A standardized wine rating system? In an age of chaos and diversity??
This wine-scoring game seems to have folks on the edge of their seats. Game over?
There’s a proposal circulating among us wine bloggers to adopt a standard approach to how we rate wine. In a recent post, fellow blogger Tim Elliott of WineCast asks, Is it possible for wine bloggers to choose a single rating system?
I would first ask if points are really important to wine drinkers who are other than American.
But don’t get me wrong — I like Tim. He writes thought-provoking stuff, and often rides in the front seat of the roller coaster that is the vinosphere. But it isn’t clear to me why he’s asking the question.
Is it possible? Yes. But probable? Call me an iconoclast, but I’m in favor of diversity of opinion/ratings/etc., only because entropy is such a natural thing. Why attempt to control it? Just on general principles, I’d be loathe to see us all adopt the same points system if only to be different than Robert Parker and his ilk.
However, if we were to collectively adopt one rating system among us vinoscenti, I think we need to remind ourselves who are audiences are. Do we wish to provide a lowest-common-denominator approach, or do we wish to lead, educate, and raise the bar for our audiences?
Sometime ago I adopted the 20-point UC Davis method as my personal Goldilocks choice. It wasn’t nearly as complex as Parker et al., but not so simple that I didn’t learn anything. Like Goldilocks’ experience with the three bears, this 20-point method was just right to me.
Frankly, when I taste and score a wine, I want to break it down into its component attributes (aroma, body, balance, finish, etc.), and I use a 20-point Wine Scoring Sheet for that purpose. I can reference the sheet later when I want to remember more than just the notion of I liked the wine and how much, instead preferring to remember why I liked the wine. With the sheet, I can see this breakdown at a glance, and I can also review any notes I’ve written, even compile group scores to determine a group favorite wine.
In fact for groups, the sheet is a good teaching tool. My tasting groups learn a few things from the sheet when we use it to compare against similar wines (e.g., vini bianchi di Toscana). By contrast, I can’t learn or distinctively compare wine using a five-star system; it seems too open to interpretation and wanting for additional clarification. It therefore provides less value to me and, by extension, to my audience.
And value — perceived or otherwise — is what is at stake here.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I like your approach; I think that it ultimately provides data that can be used for comparative purposes — provides a path towards comparing palates between individuals. I agree that there is great value in using this approach as part of a learning exercise; it would be interesting, to me, to use this (or modified, but similar tools) in a “Wine Tasting Wednesday” where individuals around the country would sample wines from a pre-defined list and then enter their scores into a database that aggregates the scores and builds sets of individuals who have similar “palate profiles.”
I’m thinking about starting up a blog or a wiki to explore this subject further.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Ward, I’m glad you chimed in - I think you may have hit on something. You go, man! Please keep me posted.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:55 pm
A standardized wine rating system? In an age of chaos and diversity??…
Theres a proposal circulating among us wine bloggers to adopt a standard approach to how we rate wine. In a recent post, fellow blogger Tim Elliott of WineCast asks, Is it possible for wine bloggers to choose a single rating system? I offer my thoughts…
June 21st, 2007 at 9:36 pm
First, Amen brother. I think the perception is all wrong. I don’t think that a rating system is one-size-fits-all and I don’t think its what will solve or simplify the wine finding process. It propagates the idea that referencing a wine has some possibility of being one-to-many. Wine is and always will be a peer-to-peer interaction with the best recommendations coming from people who are familiar with each other. That is why it is a social experience, not just a drink. Trying to create a standard rating you better create a system with many many variables.
We don’t want to recreate Wine Spectator with a bunch of bloggers instead of a bunch of editors. We need to use the new technologies to create new methods of discovering wines, not re-iterating old methods with a new technology. This doesn’t level the playing field, it just replaces editors with bloggers. And since not every wine lover blogs, this creates a new elite class of wine drinkers - those that blog. Lets use those entrepreneurial minds to create new things…
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:53 am
I was initially very supportive of this effort, because it seemed to me to be a way for bloggers to serve as a united counterweight against the big magazines.
