Would the wine world be better off without scores?

[Robin Garr]

This seems a little bit hyped and PRish, but it's hard not to like the idea behind a movement to drop wine scores. Some serious names appear to be behind the petition, as well. What do you think? Are you ready to go to www.scorevolution.com and sign on?

Press Releases
Wine Score Revolution Gains Momentum

The world of wine is extremely complicated, and the scoring system became one way to help consumers choose a wine, but it's time to move on. As Carlo Petrini, founder of the International Slow Food Movement says, "Everyone is better off today without scores." Assigning a number to the taste of a wine should be (but unfortunately is not always) seen as one person's opinion, and opinions are as varied as those giving them. An equally alarming thought is that winemakers are being pushed to make a more international style wine. They are changing their farming and winemaking techniques in order to achieve a higher score. We believe this is wrong.

Scorevolution is a movement created to bring together like-minded souls. You can visit the online petition at www.scorevolution.com. Signers agree scores should not be used to buy or sell wine. Our goal is to create transparency among buyers and sellers and to encourage people to find wines based on writings and by word of mouth. The power of scores is limiting the discovery of numerous grower wines, encouraging formula wines, and even influencing the creation of brand icons and inflated pricing scenarios.

Notable signers of the Scorevolution manifesto, among many, are Kermit Lynch of Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant; Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard; Rajat Parr, Michael Mena's lead sommelier; Jonathan Nossiter, director of Mondevino and author of Liquid Memory; and Cameron Winery of Oregon.

"Of course we love wine critics," Christophe Hedges says. "We want people to read about wine and to ask the sommeliers and those behind the counters at retail shops for guidance. What we're asking is that people go deeper than a score." Kenan Hester of Houston Wine Merchant adds another key component: "We need more coordination between restaurants and retailers to get people tasting new wines. If people are regularly exposed to a broad selection of wines, they will gain confidence in their ability to judge a wine on its own merit, and less likely to be sucked into buying wine based on a number assigned to quantify the quality of a wine."

"We must look at wine from a geographical context, and not a comparative context," Hedges says. "Wine is about place and about preserving authenticity of original historical styles. It can't be zipped up into a number any more than a painting by Cezanne can. Wine is about romance and individuality."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z1TPGSlIXg

For me, get rid of all scores and delete any reference to RP! Easy eh.

Oh good, a fresh new debate for once...

People use scores. Scores sell. Scores will stay. Deal with it.

Intelligent people consider scores intelligently.

Idiots follow them like lapdogs.

If newspaper ads, shelf talkers, etc. sell wines on scores, it's only because there are far more followers than there are leaders.

The more experience one has, the less one relies on scores.

Best regards,
Alex R.

I think the wine world would be better off without scores. We go with recommendations from people we have identified with similar palates. This would not hurt Parker groupies. All they would have to do is get wines he recommends.

Yes, but it won't happen. It's in the nature of people to rate things and score things in a hierarchy, and the score system is just to easy and unavoidable.

some people are comfortable using reviews with no scores as reference points, i prefer having numerical references in addition to that.

Drinker, wine-makers, magazine-sellers, reviewers... all human and, therefore, all like to compete.

If you're going to compete, you have to keep score.

People use scores. Scores sell. Scores will stay.

It is indeed the reason why they'll stay and at the same time, the reason why many grow weary of their use.

What surprises me is the number of ordinary wine enthusiasts that follow suit and adopt these top-end weighted scales. I suspect (at least at the start) they see critics as role models to aspire to and merely follow suit. Part of learning about wine.

How long have we been scoring wine? 50 years? How long have we been drinking wine? 1,000s of years - the vast majority of them without scores.

Why is it that now suddenly we can now longer do without them? They are so 20th century.

[Jenise]

I think the wine world would be better off without scores. We go with recommendations from people we have identified with similar palates.

Yes WE do. But it's not about us; it's more about the other 95% who buy wine based on labels and shelftalkers.

