Can you score a wine 50 points?

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Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/30/2008 7:12:35 PM

Bill

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Just a question…….

Can you score a wine 50 points?

Using the following scale to start with (or is this a completely wrong start?):

Starting score: 50
Color and appearance:            0-5
Bouquet/aroma:                       0-15
Flavor and finish:                      0-20
Overall quality etc.                   0-10

In a perfect score that adds up to 100

But what in a 50 score?

Starting with 50.

Color and appearance 0 points …….. (Sounds like water to me, but I wonder, clear water might score a point…..certainly in Africa……)

Bouquet and aroma 0 points ………. You don’t smell anything. ….. or the smell is horrible. ….Can you give negative points?….

Flavor and finish 0 points. ……There is no flavor and finish. ….. or the flavor and finish is so horrible that you do not give it any points. ….. and again. …. Can you give negative points?

Overall quality 0 points …….. what to say?

Thanks

Bill.

< Message edited by Bill -- 10/31/2008 8:52:35 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/30/2008 7:32:31 PM

gbm

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I like this one. They poured almost all of it out? What did they do with the rest?

N.V. Shenandoah Vineyards Inc. Raspberry Serenade (USA, Virginia, Shenandaoh Valley)

Horrifyingly bad. I prefer sweet/dessert wines, but gagged on this. Overwhelming over-sweet odor, like decay. We poured almost all of it out. (21 views)

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/30/2008 8:35:07 PM

fingers

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From: Santa Ana, CA
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Great ?, Bill.

Personally, I could not imagine it happening without considering it flawed at 50pts. I mean, at least 52 based on it being a horrible color? By design? I guess if it was meant to be ugly, stinky, and foul-tasting it could "achieve" such a score without being considered defective. I think I even gave 2-buck-chuck a 74.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/30/2008 9:06:03 PM

iByron

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Anyone who gives a wine a 50 isn't using the standard rating scale. There are next to no wines that would merit less than a 4 out of 5 for color. It'd have to be seriously flawed -- a Petite Sirah that was pale pink, for example -- to rate no points for color. And then you'd have to mark it as flawed unless you knew that the entire batch of Petite Sirah was pale pink by intention and not sold as a rosé.

Zero out of 15 for the nose would be really suspect as well. That's a lot of points to lose for aroma, especially if you consider what some middling and even good wines smell like.

I can't imagine a wine getting less than 59-60, and that would be bottled heated grape juice.

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Post #: 4

RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/30/2008 9:50:34 PM

ParkHill

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Isn't the practical range 79-100?

If a wine is flawed it doesn't really get rated. If it has no varietal character at all, then I almost put it in the same category. If it is merely poorly imagined (malcriado, perhaps), then maybe it is worth trying to rank.

As I've gained more experience with "decent" wines, I've become really intolerant of the $10 wines designed for early consumption. By striving for uniformity and "adequateness" they seem to lose all varietal distinction. Is it a cab or merlot or pinot? At that price range, you can hardly tell. I don't even bother to rate these wines.

Maybe this is only a US mass-market problem?

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 12:02:00 AM

pjaines

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I quite happily score some wines 50. Mainly mass-produced, manufactured wines that have more in common with coca-cola or a mars bar than wine are basically nothing more than a bit of grape juice with a bucket load of chemicals chucked in. Sometimes you just have to call it as you see it.

I've never been a fan of the "50 points just for turning up" system. If a wine is horrible then a wine is horrible.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 12:03:42 AM

pjaines

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ParkHill

Maybe this is only a US mass-market problem?

You should try some of the mass-produced Australian stuff. Grim is not the word.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 3:41:08 AM

nwinther

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So you'd like to add a "Personality-"window"" that has to be opened for the points to roll in?

I get your point - that the 50 point scale is stoopid. But why rate at all then? All that is achieved is screwed-up statistics.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 5:23:58 AM

pjaines

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Ahhh, we are getting into the perennial debate about the validity of the points system again.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 8:50:22 AM

Bill

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I am sorry,
Shouldn’t have started this thread.
I read “We need some sort of statistical tool!!!” from the ” Wine Data Errors & Corrections” section and I wrote and placed it in a second.
Cellar Tracker is free to use the way you like it.
So this is a useless contribution.
Sorry again.

