An elite emerged; Jancis Robinson, Robert M
Parker, Hugh Johnson, Michael Broadbent and just a few others. If they said a
wine was superb, then it was. Most developed a scoring system to accompany
their tasting assessments. Publications carried their verdicts, books emerged,
websites proliferated. Several became ‘personalities’; even TV stars.
All this is perfectly fine with me. As a
consumer I enjoy reading opinions and if I believe it comes from a knowledgeable
source even better. I realized – as must most people – that they are only
opinions and that they might well conflict, sometimes ‘hysterically’ as Neil
Pendock relates in his pithy and gorgeously contentious, ‘Sour Grapes’,
(Tafelberg,2008).
I realised that it was important to find a
critic to which my likes and dislikes degustation wise matched. Hooked as I was
on Aussie wine at the time, Jeremy Oliver was my man (Jeremy, not Jamie). What
he rated highly I enjoyed and our palates were ‘in synch’. Job done, I took his
annual review with me everywhere.
Returning to world wines, however, my path was
suddenly darker. I’m not sure I even scored wines for the WSET Diploma (I
expect someone will refresh me), assessment was in words. Jancis feels words
are key, ‘I'm not too keen on the combination of numbers with wine
appreciation’, yet she scores wines out of 20, adding a self-admittedly clumsy
‘-‘, ‘+’ or even ‘++’ to differentiate further (www.jancisrobinson.com).
Hugh Johnson’s and Michael Broadbent’s
assessments are so beautiful they make scoring superfluous, and a bit tacky.
Then look to Robert Parker. ‘It is my belief
that the various twenty (20) point rating systems do not provide enough
flexibility and often result in compressed and inflated wine ratings’, he says.
Oh dear. I respect Parker’s prodigious tasting ability but his is a system out
of 100 which only starts at 50, ‘I give every wine a base of 50’. He awards a
wine 5 points for its colour, 15 for its nose, 20 for its palate and 10 for its
quality and potential; basically a 50 point system. Arguably the only important
element to the consumer is the palate, so it is in fact a 20 point system. With
Parker, the only scores that count are around the 90/100 mark; for a producer,
receiving 89 is a heart attack away from receiving a 91. It is also difficult
to equate a score of 59/100 – which would see you pass most wine courses,
including Diploma – hailed by Robert Parker as, ’a wine deemed to be unacceptable’
(www.erobertparker.com). And why call it a 100 point scale if, in the US at
least, 99% of scores fall into the 85-95 range?
If you want more confusion, look to the St
Émilion rating system. If you think 59/100 is low for a wine consider that in
St Émilion only 70/100 is required to become a Grand Cru Classé. Most wine
students would rate anything getting 14/20 as very ordinary indeed.
Then there is Platter’s system of awarding
‘stars’; almost unique in the international world of wine. Again, a publication
far more authoritative than I, so suffice to say that I find it hard to
distinguish between a wine which is, ‘good everyday drinking’ (2 ½ stars) to
that which is, ‘pleasant drinking’ (2 stars), or between, ‘excellent’ (4 stars)
and ‘outstanding’ (4 ½ stars) and before I upset too many, I’ll just refer you
again to Pendock’s tome for a nerve tingling appraisal.
Perhaps ‘stars’ do have merit though. Steve De
Long (www.delongwine.com) has stopped using the 100 point system. He says, ‘I
found myself spending too much time dwelling on meaningless distinctions such
as: ‘is it an 88 or an 89’. Steve is now using the five star system.
Now that everyone is an expert and bloggers
can become instant Jancis’s, contradictions are rife; we are drowning in a sea
of opinion. Where there were few wine referees now there are thousands.
Do we need to score at all? Can you even
assign wine a number? Parker says most definitely. Wine is a commodity and can
be differentiated by anyone, it is all about preference. Scoring is simply,
‘applying a numerical system to an opinion’. All you need is to respect or
agree with that opinion and the system will have merit, and providing it is done
by the same taster will have some reliability. Wine scoring by a panel doesn’t
necessarily become more credible to me; judge A giving a wine 15 and judge B
giving it 17 does not mean that you might agree with an average score of 16 for
that wine. And I’m not going to open the ‘should it be blind or sighted judging
debate. Are wine scoring systems evil? ‘Of course they are evil’, says Steve,
debates about them, ’just don’t go anywhere’, he says.
Numbers are easy to understand, words are less
so, especially when from a wine ‘expert’. Wine critics can forget that most
consumers are not really concerned about fine tannic backbones, aromatic
nuances, persistence, focus, poise, pedigree or brocaded textures; they want to
know what it tastes like. K.I.S.S. springs to mind.
Personally, I dabble with Platter’s and Parker
and Oliver and Robinson, but mostly my own palate, flawed as it may be.
Everyone agrees that wine is subjective and if Parker tomorrow gave De
Wetshof’s Rieslings or the KCB Chenin a 59/100, I would be laughing all the way
to the store, credit card in hand.
Wine judging and scoring is easy. Just say if
you like it and how much you like it. Use any system you like. Only
professionals need worry about the minutia of 20 or 100 points or stars or
smilies or bottle stickers or PR releases. The people who really count can just
get on and drink the stuff.
PS can’t wait for the competition that awards
Steve De Long’s bottle stickers as prizes...see image