I think we have skated around this issue for a long time. It is so overused that it in danger of becoming totally redundant. At best, it means different things to different people; whether or not the increase is due to inflation or better winemaking is one debate. Another is whether for some critics there is a benefit financial or otherwise to it.
In the end though, we will all define what we mean by a perfect wine differently. How do you?
Price tag.
Means someone overrated a wine
The perfect wine is perfect until the next perfect one. Scoring something 100 on an empirical scale simply begs for a 101 point wine in the future.
There is something to be said for a perfect wine experience (wine, people, place, time) but that cannot be scored, just described.
Here’s what it can’t reasonably mean: It can’t be the best of all time and it can’t actually be perfect. How could anyone possibly know perfection or the apogee of wine in its totality? This seems an impossible standard, and if we take the position that no wine can be perfect, and strike the 100 point score from the metric, then 99 for all intents and purposes becomes the new relative “100-point” score leading to an identical dilemma.
So if we’re generous to critics, and tasters in that we assume that they have some dose of humility, then a 100 point score simply means that they can’t conceive of the wine being better than it is, given its terroir and perhaps even the vintage it was grown in (the vintage being a likely controversial point). Whether their assessment of quality holds up in time is anyone’s guess.
Well written.
So when critics are handing out 99 and 100 for EP wines that isnt even bottled yet, the wines could actually end up being less than the original score. What about as the wine ages? If a barreled wine is 100, where does it go from there? What’s the purpose of aging ut if it is perfect RIGHT NOW.
This is why I think burgundy critics understand the rating system better than Bordeaux critics.
Does knowing the label before drinking the wine affect your score? If critics had to score wines blindly would they still give such high scores?
It means nothing to me except the wine is overrated and/or overpriced
In some sense it’s always about potential - and I think this is easily assumed since wines tasted at EP are almost always tasted again in bottle and given a more final score. Taking the other position here, what use is it if Allen Meadows is putting an “exact-at-the-moment” score on La Tache at a point in time in which no reasonable person would drink it? That seems far less helpful to consumers - and despite the Vinous controversy, the essence of wine criticism is to help consumers make decisions about buying wine.
It’s an imperfect system for sure - but it is helpful to the extent consumers are willing to be reasonable and not naive about the usefulness and limits of scoring wines. For me, my concern with score inflation (much the heart of the issue with “100 point wines”) is less that the upper range is being used more often, but that the point compression ends up the same, with 88-90 point no longer rarely used for anything but $10-20 wines. In the same vein, I don’t find it particularly useful when critics treat a 94-96 point score like 98-100 point score.
Mark,
I don’t think I know what a 100 point wine tastes like. Nor, do I know what a perfect wine would be. Have I tasted a a 100pt/perfect wine? Maybe. I have tasted many 100 point wines yet I never had the mind to score it 100 points myself. Again, I don’t know why other than how can a wine be perfect? I have tasted amazing wines where perceived flaws can be debated but I don’t think saying that a wine had no perceived flaws also made it perfect.
So to answer your question, I guess a person felt that a wine was some some combination of free from flaws and could not possibly offer more enjoyment than it is giving. However, based on that answer, we have been flooded with 100 point wines and score inflation to the point where most opinions of 100 points have become irrelevant (at least to me).
Means I won’t be buying the wine in multiples down the road
Means I probably won’t be able to justify the price in 5 years
“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
I agree that considering 100 points to mean “perfection” for a bottle is a non-starter, philosophically.
However, for those okay with using numbers as shorthand to communicate relative greatness of aesthetic experience, I think 100 points should be just another category like 95 or 82 or any other number in the agreed-upon scale. Each of those categories has more than one wine. Think about it as the range of “99.5 and up” if you like. I don’t use numbers much these days and haven’t bought or tried anything anyone would call a 100-point wine, but it’s never given me heartburn.
It means it’s pretty good.
Sell it and make some money!
FIFY. I don’t score wine with points, but agree with Todd. If someone calls a wine 100 points, I assume they simply loved it. Maybe the bottle, maybe the night, but I’m less of a sceptic than most of the posts above. Thanks Todd, for having faith!
Means jack $hit…
Or, to put it another way, it doesn’t mean anything until it’s your wine that gets it!
I take to mean that there wasn’t any aspect of the wine that the taster didn’t enjoy. Acid, tannins, structure, flavour profile, etc. all in perfect harmony and at peak. A wine with nothing out of place and one which you couldn’t ask more from it since it’s giving you all that you want.
The taster really liked it and its better than most wines.