Points! Points! Points!

Quality matters

When I was a kid, in the 80s the Italo Disco phenomenon was at its peak. MTV was brand new, it Italy it would have arrived in the early 90s, whereas in the 80s we had Deejay Television, a programme broadcasting song videos.

Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Samantha Fox were the big thing, then, one summer a beautiful Italian girl, Sabrina Salerno, raised to international fame with her song "Boys (Summertime Love), whose refrain was "Boys! Boys! Boys!".

A few days ago I was discussing with a friend about what I consider today an abuse of above 90 points for wine reviews.

"Points! Points! Points!", everywhere above 95 points! How is it possible?!"

I am a bit concerned about this trend in the wine industry.

Last year I was invited to a presentation where we should have given scores to wines coming from specific regions of Austria.

After the event a very nice winemaker came to me and asked me:

"Have you really given below 90 points? I have seen you score some wines with 83, 85, 86 points. Nobody does that anymore."

"Well listen, scoring everything above 90 points it´s dangerous also for the wines that are really worth above 90 points, because it is impossible to have a whole wine industry that scores so high. Secondly between 85 and 90 a wine is good. Of course it is not very good but it´s fair in its quality."

We then parted ways, cheerfully waving goodbye with our hands. I stepped on the train and thought about this nice talk.

After several months I can confirm that we are living in a period in which sensationalism has invaded our wine world.

I personally divided my reviews in three main categories:

- 3 Stars (between 86-90 points - good)

- 4 Stars (between 91-95 points - very good)

- 5 Stars (between 96-100 points - excellent)

The reason why I use categories instead of using the full 100 points scale, it´s because the comparison (and competition) between two wines coming from the same area and divided by 1 point can be very narrow.

What really matters here is the dimension of quality.

If I have to define quality in wine, quality would be the highest balance a wine reaches in its three dimensions (look - nose - taste), therefore the higher is the combination and the consistency of these three dimensions the higher the score.

This reviewing technique, a very strict teaching method of evaluation of the Associazione Italiana Sommeliers, has nothing subjective, rather it´s fully objective.

My fear is that too many professionals are today influenced by their own ego and personal taste and the division between private customers and wine professionals lies on the fact of having, as much as possible, a technical judgement on a wine, that goes beyond our personal preferences.

Is it possible to do that? Yes, with self-discipline and respect of the product.

We can judge a product that we personally wouldn´t drink, nevertheless be fair, because the ultimate goal is to make sure that consumers drink a product they are looking for with the highest quality possible.

In conclusion, I can say that if we stopped being so obsessed by appearing the definitive solution to a problem, maybe we could be more objective and, believe me, wine badly and urgently needs that.