Ratings and medals

Image created by Melody Flammger

We all see the various wine ratings cluttering the shelves in the liquor store- this Chardonnay scored 96 points, this Cabernet Sauvignon scored 88 points, etc.  But do points really matter?

It depends on who you talk to, but for some people points really do matter and those points dictate what they will or won't bring home. There are some who will not allow a wine without a number of 96 points or higher to grace their palate.  What this unfortunately means is that wines that do not get the attention of a rating system such as Robert Parker's do not get the business of these wine drinkers either.  It also means that those same wine drinkers are limiting themselves.  Sure, there are thousands of wines with ratings on them and that consumer still has plenty of choices if they choose that standard.  But at the same time an unrated wine has the very same potential to be just as good- perhaps better than the wine they brought home with the 96 point score.

Wines are constantly evaluated- whether it be with RobertParker’s 100 point system or by International judges at competitions the wines are always going to be sized up against one another and given a grade.  In a wine competition, there are a lot of hoops to jump through for the wine maker before the wine can be entered.  There are entry fees, shipping the wine, minimum quantity requirements, complicated forms, etc.  It certainly isn’t a cakewalk for those who decide to go that route.  Once at the competition, the wine gets tried by a number of certified judges (depending on the competition).  Because of jumping through all of these hoops just for a medal and some recognition for their wine- there are many wines that do not go to competitions and even wineries that don’t participate.

Going back to the scenario of the individual who only drinks wines with a rating of 96 or higher- say this person also doesn’t drink a wine without a Gold medal.  This person is excluding wines from the winemaker who makes wine in too small of a batch to be evaluated at competition.  So, one winery may have actually made the best Chardonnay known on earth but only made a very small controlled batch so was unable to enter the competition.  This Gold medal only drinking wine consumer will never taste that Chardonnay and may very well miss out on the best wine drinking experience of their life.

The point of this perspective on ratings and medals is to show that yes, there is some merit to them.  It’s not easy to produce a 100 point wine that also scores Double Gold in International Wine Competitions and there are a lot of hoops to jump through.  But it also doesn’t mean that the other wine out there isn’t just as good.  People should drink what they like, not what they’re “supposed” to like.