![\"jamie_small\"](\"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/jamie_small.jpg\" "\\"Jamie")
<\/a>Jamie put up a video <\/a>on the scale. He speaks about the obvious flaws: the way the score is influenced by the critic’s biases\/current state, the implied precision of a finite scale (1 point in a hundred!), score inflation (88 points is abject failure), the unattainability of a 100 point score, the low effort a lazy system like this enforces, meanwhile it’s the default system, as bad as it is, score inflation (eventually all scores will be 99 or 100), etc.<\/p>\n Jamie goes on to ask if it could be changed, if \u00a0a consortium of wine writers\u00a0could<\/span>\u00a0force a different system. The answer is probably not. Not because it wouldn’t be better, but because he’s missing the central flaw of the 100 point system, and its central appeal to people who market and sell wine–and who those people really are. More on this in a minute.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jamie and I are mostly in agreement. What really set me off was the response from the other side of the fence, specifically Tom Wark over at Fermentation blog. Tom is a PR guy\/publicist for the wine industry, promoting and marketing wine, wearing many hats, all of them well. He does fine work in his field, but it has to be understood that while he rails against certain details of the system and modern winemaking and wine, he represents the status quo and defends it.<\/p>\n Tom’s apologia is well-written<\/a>, as usual. What he comes down to is this: the scale is shorthand, the imprecision is understood, and critics use it as an honest way of conveying important information in a soft field (subjective quality can’t be precisely qualified) and consumers who have the same mindset as Tom will find the scores useful, as they are well-intended.<\/p>\n Jamie may have missed the most important point, but Tom is subtly more wrong. Understandable, given his stance on the true usefulness of the 100 point scale. From a podcast episode of winebizradio.com<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s unethical\u2026when I call a magazine and say \u2018I\u2019ll give you $25,000 for a 93 point score,\u2019 and they say \u2018You\u2019re on\u2019 \u2013 that would be unethical. I\u2019ve been in this business for 20 years and I\u2019ve only bought coverage, uhm, once or twice. As a publicist my job is to get as much \u2018right\u2019 kind of exposure for my clients as I possibly can.\u00a0If I thought I could buy a 95 point score from a reputable publication and be reasonably assured that no one would find out, I\u2019d do it in a minute.<\/strong><\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Let’s just soak in that for a minute. would it be possible to buy positive reviews from magazines without using the 100 point scale? Sure it would. Would it have the same portability, impact and downstream usefulness as a 95 point starburst sticker on your wine label? Not bloody likely. But Tom not only says he considers it an acceptable thing to do, he mentions having done it ‘once or twice’.<\/p>\n So here’s why the 100 point scale is a sick, rotten vestige of the bad old days of wine writing: it’s too easy for those in the wine buseiness to misuse it for gain.<\/p>\n I actually agree with Tom in some ways: it could be a useful if inaccurate and subjective way to describe wine in a shorthand that would benefit consumers. But as long as humans are human, it\u00a0will<\/strong> be misused. Ian Ayres, a professor at Yale, wrote this about wine criticism<\/a>:<\/p>\n Both the wine dealers and writers have a vested interest in maintaining their informational monopoly on the quality of wine.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Let’s go to the reigning champion on human economic behaviour. Adam Smith said<\/p>\n \u201cPeople of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Meeting together in this case means tacitly agreeing on the 100 point scale as the arbiter of taste in wine sales. As long as critics can use the scale without having to fully qualify what the scores actually mean, it’s not just useful shorthand, it’s a direct route to manipulating wine consumers.<\/p>\n Before anybody uproars that no decent or ethical wine critic could possibly countenance that, I suggest you go back and read Tom’s quote above. Not only does he countenance it, he acknowledges that it is done, and that he has done it on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n Lest anyone think that I’m personally spiteful towards Tom, I like the guy. He’s a warm, thoughtful and genuine fella, and every time I’ve met him, he’s been kind enough to share his time and insights with me. But he’s a businessman defending his commercial interests here. The 100 point scale is a proven sales tool and can instantly raise any winery to unthinkable cult heights in a single number, and any publicist who didn’t fight for a high number as hard as they could is a bad publicist.<\/p>\n This leaves us wine consumers in a state. Three decades ago when I used to slavishly follow the Wine Spectator for ratings, the scores were useful: they guided me through the bottles in my local liquor store and helped me find some treasures–some of which scored only 87 points. I’m not entirely certain that the scale was free of corruption back in those days, but I know what it’s like today, and I can’t use it.<\/p>\n![\"WBC-tom-and-lettie\"](\"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/WBC-tom-and-lettie-300x209.jpg\" "\\"Tom")
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