How We Rate

Inexperienced wine drinkers usually rate wines in just two categories, which reflect personal taste in a very simple way: “Tastes good – Does not taste good”. Only with increasing drinking experience they discover how complex the world of “Tastes good” can be. Those who want to know more about wine begin to differentiate. Tasting notes help to match the wine flavour profiles to personal preferences. In addition, wine ratings based on numerical scales have become established for rating quality.

The sense and nonsense of such wine evaluations as well as their advantages and disadvantages can be argued about. We can certainly see that the uncritical handling of many media with the instrument of awarding points leads to what we consider to be an intolerable banalization and devaluation of wine as a cultural asset. At weinfreaks.de, we advocate a responsible and self-critical approach to ratings, which is reflected in our differentiated tasting methodology and the combination of various tasting forms. Points are an important and useful tool for us to assess wine quality. However, they only serve as an orientation guide and are not carved in stone. Anyone who misuses them as a measuring tool does not understand their meaning.

By the way: We refrain from publishing so-called best lists. We consider such lists to be misleading. They are neither representative nor exactly reproducible due to a generally high performance density through repeated tastings.

Internationally, the 100-point scale, which goes back to the American wine critic Robert M. Parker, has prevailed in recent decades. His influence and one-sided preference for concentrated, fruit-intensive and barrique-accentuated wines has led to a worldwide disadvantage of elegant and multilayered crus.

In addition to the conformity in terms of taste an ever more widespread, unreflected flood of ratings above the seemingly magical 90-point barrier is increasingly being criticized. Hosts of writing agents of the wine market hardly shy away from boosting sales of simply knitted wines with unreasonably high ratings. From our point of view, the accompanying deception of the consumer cannot be reconciled with the principles of a serious wine criticism.

We therefore see it as the duty of the disavowed quality journalism to distance itself consistently and with the necessary vehemence from such machinations, to take a clear stand and to inform the consumer.

To avoid comparisons with what we regard as the “Parker points” – which we consider to be flawed – we have opted for the 20-point scale traditionally used in Europe. It is part of a long European tradition of wine evaluation and is particularly well known from French wine culture and the rating practices that have long been in use there.

The 20-point scale does not have its historical origins exclusively in wine evaluation. The French education system has long used a scale of 0 to 20 points to assess performance at school and university. This scale has also established itself outside the education system as a familiar method for the nuanced grading of performance. It was adopted by French wine critics and further developed for the sensory evaluation of wines.

The key difference from the 100-point scale lies less in mathematical precision than in the tradition of its use. A 20-point scale does not give the impression that a wine's quality can be determined by a seemingly precisely measurable number between 0 and 100. Rather, it provides a manageable framework for assessment within which differences in quality can be graded.

We have based the design of our scale on the French model. The individual score ranges represent clearly defined quality levels. The option to award half-points also allows for finer differentiation within these levels. We make full use of the range between 10 and 20 points. The lower scores are therefore not merely theoretical possibilities, but form part of our actual rating scale. At the same time, the highest ratings are reserved for great wines.

Our 20-point scale is deliberately not an attempt to measure a wine's quality mathematically. It is a standardised tool for providing a clear framework for a professional assessment and for expressing differences between wines. The score does not replace either the tasting notes or a thorough examination of the wine. Rather, it summarises an assessment based on sensory and qualitative criteria.

The ratings of two tasters are not comparable even if they are based on the same point scale. If we give a wine 16 points, for example, it may receive 17 from the British Jancis Robinson or even 18 from the Swiss René Gabriel. The reason: Each taster interprets the scale with its rating levels differently. At weinfreaks.de, we strictly follow the French model of our 20-point scale. Ratings of more than 16 points are therefore rarer, but reflect the differences in quality in the top range from our point of view in a more appropriate manner.