A recent conversation at a wine store has me a bit worked up. I asked someones opinion on a wine and they responded “it’s an OK wine for the price ($13) but I wouldn’t give it more than 88 pts.” I responded “I thought 88 pts was a pretty good score” to be almost interupted with “yeah it’s OK but there are a lot of 90 pt wines at this price”. I had to hold myself back from shaking my head and walking out. At what point did an 88 point wine become “OK” and at $13 become an “OK value.” Wines that I rate 88 pts (Very Good) and are $13 I would buy by the case!

This isn’t an isolated incident, either. Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of tasting notes on both CellarTracker and other websites that contradict traditional wine ratings. Many people will score a wine between 85-89 points, but just trash the wine. They call it hot, undrinkable, etc…but still give it a “good to very good” rating. Therefore, I’d like to clear something up:

An 80 point wine is still a good, well made wine. An 85 point wine is very good. Many people are in the mindset that only 90 pt wines are good and anything less isn’t worth it. By limiting ourselves to the upper 20% of the scale, we’re missing out on a lot of quality wines and wines that are actually pretty good are being overlooked.

Another reminder that ratings are only useful if you understand the reviewers palate. If a critic constantly gives wines 90+ points (ie Jay Miller of the Wine Advocate) they are skewing scale which reduces the power of having a rating system with 50 points of variability. Before considering someones rating, or posting your own, keep in mind what the scores are supposed to reflect and ask yourself whether or not the wine actually merits that value.

A few hours after putting this post up, WineLibraryTV addressed this very issue.  For Gary Vaynerchuk’s perspective on this issue and his evaluation of some “89″ point wines, check out “89 Point Wines, What Is The Deal?”