Dariusz Galasiński: Assessment criteria, please!

Wine scores are everywhere. When you read or when you shop, you will find a score. But have you wondered what the score actually means? What is scored? Why is this wine 95 and not 97? As a wine consumer, I decided to find out how the top scores are described. And, boy, was I disappointed!

Here is the description of the highest category of wines on the famous (some would probably say ‘infamous’) RobertParker.com rating scale:

“96-100: An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase and consume.”

There are two attributes of the best of the best. Such wines are extraordinary and of profound and complex character. My immediate question was: what does that even mean?

The word ‘extraordinary’ means that something is unusual and special – hardly revealing as anyone with an ounce of common sense would assume that. Thus, we have the notion that the best of the best will be hard to come by. However, I am quite surprised with using rarity as an indication of quality. Yes, good things are likely to be rare, but that does not mean that rare things are bound to be good. In my, admittedly not-so-humble, view, quality by rarity does not work very well. But is there anything else?

I continued my search, armed with the wonder of an insight that 100-pointers are rare, and looked for epiphany in ‘profound’ and ‘complex’. I hesitantly assumed that ‘profound’ in this instance does not refer to intellectual depth but to great quality. This left me with the conclusion that 100-pointers are good because… they are good.

But what about complexity, you ask? Indeed, complexity suggests that the wine’s character has many facets. Great stuff – I exclaimed – now, we’re getting somewhere! Alas, I realised that this essentially conveys the thought that the wine’s character is individual and unusual, which I had already gathered from the word ‘extraordinary’. Deep sigh, I am getting nowhere.

You might wonder whether others offer something else. Well, JameSuckling.com follows suit with their 95+ wines being ‘must buy’, while Jancisrobinson.com tells us that their top wine (20/20) is ‘truly exceptional’ (and nothing else!). Neither offers much insight. At this stage, I gave up as I did not want to face any more circularities.

“But we know what we are assessing,” I can almost hear critics say, “and our ratings are often consistent between scorers!” The wine lovers join in swearing that scores are useful. Does anyone need an academic linguist deconstructing what have been using for years now? Well, yes, you do, if I may be so bold to suggest.

Before I continue, let me say that my assessment of any wine is very different from one done by a critic who has tasted thousands of wines. I cannot even imagine the variety of contexts such a person can put the assessed bottle in. This is precisely why scores can be useful. But scores also carry with them semblance of objectivity and suggest that there is a firm foundation underpinning them. There is no whim in assessment, there is evidence, the scores say! And so, if there is an identifiable ‘character’ of a wine, which is competently and usefully assessed, then it should be spelled out. I would add: not only for the benefit of consumers, but perhaps even more importantly, for the critics themselves!

Some time ago, academics were asked to stipulate their assessment criteria. It was no longer acceptable to say: this is an A because I say so. We had to account for how we graded students’ work. The process we went through was good both for us as we spelled out what constituted a good essay, and also for the student who could be more confident that the grade for their work was not just plucked out of thin air.

I am suggesting a similar process for wine assessment. If critics can come up with explicit and meaningful assessment criteria that can be translated into ratings, their scores will be more meaningful. Just imagine, they will actually be able to account for the difference between 95 and 99 – I give this example as I think a one-point difference, just like in Academia, is in the eye of the beholder. Their scores will also give them, and the process they engage in, considerably more credibility. And perhaps most importantly, the firmer the basis for the scores, the more immune the process will be from abuse.

• Dariusz Galasiński is a linguist and professor at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. He has been writing on experiences of mental illness and suicide. He also drinks wine and does research into how it is spoken about both by amateurs and professionals.