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Question: Is it easy for an experienced taster like you to notice the difference in quality of a Champagne rated 95 points, versus one rated 96 points?
Answer: I really like your question. As you have noticed on this long time Blog I do not score wines. I have been required to score in wine judging competitions and on other occasions. However, I don’t believe in simplifying the sensory experience of wine tasting with just a number.
Easy to do so using a 1 to 3 star system or the IWFS Vintage Card scoring conceived by Andre Simon with a maximum rating of 7. Even the 20 point range seems to work better where 17 is a pretty good score but the equivalent 85 on the 100 point scale isn’t.
A problem with the 100 point scale started successfully by Robert Parker is that it allows too much small differentiation of scores – like a 95 vs 96. This “experienced taster” as you kindly called me can’t tell the quality difference between a Champagne (or other wine) scored 95 or 96.
It is important to look behind the score to see who is the scorer. Is this someone who consistently tends to score higher or lower than the norm? Perhaps the scorer makes a big leap every 5 points so a 95 is quite a bit less quality in their eyes than a 96 – sort of like the established difference between an 89 and a 90. A big difference indeed! Much more so than say between a 92 and 93 score. Moreover scores in a vertical, horizontal, or other comparative wine tasting probably are more credible and easier to interpret as to the perceived quality of each wine among the group judged.
Also there’s just too much “wine score creep” where perfection at 100 now is all too common and generally scores are inflated being much higher right across the board than in the old days. See “What is a 100 point wine?” posted October 12, 2015 linked here and “100 Point scores should be taken with a grain of salt” on May 27, 2019. Maybe all wine scores now need to be taken with skepticism! Will AI solve this for us?
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