Scales compared
Scoring systems
A single number sounds objective, yet behind every wine rating there's still one individual with their own preferences. Two scales continue to shape how that number comes about: the twenty-point scale and the hundred-point scale.
The 20-point scale from Davis
The older of the two scales originated in 1959 at the University of California, Davis. Enologist Maynard Amerine and his team needed a method to systematically compare the university's many experimental wines, so they divided the twenty possible points among individual characteristics: appearance, color, aroma, acidity, sweetness, body, tannin, and overall impression each got their own small pool of points. In the end, all the individual scores were added together for a total.
This breakdown enforces a certain discipline, since a taster has to judge each characteristic separately rather than jumping straight to an overall verdict. The drawback became apparent quickly. Most serious wines land between sixteen and twenty points, and within that narrow band it's hard to make fine distinctions. More modern variants, such as a twenty-point scale with half-point increments used by some British trade publications, create a bit more room to maneuver.
The 100-point scale from Parker
The scale better known today traces back to American critic Robert Parker. He introduced it in 1978, in the first issue of his newsletter The Wine Advocate. On paper, it runs from zero to one hundred. In practice, though, almost every wine reviewed falls somewhere between fifty and one hundred points, since hardly any commercially available wine gets rated below mediocre. The range actually used ends up resembling more of a fifty-point scale.
Despite this—or perhaps because of it—the system caught on worldwide. A number like ninety-four feels more precise and easier to compare than a rating between good and very good, even though most people can barely tell the difference between ninety-three and ninety-four points on the palate. Wine merchants and auction houses nevertheless embraced the number as a selling point, since it fits neatly onto a shelf tag or an advertisement.
Two systems, two cultures
Which system gets used tends to follow a rough geographic divide. The American market, along with many international critics who take their cues from it, still works with the hundred-point scale today. In academic circles, at some European wine competitions, and among part of the British trade press, the twenty-point tradition persists. It's often supplemented with medals—gold, silver, or bronze—awarded above certain thresholds.
Conversion tables between the two systems circulate widely, but they're rarely more than a rough rule of thumb. A wine that a panel scores seventeen out of twenty often shows up in such conversions at just under ninety points on the hundred-point scale. But this conversion remains a mathematical approximation, not a genuine translation between two different rating philosophies.
What a number doesn't show
Every score remains the opinion of a single person or a small panel on a particular day. Critics with a preference for bold, oak-driven wines will systematically rate lean, restrained styles lower, regardless of how well-made those wines actually are. A wine that falls flat with one critic can land twenty points higher with another who favors a different style.
A number, then, never replaces your own judgment—at best, it complements it. Reading a score as a rough signal, say, whether a wine is generally considered solid, and leaving the rest to your own glass, gets the best out of both systems. No single digit should dictate what your own nose tells you.
How a jury arrives at a number
Behind a single published score at a competition, there's rarely just one person. Several tasters judge the same wine independently, usually without consulting each other beforehand, and only afterward are the individual scores combined. If one score deviates sharply from the rest, some juries will even taste that particular wine a second time, so a single outlier doesn't skew the overall result.
With individual critics, as in the case of the hundred-point scale, that balancing act disappears. Here, a single palate stands behind every number, with its own preferences and its own day-to-day form. That explains why critics' ratings for the same wine sometimes diverge more sharply than results from competitions with multiple judges.