Although I've come to dislike scores (having paid attention to them when I first got into wine several years ago), they are probably here to stay, as others have said. Some people have a need to quantify everything in order to understand it.

We might of not of been “scoring” them but we were surely “rating” and “ranking” them from the very start.

Salute

We might of not of been “scoring” them but we were surely “rating” and “ranking” them from the very start.

That is true, but the ranks and ratings were broad categories. Broad both in the sense that there were not many ranks, and in the sense that it was regions, vineyards and chateaux that were rated - not individual wines of specific vintages. I think those differences are key.

121 BC Falnerian.
Most likely every winemaking (wine drinking) culture had their version of “Robert Parker”.

Salute

Let's cut to the quick …. The entire discussion about scores for wines is somewhat of a nonsense. Agreed in full of course that those who purchase wines entirely on the basis of a score are foolish because the score is nothing more than one critic's overall evaluation of what he/she thinks of that wine. Scores are simply summary statements … they do not describe a wine, they are not intended to describe a wine….nothing more than 50 digits (occasionally three) at the end of a tasting note.

Perhaps the most human of all activities is evaluation. And in that I ask what earthly difference it makes if one scores on a basis of 20 or 100 or whatever other numerical system or by closing one's crit with comments such as "superb", "excellent", "very good", "tempting", "undrinkable" or whatever other words of choice may be selected. After all, when reading a critic one respects one does expect somewhat more than a description of the wine – one also wants to know what he/she thought of the wine. Simply stated though, I do wonder how many people run out to purchase wines that I score between 60-75 points.

With personal regard, I fear I preceded Mr Parker with the 100 point score by some 15 years. Those scores were at first entirely for my own reference and were not published. I only began to publish scores when the editors of my various newspapers and magazines insisted on it because that was what readers wanted. Fair enough though, for it should be clear to all that whether we're talking about Parker, Robinson or whomever else, the score is little more than a personal statement. True, in some cases the score may say something more about me and my tastes than about the wine itself. Fair enough for those who wish to either follow or ignore me.

Best
Rogov

[Robin Garr]

With personal regard, I fear I preceded Mr Parker with the 100 point score by some 15 years. Those scores were at first entirely for my own reference and were not published. I only began to publish scores when the editors of my various newspapers and magazines insisted on it because that was what readers wanted. Fair enough though, for it should be clear to all that whether we're talking about Parker, Robinson or whomever else, the score is little more than a personal statement. True, in some cases the score may say something more about me and my tastes than about the wine itself. Fair enough for those who wish to either follow or ignore me.

When I first started writing about wine professionally (in 1980, for the now sadly defunct Louisville Times), I did something much like you, Rogov. I used a simplified version of the UC Davis 20-point scale, but only for my own records. At the editor's request, I began converting those into a system of one to five stars (actually, "bottles," little silhouette images. That was as close as I ever came to a published rating system, and I dropped it after a year or so without readers seeming to care. This was a few years before Parker went national, and I wasn't aware of him at the time, although I believe he was writing his newsletter mostly for local consumption by then.

[David M. Bueker]

Notable signers of the Scorevolution manifesto, among many, are Kermit Lynch of Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant; Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard; Rajat Parr, Michael Mena's lead sommelier; Jonathan Nossiter, director of Mondevino and author of Liquid Memory; and Cameron Winery of Oregon.

Notable perhaps, but also people who never used scores in the first place, so their signing of hte petition is less than meaningless. Now get Jancis or Spurrier (notable though not the most famous score user) on the petition, and you might have a ripple in the water.

Failing that it's just more crap.

Who is Christophe Hedges, and why do they misspell Mina?

I think the logic is a bit flawed. Most people aren't geeks- they have no interest in gaining "confidence in their ability to judge a wine on its own merit." They want to walk in, buy something with as little thought possible, and find it reasonably satisfying when they open. The people who actually want to taste a lot of wines and start deciding for themselves will tend to do that whether or not scores are offered.

