Do you buy wine by the numbers? That is, do you look at ratings, especially from publications that use the 100-point scale? Do you think wine writers and judges can quantify quality? Should they?
These were some of the questions that led off the World Vinifera Conference in late July, a gathering that takes place in Seattle every other year (alternating with Vin Expo in Bordeaux). The conference, a showcase for the global wine industry, draws wine writers, winemakers, distributors, marketers and wine stewards from around the world.
It started on a lively note, with Wine Spectator columnist and Portland resident Matt Kramer leading an animated debate on the merits of "quantifying quality," that is scoring, rating and evaluating wine. It quickly turned specifically to the 100 point scoring system, the scale used by Robert Parker, Spectator and many others.
It's one of those debates that is fun to participate in and listen to, but it drew few conclusions, except that wine writers/evaluators believe they must use the 100 point scale because it is the de facto standard and is expected by consumers. I got the feeling that many in the audience, especially winemakers, wished it would just go away.
Steve Tanzer, publisher of the newsletter International Wine Cellar, explained to the audience that he uses the 100 point scale but hides the numbers at the end of his description of each wine. Many seemed to agree they thought this was a good way to handle it vs. Spectator's, which prints large numbers that many readers don't read beyond.
Those who oppose this and other scoring systems would prefer that consumers taste and make their own decisions on whether they like a wine. Unfortunately, we would have to evaluate tens of thousands of wines a year to even scratch the surface on a global scale.
The subject of scoring and judging wines is a funny business. I keep a close eye on other publications and judgings, often to see if they have the same opinion about a wine as we do. You might be amazed at how often our evaluations coincide. For example, in August's Northwest Enological Society judging in Seattle, Snoqualmie's and Preston's cab reserves won gold medals, which is what we gave each the equivalent of in our blind tasting of high-end Northwest cabs in our last issue. In the same judging, however, other cabs got blanked, the same cabs we thought were just as good — and the same wines that have won numerous awards throughout the summer. How does that happen? It's a mystery.
While we're on the subject, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you how and why we rate wines. Throughout each issue of Wine Press Northwest, we evaluate wine in several ways:
- We blind taste a specific style or variety of wine each issue — this time it's rieslings. We have three regular tasting panelists, and we invite two guest panelists, usually one winemaker and someone in the food or wine trade. During this tasting, we use the 100 point scale and average the scores of all five judges. We don't publish the numbers we come up with; instead, we put them into descriptive categories such as "outstanding" and "excellent." Our reason for doing this is that there isn't much difference between and 88 and an 89, and we don't want our readers to get too hung up on that, either.
- We also taste and evaluate newly (or about to be) released wines. Wineries send us these wines, a standard practice in the industry. The "Recent Releases" wines generally haven't been tasted blind, but that will change beginning with the next issue of Wine Press Northwest. All wines published in our Recent Releases column will be tasted double blind, meaning that not only will we not know who the producer is, but we also won't know what kind of wine we're tasting. We don't assign scores or even categories to these wines, though we will point out those wines we consider especially exemplary. We also won't mention those wines we don't prefer — of which there are precious few.
- We do "vertical" tastings. These are evaluations of several years of particular varieties or blends from the same producer. For instance, in this issue, we tasted multiple verticals of Columbia Winery's Red Willow Vineyard wines. Such tastings are special and are meant to be a celebration of the winery and, in this case, the vineyard. It wouldn't make much sense to taste it blind because there's generally only one producer.
- Our writers also will evaluate wines to accompany a feature article. An example in this issue is a story I wrote on the Walla Walla Valley. With it are tasting notes from a dozen or so producers. The purpose is to share with the reader what producers have for sale and also to give a glimpse from barrel samples of what's to come.
When it comes down to it, the most important wine judge is you. My evaluation might help you decide whether to buy a bottle of wine, but yours will help you decide whether to keep on drinking.
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