But it took less than a day for folks to start translating stars into points in the comments on Tim’s blog. And for folks to reveal that they would give stars based on a Netflix like “Loved It/Hated it” model. And that very few 5s would be given out. That was enough for me to get seriously cold feet, as I’ve said over on Tim’s site.
I use a standard of varietal characteristics weighted against cost. I have four simple categories. I never use pluses or minuses. That’s it. Folks seem to like it. What’s more, folks seem to buy wine based on it. I guess this is good enough for me–I’m going to be one small voice trying to make big change one consumer at a time. Context is important, and it took only 1 day for the context to evaporate once Tim put up his proposal.
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:08 am
I think Joel hit the proverbial nail on the virtual head. Bits are cheap, why not break it down for people?
For example if we use Russ’s form, we provide a score and a text descriptor for each of the seven criteria. Readers/users could just use the total score or drill deeper for the component scores and descriptions. Their choice. You could even apply that Bayesian stuff to the individual criteria scores, and summarize the text descriptors.
No, it doesn’t fit into a Twitter message, but what does?
Or should I just back away from the Torcido and no one gets hurt?
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:29 am
I feel like I’ll be left out in the cold if we standardize, but I’ve got winter coats, so I should be okay. At home, Kevin & I rate our wines using the 20-point AWS scoring system. I then look at the numbers, consider the value, check how I FEEL about the wine, and assign a happy face. But if I’m out at a tasting event, where there is a crowd and little space, I’ll just assign a happy face of some sort on the fly.
, I’m probably not going to buy it again. My local readers love my scale because it’s accessible to them - it’s somehow familiar (perhaps just non-threatening, all these colorful faces) and makes sense. I’m able to rate a $200 wine against a $10 wine and it’s all okay.
Now granted, there are 5 of my happy faces. But they actually describe how I feel about the wine. I’m never feeling like this: :> ). (That’s my interpretation of 4.5 stars.) If it’s below this
That’s not a plea for everyone to use happy faces. It’s simply an explanation and justification for what I use. Not really ready to share the happy little guys anyway.
My biggest issue with standardization, and I mentioned this on Lenn’s blog, is that blogging, like wine, is individual. I don’t agree with standardizing much across the blogosphere because it’s our individuality that makes us all such awesome bloggers.
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I believe the problem with rating systems is they are used incorrectly. A score of 92 or 3 1/2 stars tells you nothing about the wine. In the case of movies, the 3 1/2 stars tells you nothing about the movie either! So why bother with ratings?
Example:
I have two movie loving friends named Blake and Steve. I know if Blake tells me that a movie is a 5 star movie, that I will really love it! Steve is a bit different. I know that I never enjoyed a movie he has raved about. So if he gives a movie 5 stars, I don’t bother to go see it.
The ratings are good because they give me some perspective on how much they enjoyed a movie. The problem is that ratings need *context*. If I look at a wine magazine and I just see the name of a wine with the number 92 beside it - it tells me nothing.
If I read this blog and say that I generally agree with author’s tastes (remember taste *is* subjective) then when I see the 92, then I know I will probably enjoy it.
You can change the scale, you can change the objects used to illustrate the rating, but all rating systems are useless without context.
I have worked on a solution to this problem on my website. If you would like me to discuss more about it, please just let me know!
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:40 pm
[…] The conversation around my proposal for a unified wine blogger rating system has brought both sides of the numerical issue to the forefront. In the comments here and around the blogosphere we have seen agreement, push-back and, well, poetry. […]
June 28th, 2007 at 8:40 am
[…] The jury’s still out and I’m listening to users on the subject (here, here, here and here are some bloggers reactions to the general idea of standardizing ratings), but half stars are an option, as is simply embracing the chaos and letting people rate in their native system - it’ll be confusing to the reader, but they could adapt… […]