The 100 point wine rating system
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The 100 point wine rating system
Ambition driven by passion, rather than money, is as strong an elixir as is Port. http://www.fortheloveofport.com
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Glenn E.
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Re: The 100 point wine rating system
I don't disagree with his arguments, but I also don't find them convincing.
Subjective ratings, which he seems to favor, are also useless. They require that the reader be familiar with the writer. They also require that the writer be consistent, which requires that the writer's palate be consistent, and I think we all know that's just not the case all of the time.
But to me the biggest argument against subjective ratings is that they take too much time to process. Yes, the flowery prose and artful descriptions are fun to read occasionally, but when I'm standing in the store trying to figure out which bottle of wine to bring home for dinner tonight, they take far too long to process which makes them completely useless.
A combination of both is clearly the best way to go. Go ahead and write your beautiful, artful description of the wine. Evoke greek gods. Take us back to the valley in which the wine was created. Pat yourself on the back for being creative. Then give it a score so that we know where it sits relative to every other wine you've tasted. That way when I'm standing in the grocery store looking at an array of 1000+ bottles, I can glance at the hang tags to quickly narrow down my search. Then once I've found a few that look interesting, I can ready just those descriptions to make my final choice.
Granted, I still have to be familiar with the writer, but a quantitative rating is much easier to syncronize with your own ratings than a subjective one. And I have a perfect example of why quantitative is sometimes better than subjective...
I only met Rune and Emmy for 7 days in Portugal in 2010, but because we were able to compare ratings of around 150 Ports during those 7 days I know that our palates are very close. I tend to rate 3-4 points higher than Rune, but for those 7 days we were consistently 3-4 points apart. Amazingly so. As I recall there were only a couple of times out of 150+ Ports that we strayed outside of that 3-4 point range. So when I read one of Rune's scores I can just add 3 or 4 and know that with amazing consistency, that'll be my rating. Our descriptions, though, aren't nearly as consistent. I can't read his notes and figure out what his ratings are going to be, and I suspect he probably has the same problem with mine. If I had to rely on just reading Rune's notes I might never know which Ports I should buy simply because we write differently and focus on different aspects of the wine. His quantitative ratings are invaluable to me, while I find that his subjective descriptions are merely interesting.
Subjective ratings, which he seems to favor, are also useless. They require that the reader be familiar with the writer. They also require that the writer be consistent, which requires that the writer's palate be consistent, and I think we all know that's just not the case all of the time.
But to me the biggest argument against subjective ratings is that they take too much time to process. Yes, the flowery prose and artful descriptions are fun to read occasionally, but when I'm standing in the store trying to figure out which bottle of wine to bring home for dinner tonight, they take far too long to process which makes them completely useless.
A combination of both is clearly the best way to go. Go ahead and write your beautiful, artful description of the wine. Evoke greek gods. Take us back to the valley in which the wine was created. Pat yourself on the back for being creative. Then give it a score so that we know where it sits relative to every other wine you've tasted. That way when I'm standing in the grocery store looking at an array of 1000+ bottles, I can glance at the hang tags to quickly narrow down my search. Then once I've found a few that look interesting, I can ready just those descriptions to make my final choice.
Granted, I still have to be familiar with the writer, but a quantitative rating is much easier to syncronize with your own ratings than a subjective one. And I have a perfect example of why quantitative is sometimes better than subjective...
I only met Rune and Emmy for 7 days in Portugal in 2010, but because we were able to compare ratings of around 150 Ports during those 7 days I know that our palates are very close. I tend to rate 3-4 points higher than Rune, but for those 7 days we were consistently 3-4 points apart. Amazingly so. As I recall there were only a couple of times out of 150+ Ports that we strayed outside of that 3-4 point range. So when I read one of Rune's scores I can just add 3 or 4 and know that with amazing consistency, that'll be my rating. Our descriptions, though, aren't nearly as consistent. I can't read his notes and figure out what his ratings are going to be, and I suspect he probably has the same problem with mine. If I had to rely on just reading Rune's notes I might never know which Ports I should buy simply because we write differently and focus on different aspects of the wine. His quantitative ratings are invaluable to me, while I find that his subjective descriptions are merely interesting.
Glenn Elliott