So then, what is useful?
I donāt think anyone has ever claimed the scale was objective. Have they? Just because it has numbers doesnāt mean anyone is claiming or implying itās objective.
Itās like giving an creative writing assignment or an art project a letter grade, or rating a movie on a 10 point scale.
The key thing is that itās one form of communication from the writer to the audience. One way to convey what the taster thought, subjectively of course, of the wine.
If I read the same note from you and you give it 87 or 92, I know more of what you thought than if you had left off the number. So I think that has some value to me.
I think if we think of it as a form of communication ā one of many arrows in the writerās quiver ā then points no longer have to be this big bad thing that so many WBers say it is.
Plus that frees you from all the angst about āwhy only use that top 20-30 points of the scaleā or āpeople donāt use the scale the way it was intendedā and all. If I can generally tell what a note writer meant by the number he used, thatās all that really matters. Itās about communicating, not a science or math thing.
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As usual, I agree with Seiber.
I like this idea.
I donāt buy based upon any single factor, but rather on an accumulation of information that will reach a ācritical massā where I pull the trigger on a purchase. I donāt see scores as a deciding factor but it doesnāt hurt(although any red wine scoring above about 93 and I would want to see abv as well.
Iāve been doing this long enough to know the critics and my palate(in itās current phase) equally well. So scores from David Schildknecht, Erin Brooks, John Gilman, Jamie Goode, Josh Raynolds, and the like will carry weight. Based upon William Kellyās posting here, his scores/thoughts would definitely carry quite a bit of weight.
Ha! So trueā¦mostly itās the 7 point scale.
I like the 100 point scale for āgrand vinā ā wines that aspire to knock your socks off.
I donāt like the 100 point scale for more modest wines that aspire to be a tasty drop. I donāt want to compare the score of a delicious beaujolais to a 1er cru Vosne (or to a super special Bojo cuvee that is a burgundy wannabee at 3x the price). Neither score does justice or helps me much. Admittedly, some critics try implicitly to address this: if I look at William Kelleyās scores only for Beaujolais priced under $30, my guess/hope is that Iāll like the ones he scored highest within that peer group.
By contrast, I kinda like the buying scale, e.g. ā āfind this wine NOWā¦definite re-buyā¦meh - not my worst purchaseā¦what was I thinkingā¦etc.ā [Just donāt say āback up the truckā about a $500 wine.] It incorporates two concepts important to me: 1) QPR matters and 2) I want to drink wine that I enjoy and it helps to know if drinkers with similar tastes like something.
Regards,
Peter
For me, personally, I find that scores do have some marginal utility as a measure of the tasterās enthusiasm for the wine. Until I feel Iāve got a grasp on the tasterās palate, the points arenāt used as a judge of how good the wine is. That would be the tail wagging the dog. Rather, if I know the wine, the points are a useful indicator of what kind of wines the taster likes. With enough of those data points, I can eventually turn it around and use the tasterās scores to give me some feel for the wine.
As for whatās useful in a tasting note? Specific descriptors are very rarely of any value ā what I do find value in are comments about structure and the balance of the various components (including various colors of fruit, mineral, earth, acid, tannin, floral, etc.).
Back to my earliest days here (when Bill Klapp was accusing me of being a sock puppet) Iāve maintained that professional critics have valid role to play for the wine consumer. It doesnāt take very long following their work to get a feel for their style and priorities. Most consumers will gravitate to one or two and probably find at least one to be ridiculous. But the real value with critics lies simply with the sheer volume of wines to which they are exposed. The critics of the critics like to say donāt be a follower, taste for yourself. And thatās an important part of the process of learning. But test bottles can get very expensive. Back when the norm was for Chardonnay to be heavily oaked, I canāt tell you how many $40 bottles Iāve poured down the drain considering them to be undrinkable. The critics provide a starting point for those of us who donāt have unlimited resources to determine what it is we like and want. And as our personal preferences become clearer, they become less necessary in our buying decisions.
One of the strengths of the 100 point scale from a marketing perspective is that it is a single, concise number. But I donāt think that most of us judge wine on a single dimension. While certainly it isnāt something that will actually happen, if you could increase the dimensions of scoring however much you wanted, how far would you go and what dimensions would you score? Drinkability today? Aging potential? Balance? Structure?
Basically, in an endlessly complex wine nerd scoring framework, what would you want subjectively quantified?
as Iāve often opined, I use the Zanotti binary scoring system, 0 not worth drinking and 1 worth drinking.
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Especially useful with Burgundy! 
You understand he works for the Devil?
That works as long as you can get a sense of what the wine is!
So, what youāre saying is, scores are not dead at retail?
Note to self, must drink wine with this fine Berserker someday.
I work for a nonprofit education company!
I do moonlight in some contract work for the devil, though.
I think the main problem of people who complain about the critics and/or scores in general, is that they donāt know how to read and use the scores/notes.
If you think just because there is a score, it has to be some universal truth, of course you wonāt be happy with the 100 point scale or anything else.
Most of the time scoring is very useless for you as a person. But from a marketing perspective and lazy people i get why it is great to have.
But if you find a critic or CT/Vivino user that matches your taste in a type of wine, scoring can become useful no matter the range, 0-100 or Binary (i agree on that one Alan!).
But i do find reviews that describes a wine useful. If i find a low scoring review that dislikes everything that i personally like about a certain type of wine it is still a good pointer for me. The same for a high scoring wine that describes something i dislike.
An example could be someone describing a Syrah as to peppery. Well i like a lot of pepper notes in my Syrah!
What a topic! I am of the opinion that scores used to be quite helpful. Back in the early days of Parker there was a quick and impactful way of saying to producers āyou can do betterā. Parker was able to go into a region, and with of course his personal tasting lens, say that one producer is doing a better job with similar grape materials, than another. It forced the lazier or less sophisticated producers to up their game. The scores had direct feedback in the market where the underachievers had to improve, or people stopped buying. This gradually has lost meaning as the market has sorted itself out and the cream, generally, has risen to the top. Now we are trying to figure out who is THE absolute top 0.1% in the market based on finer levels of detail. High fidelity sound only goes so far until you are only producing music dogs can hear.
This of course contributes to grade inflation, and now sorting is starting to fall back on things we used to value ā¦like historical reputationā¦in the days before Parker ( eg. DRC, First Growths, etc) Quality is overall higher among the serious players, now we just argue more about style preferences. So scores are less useful, description and history, and for me, intellectual interest, top my list of priorities.
Whew, now I feel better!
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Based on whose rating? Your own - well, duh. Someone elseās??? Really???