What's the Point(s)?

Has it always been human nature to assign value to aesthetic objects? Grading a math test on a 100-point scale is a no brainer. You are right or you are wrong. But assigning a score to something like wine that is so personal and individual in its characteristics (as well as in the standard against which you assign the points in the first place) seems to me to be more about the reviewer than about the thing being reviewed.

The very quick history on 100-point scoring systems is this: Robert Parker in the early '80s cottoned on to this system as a way to differentiate his new newsletter, The Wine Advocate, from all the other magazines out there rating wine. This brilliant appropriation of a system that is instantly recognizable shorthand to everyone who had ever gone to school is as responsible for Parker becoming the pre-eminent critic as anything else. As other magazines such as the Spectator and the Wine Enthusiast saw how the public enthusiastically adopted this model, they changed too. Even the venerable Charlie Olken, publisher of the Connoisseur's Guide to California Wine, adopted the points to go along with the "puffs" he has been using for decades.

The tricky thing is that the points don't mean anything objective. Each reviewer has in his or her mind a set of criteria for a particular wine that is absolutely individual. No two people taste things the same way, consequently, my 90-point California Chardonnay is going to be different than someone else's. The only thing that makes the score valid is the authority we invest in the critic him/herself.

The latest "new" scoring system to be trotted out eschews numbers totally and instead awards badges. This system, on its face, seems more egalitarian and less strict than the numbers. If I think this wine represents a certain level of quality and fits into a subjective category that I just made up, its gets a badge. Despite my deep ambivalence toward the 100-point system, the squishiness of the Badge's parameters makes me think that it's more feel-good than useful.

The points thing is complicated. I personally don't think of wine in terms of how "perfect" (how close to 100 points) it is. The fact that wine is constantly changing means that my 95 point rating for that Cabernet is only valid for that particular drinking experience from that particular bottle. Assigning points to a product that is a melding of science and creativity; the result of the felicitous relationship between farmer and farm seems so wrongheadedly reductive. And at the same time, if we get a great review, we trot it out to show the world:

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2007 LA ROCHELLE
Pinot Noir Russian River Valley

<!-----------------------------------------------------------> Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine
Volume 34 Issue 8: June 2010 91
Maybe it is some kind of blind bias for the wines from this Pinot Noir region, but with so many good offerings from La Rochelle, it is the Russian River Pinot that has turned out to be our choice. We like its bright, keenly defined red cherry fruit, we like its dried flower nuances and we like its supple, slightly velvety yet keenly balanced stance on the palate. Some may find its evident, latter palate acids to be a bit too high. We do not, but we do expect them to smooth further with age.
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I told you it was complicated.