To assist people in choosing wines that I have reviewed, I am including a 5-star wine rating scale, starting today, July 6, 2014. This Ordinal Scale is the most appropriate I feel for grading wines, rather than the 100 point scale that other reviewers use. I have many problems with the 100 point scale, starting with the fact that the scale starts at 50, and there is no agreement upon all users to the characteristics of a 50 point wine.
My Rating Scale
- Poor or faulty – may not show any grape character, maybe very unbalanced, may have a wine fault such as being corked. Not a recommended wine by me.
- Acceptable – a wine that has some grape character, but no real structure, or interesting feature.
- Good – a straightforward wine to enjoy. It shows grape character and some structure, whether from tannins and/or acidity, but is not overly complex.
- Very good – A wine that shows good fruit flavour characteristics, is very balanced between fruit/acidity/tannins/sugar (differences between red/white/sparkling/fortified wines), has good structure and longer length, and possible aging potential.
- Outstanding – everything from a ‘very good’ wine, but also has some special characteristics, which could include minerality, superb balance and length, typicity of place, excellent aging potential, and/or other character that really makes this wine different and stand out from the rest of the wines.
I do give half points as well for the wines. If you would like to find out more about wine rating scales, you can read my past post on this topic.
A few more of my wine rating posts:
