To score or not to score? That is the question

This is a real head-hurter for me. I am by nature a geek. I love stats, I love numbers, I love spreadsheets and I love rankings. When I first subscribed to Decanter I set up a spreadsheet of all of the supermarket wines that were reviewed, including the scores, and sent it to friends so they always had a reference (if they wanted!) when they went shopping. But what if they didn’t like a wine rated 19/20? What if they started shopping by scores alone. How boring would that be? How much would they miss out on?

When I score a wine I try to be as objective as possible and take into account the quality of the wine making etc, but if I don’t like it can I still give it 18.5/20? When I’m scoring a wine at home it’s to decide whether I want to have it again so I probably wouldn’t give it that high score, but now I’ve decided to share my thoughts I suppose I’ll have to try harder.

As I’ve said, I’m a geek so yes, I will score wines. As honestly as I possibly can.

But the matter doesn’t end there. What scoring system should I use? In my first post I went for the 20 point system. If its good enough for Jancis, it’s good enough for me I thought. However, in recent months Decanter have gone to the 100 point scale. Most of the websites and blogs I follow (see the “My Wine Links” page) use the 100 point system. The wine world loves Parker and his 100 point wines. But it’s not really a 100 point score is it? You get 50 points just for turning up… Well we do love a trier don’t we! But it’s a nice round number so I think I’m going to go with the trendy kids and go cental… Sorry couldn’t help that one.

The Wine Gang (http://thewinegang.com/about/scoring) give a great overview about how this works so I’m going with them:

14.0 = 80
14 + = 81
14.5 = 82
15.0 = 83
15 + = 84
15.5 = 85
15.5 + = 86
16.0 = 87
16.5 = 88
16.5 + = 89
17.0 = 90
17 + = 91
17.5 = 92
18.0 = 93
18 + = 94
18.5 = 95
18.5 + = 96
19.0 = 97
19 + = 98
19.5 = 99
20.0 = 100

But please remember that wine is a very subjective and wonderfully personal pastime, so use scores as a guide only. Only you know what 100 really means.