Wine Rating Scales - What Do They Mean?

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There are several rating scales in use and many wine sellers and auctions use a combination. A wine with a higher rating is normally more expensive than average wines, although this is not always true.

Rating scales are useful if you'd like to try a new wine and don't want an unpleasant surprise.

The problem with wine rating systems is that the score of the wine depends on the person doing the rating.

If you are interested in a wine with a good rating, it's always a good idea to go back and read the notes to see what produced the score. Find someone whose taste in wines runs parallel to your own and see what they thought about that wine you'd like to try or buy.

Of course, this means you'll have to sample a few bottles to rate the raters before you find one you'll agree with. Take your time, develop your palate, take notes and have fun...

The Wine Advocate Rating System - One of the most respected wine rating systems is the one developed by Robert Parker in The Wine Advocate. The scale goes from 50 to 100 and awards color, appearance, aroma and bouquet, flavor and overall quality a set number of points. Wines over 80 are very good and over 90 are excellent. Of course a 95 is a better score than a 90. Not everyone agrees with all of Parker's ratings, but if your tastes merge with his anything over an 85 will make you happy.

Wine Spider - The wine spider is a rating system designed by Nick Chlebnikowski of Vintage Direct/Nick Wines in response to dissatisfaction with the rating scales currently in use. It has some very good aspects and although the subscription price is $AUS30, the subscribers get to share everyone's wine reviews and ratings. It's well worth taking a look at the demo if you are serious about wine - especially wines from Australia.

The "3 Stooges" System - This rating scale was developed out of frustration with the current offerings. While not a standard rating scale in any sense - or nonsense - of the word, this article will delight wine-loving 3 Stooges fans, assuming that there are more than one...

Tanzer's Ratings - Stephen Tanzer's bimonthly International Wine Cellar is a subscription only service that let's you share his tasting notes and ratings on more than 10,000 wines a year.

Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine - has become a subscription only magazine. Rates wines on a 70 - 100 scale and awards poofy stars. 95 - 98 points gets three poofs, 91 - 94 is a two star wine and 87 - 90 gets one star. Anything from an 80 to an 86 can be a good wine, but are noted as, "Wines of varying quality and value." If a wine gets below an 80 from these raters...run!

The Wine Spectator, The Wine Enthusiast, and Wine & Spirits Magazine are highly respected wine publications which publish ratings based on the 50 to 100 numerical scale. You may see these listing in wine reviews, buying guides and auctions. However, there have been questions raised about whether ad dollars have some unintentional influence on wine ratings from these more commercial publications. They do not make their ratings available without a subscription. The sites do use popups, so they are not included in this directory, but you should be aware of them.