While I'm as geeky as they come, I do use scores from critics I trust sometimes (as an adjunct to their tasting notes). Try it first and decide what you like is great if you are trying to decide between a Marietta Old Vines and a Guigal Cotes du Rhne. Widely available, cheap, easy to try and then buy. But with some smaller production wines one must often make buying decisions without tasting the wines. I'll confess that if 2 premier crus (priced the same) get glowing reviews (and no stylistic warning flags) from a Burg critic I trust, and one has a 92 and the other a 94, I'm much more likely to order latter.

By the way, Kermit represents a lot of producers who typically get good scores from prominent critics (Meo-Camuzet, Vieux Telegraphe, Coche-Dury, Raveneau, Chevillon, etc). If he really wants a score revolution maybe he should tell them that he'll drop them if they barrel-taste any critic who uses scores.

I think the logic is a bit flawed. Most people aren't geeks- they have no interest in gaining "confidence in their ability to judge a wine on its own merit." They want to walk in, buy something with as little thought possible, and find it reasonably satisfying when they open. The people who actually want to taste a lot of wines and start deciding for themselves will tend to do that whether or not scores are offered.

I tend to think that scores are not the best shortcut even for this crowd. I often tell my non winegeek friends who want to be able to make reliable purchasing/ordering decisions without remembering pesky producer/vintage/vineyard names that they should at a minimum understand the basics of tannin/acidity/body/sweetness, perhaps also oak. When they can accurately describe their preferences along those lines they should be pretty confident of getting something that will please them at any given moment. Whereas just looking at a score only tells them how 'good' someone thinks the wine is.

I often tell my non winegeek friends who want to be able to make reliable purchasing/ordering decisions without remembering pesky producer/vintage/vineyard names that they should at a minimum understand the basics of tannin/acidity/body/sweetness, perhaps also oak. When they can accurately describe their preferences along those lines they should be pretty confident of getting something that will please them at any given moment.

Good advice IMO. As a relatively geeky wine lover, it is the basis of my buying decisions too.

Rahsaan,
I agree that scores are not the best method even for the casual neophyte- I was just arguing with the Score Revolution folks argument that if it weren't for scores people would "go deeper" or "gain confidence." I'd argue that most don't even want to learn the basics of acidity/tannin etc (and you can only learn that with a fair amount of tasting). My advice is generally along same lines, but just to write down wines you did or didn't like (and if possible why) and tell a good store. Even that is more trouble than most want to take. If they find something they like, they buy a case. They're not geeks, have no interest in knowing more, and that's truly ok.

Rahsaan,
I agree that scores are not the best method even for the casual neophyte- I was just arguing with the Score Revolution folks argument that if it weren't for scores people would "go deeper" or "gain confidence." I'd argue that most don't even want to learn the basics of acidity/tannin etc (and you can only learn that with a fair amount of tasting).

You don't need that much tasting. Lineup the Charles Shaw selection to see that the Cabernet sauvignon has more tannin than the merlot or syrah and the sauvignon blanc is more acidic. Once people get the concepts they are not hard. Although it does require paying a tiny bit of attention.

I'm the same way with cars. Don't care much about them. Just want to drive them. But I've learned the basic basics about fuel economy and driving habits!

Also, I thought one of the recent trends among creative wine sellers was to list wines by body type (or some such other flowery term) in an effort to make it more accessible to people who don't want to remember regional differences. Surely that is more accessible than a wine list ordered by points.

[David M. Bueker]

I tend to think that scores are not the best shortcut even for this crowd. I often tell my non winegeek friends who want to be able to make reliable purchasing/ordering decisions without remembering pesky producer/vintage/vineyard names that they should at a minimum understand the basics of tannin/acidity/body/sweetness, perhaps also oak. When they can accurately describe their preferences along those lines they should be pretty confident of getting something that will please them at any given moment. Whereas just looking at a score only tells them how 'good' someone thinks the wine is.

So what happens after they wake up?