Tasting Notes: Organization
The full name and vintage of each wine is listed followed by detailed notes divided up into the following categories: ‘Appearance’, ‘Nose’ and ‘Palate’, followed by a ‘Conclusion’ and ‘Rating’ out of 20 (see Rating System below for an explanation of how to interpret our scores).
Where possible we have also noted an approximate retail price, particularly for wines available in the Beijing or wider China markets. These prices are accurate only at the time of writing and we recommend that global wine prices are compared on Wine Searcher. All entries are also labelled by grape variety, category (red, white, sparkling etc.) and other relevant information.
Rating System
There are many rating and scoring systems used by wine critics and enthusiasts around the world. None is perfect, but wine would not be what it is – an evolving organic product, full of surprises – if it could be described exactly or in any sense finally.
However, although individual wines are always changing – and although perceptions of taste are necessarily personal and subjective – wine critics have a duty to be open, transparent and consistent about how they rate wines.
We follow a 20-point system because this seems to give us enough flexibility to assess a range of wines without having numerically baffling scores (the 100-point system seems unwieldy, although we recognize it works for other tasters). The 20-point scale is also what we’ve grown used to adopting in professional wine challenges where large numbers of wines from vastly different categories are assessed.
Here are what our scores mean (an explanatory note on how this system is relative to the type or category of wine scored follows):
18.5-20 A ‘Gold Medal’ winner: outstanding wine. Within the top of its class and a great example of its category. Of very high quality indeed.
17-18.4 A ‘Silver Medal’ winner. Very good quality wine. At an impressive quality-level, but not in the top of its class and not the highest quality example of its category.
15.5-16.9 A ‘Bronze Medal’ winner. Good quality wine. A good expression of its category, but not necessarily inspiring. Reliable drinking.
14-15.4 ‘Commercial’. Drinkable, but not good quality, not exciting and usually not a particularly good example of its category. Average quality, but without wine-making faults.
12.5-13.9 ‘Faulty’. Displays one or more wine-making faults. May still be drinkable, but is not recommended.
Below 12.5 Usually ‘undrinkable’: i.e. very unpleasant to taste, combining multiple wine-making problems and possibly other faults caused by poor storage.
Note:
These scores should be compared only with other wines in the same category. For example, a basic Burgundy – a Bourgogne Blanc or Rouge – that has attained 17/20 can only usefully be compared with other wines in the same category rather than other 17/20 wines in general. Practically, it makes no sense to compare totally different wines in terms of their score. Ours is a relative system that also often incorporates several notes for the same wine ‘over time’: i.e. as it is tasted on different occasions. Like all other systems, ours is not absolute and only reflects our own tastes and overall tasting experience. At the end of the day perception of wine is both personal and context-driven.
But we hope our notes will be useful for other wine lovers and collectors.
Happy reading (and tasting)!
Edward Ragg (a.k.a Wine Dragon)
& Fongyee Walker (a.k.a. Wine Phoenix)
The full name and vintage of each wine is listed followed by detailed notes divided up into the following categories: ‘Appearance’, ‘Nose’ and ‘Palate’, followed by a ‘Conclusion’ and ‘Rating’ out of 20 (see Rating System below for an explanation of how to interpret our scores).
Where possible we have also noted an approximate retail price, particularly for wines available in the Beijing or wider China markets. These prices are accurate only at the time of writing and we recommend that global wine prices are compared on Wine Searcher. All entries are also labelled by grape variety, category (red, white, sparkling etc.) and other relevant information.
Rating System
There are many rating and scoring systems used by wine critics and enthusiasts around the world. None is perfect, but wine would not be what it is – an evolving organic product, full of surprises – if it could be described exactly or in any sense finally.
However, although individual wines are always changing – and although perceptions of taste are necessarily personal and subjective – wine critics have a duty to be open, transparent and consistent about how they rate wines.
We follow a 20-point system because this seems to give us enough flexibility to assess a range of wines without having numerically baffling scores (the 100-point system seems unwieldy, although we recognize it works for other tasters). The 20-point scale is also what we’ve grown used to adopting in professional wine challenges where large numbers of wines from vastly different categories are assessed.
Here are what our scores mean (an explanatory note on how this system is relative to the type or category of wine scored follows):
18.5-20 A ‘Gold Medal’ winner: outstanding wine. Within the top of its class and a great example of its category. Of very high quality indeed.
17-18.4 A ‘Silver Medal’ winner. Very good quality wine. At an impressive quality-level, but not in the top of its class and not the highest quality example of its category.
15.5-16.9 A ‘Bronze Medal’ winner. Good quality wine. A good expression of its category, but not necessarily inspiring. Reliable drinking.
14-15.4 ‘Commercial’. Drinkable, but not good quality, not exciting and usually not a particularly good example of its category. Average quality, but without wine-making faults.
12.5-13.9 ‘Faulty’. Displays one or more wine-making faults. May still be drinkable, but is not recommended.
Below 12.5 Usually ‘undrinkable’: i.e. very unpleasant to taste, combining multiple wine-making problems and possibly other faults caused by poor storage.
Note:
These scores should be compared only with other wines in the same category. For example, a basic Burgundy – a Bourgogne Blanc or Rouge – that has attained 17/20 can only usefully be compared with other wines in the same category rather than other 17/20 wines in general. Practically, it makes no sense to compare totally different wines in terms of their score. Ours is a relative system that also often incorporates several notes for the same wine ‘over time’: i.e. as it is tasted on different occasions. Like all other systems, ours is not absolute and only reflects our own tastes and overall tasting experience. At the end of the day perception of wine is both personal and context-driven.
But we hope our notes will be useful for other wine lovers and collectors.
Happy reading (and tasting)!
Edward Ragg (a.k.a Wine Dragon)
& Fongyee Walker (a.k.a. Wine Phoenix)
Labels: introduction, Note on Rating System, Rating System, Tasting Notes: Organization
posted by Wine Phoenix
at
16:00
<< Home