Bill.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 9:06:33 AM

gbm

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No apologies necessary - for me anyway. I would never have thought to look for 50 point wines without this topic (in CT, not the stores) and the reading is very entertaining.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 11:24:10 AM

grafstrb

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Bill,

I think you answered your own question in your initial post ... one certainly can, if the wine has characteristics that merit such a score.

Now, could I score a wine 50 points? Yes ... however, it would be extremely difficult for me to do so without instead marking the wine as flawed. Perhaps an extremely old bottle of Rose would get a 50 from me ... but it would be difficult to not give at least 1 or 2 points for color...all the color would have to have faded ... or maybe if it turned neon blue or something ...

that being said, the lowest I've ever scored a non-flawed wine is 76 .. i've done it a couple of times. I did score a Virginia wine 73, but have since been told that, based on my TN, the wine was likely flawed.

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Post #: 12

RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 4:05:22 PM

pjaines

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bill

I am sorry,
Shouldn’t have started this thread.
I read “We need some sort of statistical tool!!!” from the ” Wine Data Errors & Corrections” section and I wrote and placed it in a second.
Cellar Tracker is free to use the way you like it.
So this is a useless contribution.
Sorry again.

Bill.

I disagree with you Bill. I think you raise a good point and it was well raised. This comes down to how people score wines and how they judge wines. It is the magic of CT. I think we are good community here on our little corner of the internet and opinions matter. We are a "broad church" as some people might say.

Can you score a wine as zero? You made me think about my somewhat sarcastic scorings at 50 that I have given on more than one occasion. One mans wine is another mans poison, I think you have raised an interesting point about how low people can rate a wine. This is not about people drinking Petrus every night and then having to switch to a 5th growth - it is about the relavite judgement of what they dislike in a wine.

If I had not had a glass of wine for 3 months then that 50 point wine I had last week might have tasted like a 95 pointer.

This is why i love wine above any other form of alcohol - perception, taste and opinion.

Keep em coming Bill.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 10/31/2008 8:45:33 PM

cgrimes

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I once had the priviledge of tasting an 8 year old Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau. Could that conceivably have been a 50?

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/1/2008 7:45:04 AM

fingers

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From: Santa Ana, CA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: cgrimes

I once had the priviledge of tasting an 8 year old Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau. Could that conceivably have been a 50?

LOL. Yes

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Post #: 15

RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/1/2008 8:04:47 AM

J2K

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From: Pittsburgh, PA- U.S.A.
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quote:

ORIGINAL: cgrimes

I once had the priviledge of tasting an 8 year old Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau. Could that conceivably have been a 50?

That was a 50 when it was released!!!

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Post #: 16

RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/2/2008 6:35:10 PM

ParkHill

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This discussion makes me wonder about a bottle I have waiting for the right moment: 1964 Bardolino.

375 size, so I don't expect much, and it was stored all this time in my Father-in-law's basement. The only saving grace might be the round bottom which means it was forced to rest on its side.

I'm still waiting for the right occasion to try some 1970s South African, rioja, and cheap Bordeaux. It's so weird to have all this well-aged, poorly-stored, low-budget wines. Sounds like a party.... of some kind. Maybe the decanting will be the highlight.

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Post #: 17

RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/3/2008 1:26:12 AM

nwinther

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If you leave a wine for too long - say a 50yo provence rosé - and it obviously becomes undrinkable, wouldn't that merit a flaw rather than an extremely low score? It doesn't really matter who "flawed" (flew?

) it but if it is at all drinkable. If I wait long enough, any wine becomes undrinkable, even when stored at optimum and even if it was once rated as the best in the world.

At some point the term Wine doesn't apply and it shouldn't be rated as such. And if I found myself rating a wine in the low 50's, I'd really consider if this is the wine the producer released or if something happened along the way (or if I like wine at all).

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/3/2008 1:28:04 AM

nwinther

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quote:

ORIGINAL: pjaines

If I had not had a glass of wine for 3 months then that 50 point wine I had last week might have tasted like a 95 pointer.

You should really have someone look at that, P.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/3/2008 2:31:18 AM

pjaines

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There is very very very little chance of that happening.

I did go 2 weeks recently without touching a drop of wine. It felt like a year.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/4/2008 11:57:22 AM

wadcorp

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bill
Can you score a wine 50 points?

