Rating Wine Brands Is A Matter Of Taste

If I’m shopping for a new wine, I’m a sucker for three pieces of branding: the label design, the name (I’m always drawn to Fat Bastard), and any reviews or ratings that are attached to the bottle. (The size and duration of the following day’s hangover plays a role in repeat purchases.)

We’re a society of shoppers who love ratings from institutions like Consumer Reports and amateur experts who post on Amazon. So, all else being equal, I’ll favor the 95-point wine over the 85-point wine, even if I don’t know who’s issued the 95 and the 85, because, well, 95 is better than 85, right?

But more so than reviews of, say, hybrid sedans, wine reviews can be quite subjective, if not outright convoluted. New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov’s article on suggested spirits for Thanksgiving includes the following adjectives: agile, nimble, modest, confident, polarizing, stony, ripe, floral, earthy, jammy, polished, and “redolent of the vanilla flavors that come from new oak” (as opposed to older oak).

But unless you have a specific brand in mind – and if you’re neither an oenophile nor a wino – you’re seeking something vague like “a good red” or perhaps more specifically “a good Italian red,” so you’ll consult those expert ratings for assistance.

The problem is, according a Wall Street Journal article citing two papers in the Journal of Wine Economics, those wine ratings are probably unreliable. The papers’ author, a winemaker and former statistics professor, studied the results of several wine competitions and found wild inconsistencies – a medal-winning wine at one competition is poured down the drain at another.

Except for a few snobby critics, no one’s really surprised -- or threatened, for that matter -- that human tastes can be all too human. “It is absurd for people to expect consistency in a taster’s ratings,” Joshua Greene, editor and publisher of Wine and Spirits, told the Journal. “We’re not robots.” Regardless, Greene adds, “people think [the ratings] are useful.”

And as long as people consider expensive vessels like those from Riedel better crushed-grape containers than a Wal-Mart wineglass ($10.45 for a set of four) or a paper cup, I intend to saturate my liver more often with 95-point wines than 85-point wines.

Unless, of course, that 85-point wine is on sale.