis model rates wines on a 20 point scale and anything that scores less than a 9 are below commercial acceptability while wines scoring 17 or better are of outstanding characteristics.
Unfortunately, none of this tells me if I am going to like the wine or not. And, consequently, doesn't provide a good way for me to rate the wine if I am going to recommend it to anyone else.
This is why, for the purpose of this wine blog, I am going to attempt to put together my own rating system. Now, you have to be asking yourself, how does this confessed wine novice think he is going to pull off inventing his own wine rating scale? Why would anyone take it seriously? Good question. My answer is this, The Wall Street Journal uses a Yech - Delicious! rating scale. The New York Times uses a no stars - 4 Stars rating scale. Surely the one I come up with for the sake of this blog couldn't be any more mathematically vague than those used by respected publications. Even if I decide to develop a 25 point system where I rate the wine based on color, aroma, taste, alcohol level, and price, at least it would be something I could defend if someone were to ask me how I derived my rating of the wine. Or, I could just make up a number ranging from 80 to 90.
Ok, lets expand on that for a bit. How about if we do a 25 point rating system? Like Festivus for the Rest of Us, this scale will be used to rate wines for the every day schmoe who just likes to drink wine and appreciates a bargain. That's why I am going to include pricing into my rating system. I know, I know. Value for money is an eternal issue in the wine world. But, there is the argument made by RestaurantWine.com that says;
Other rating systems, which group inexpensive with expensive wines are not especially useful, since higher price wines are almost always given higher scores than lower priced wines. Because the crucial factor in wine purchasing is--and always will be--selling price, and how that selling price relates to the quality of the wine in the bottle, our system uncovers the best values in multiple price niches better than any other.
And...
the use of points projects a halo of objectivity around wine evaluations, inferring that wine quality can be measured absolutely, which it absolutely cannot;
I couldn't agree more. I also like their decision to use pricing in their rating system, but I also see where their ratings could be taken out of context. This is why we will be rating wines that we group into pricing categories. Our pricing categories will be;
- $10 and Under
- $11 to $25
- $26 to $50
- $51 to $75
- $76 to $100
- $101 and over
Or something close to that. Whatever. So, using the pricing classification, you can distinguish between a well rated $30 bottle of wine, and a well rated $80 bottle of wine. I have had a bottle of Opus One and have enjoyed a Stags Head wine just as much. Value is subjective and and can only truly be weighted based on the consumer flipping the bill.
We are also going to use a 5 star rating system, or 5 fish, or 5 beach umbrellas, or whatever graphic we decide to use to brand or mark our rating scale. 5 groups of grapes, 5 wine glasses, 5 x's, you get the idea.
Our rating criteria will be color, aroma, taste, finish, and price. 5 stars potentially for each category. The final rating will be the average of the five rating criteria scores. The worst, or course, would be 1 something (frog, pencil, globe, etc..) and the highest would be 5 something. Thanks for reading this far and I am looking forward to posting my first extremely criticized (expect to get hammered by the wine community at large) wine rating.