At a wine tasting at a friend's place a few weeks ago, someone brought a bottle of "Zero". Yes, that was the name of the wine. And after tasting, I would have said it was coloured water. Nothing bad, just nothing there. Essentially blank wine.

Cannot remember who the vintner was.

I might have given it less than 50 points…

.

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Post #: 21

RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/5/2008 3:56:16 AM

nwinther

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Did the color merit a point? Adding fruit-dye to water can make beautiful colors. Of course it's not technically wine, so it couldn't be assessed as such.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/5/2008 1:07:22 PM

rbazinet

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In my experience anything below an 85 usually indicates a wine with unpleasant qualities, despite the common descriptors for this score. I agree with the above post that the practical or common range starts in the 70’s.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/6/2008 1:57:03 AM

nwinther

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The "defining" point is of course subjective. I can wholeheartedly enjoy an 80 pointer. And one should in principle be able to enjoy a 60 pointer, but my expectations of wine it so high that I couldn't imagine myself considering a 60 pointer flawless or even drinkable. So I agree with the notion that practical ratinges start somewhere in the 70s. But isn't that a shame, really? I mean, I don't just eat the tenderloin part of a T-bone.

Of course, the bar has been set around 85 (the reason some people call the 100 point scale a 15 point scale) and suddenly beginning to distribute across all 50 points would screw up the assertation of all other wines.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/6/2008 4:07:00 AM

slave2thevine

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bill

Just a question…….

Can you score a wine 50 points?

Using the following scale to start with (or is this a completely wrong start?):

Starting score: 50
Color and appearance:            0-5
Bouquet/aroma:                       0-15
Flavor and finish:                      0-20
Overall quality etc.                   0-10

In a perfect score that adds up to 100

But what in a 50 score?

Starting with 50.

Color and appearance 0 points …….. (Sounds like water to me, but I wonder, clear water might score a point…..certainly in Africa……)

Bouquet and aroma 0 points ………. You don’t smell anything. ….. or the smell is horrible. ….Can you give negative points?….

Flavor and finish 0 points. ……There is no flavor and finish. ….. or the flavor and finish is so horrible that you do not give it any points. ….. and again. …. Can you give negative points?

Overall quality 0 points …….. what to say?

Thanks

Bill.

I think it is important to note that scores just like our own personal tastes are always subject to change. Everyone has their own preferances...and it can be hard to find someone that you agree with on a regular basis. I used to avoid scoring wines...but now periodically I like the idea of putting a range for my own thoughts...to help me remember, or understand where I was at that point in time. I'm fortunate enough to be working in the industry...and tasting several wines a week when I want to. If you find someone who likes more than just a few wines that you like...you might want to pay attention to them...

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/6/2008 5:12:27 PM

Wrighty

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And what about the 20 point scale - any suggestions for an exchange rate?

IMHO double it and add 60 so
10 = 80
15 = 90
18 = 96

Wrighty

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/6/2008 5:52:28 PM

Bill

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According to a pdf document I have with graphs about the different scales the comparison with the 100 Point Robert Parker system is as follows (approximately):

According to the French:
10 = 60
15 = 80
18 = 92

According to Jancis Robinson:

10 = less than 50
15 = 67
18 = 88

or

14 = 60
17 = 80
19 = 93

You should see the graphs.
There is a difference made between the theoretical threshold of acceptability and the actual threshold of acceptability, which makes it more complicated.
The graphs are in the theoretical perspective and that is what I used in the examples above.

The document is called “How We Rate Wines (and Other Things)” and copyrighted by www.thelongwine.com
I could not find a link to the document, but maybe someone else can.

Cheers,
Bill.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/7/2008 1:11:47 AM

pjaines

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For those who subscribe to World of Fine Wine magazine, they have a bar across the top of their tasting pages showing the relative nature of the various scoring systems (5 star, 20 point, 100 point etc).

It should be on the internet somewhere but I can't be arsed to look for it.

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RE: Can you score a wine 50 points? - 11/7/2008 11:17:40 AM

grafstrb

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quote:

ORIGINAL: slave2thevine

If you find someone who likes more than just a few wines that you like...you might want to pay attention to them...

I love this feature on CT ... once again, thanks to all my "favorite tasters" out there - you know who you are ... keep on poppin' corks and posting those notes!