Editorial: Why wine doesn’t begin at 95 points
By Christian Eedes, 4 August 2026
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In the space of a few days this past July, some of South Africa’s most celebrated producers – Sadie Family Wines, Van Loggerenberg and David & Nadia – released new wines. Over the course of the month, 15 wines were awarded 97 points or more on this site. These are genuinely exceptional wines. But when exceptional becomes commonplace, what happens to the meaning of the score?
The wine world has a peculiar relationship with numbers. We claim to appreciate nuance, complexity and individuality, yet we often reduce wines to a single figure.
A 95-point wine is understood to be “better” than a 90-point wine. For many, a 94-point wine is somehow one point short of greatness. A 96-point wine demands attention. A 97-point wine demands acquisition.
But what happens when excellent wines become so plentiful that 95 points no longer separates the truly exceptional from the merely very good?
South Africa is currently producing more outstanding wines than ever before. Vineyard understanding has improved, winemaking has become more thoughtful, and a new generation of producers is crafting wines of remarkable precision and character. The result is a fortunate problem: there are too many good choices.
Which raises a question: are consumers overlooking wines of real character simply because they do not score in the mid-90s?
When excellence becomes widespread, distinction becomes harder. If 15 wines can secure 97 points or higher in a single month, the consumer is left staring at a constellation of high numbers with few navigational tools.
Moreover, the scoring system has its blind spots. A thrilling old-vine Palomino or Colombard can offer rarity, character and a sense of place, yet struggle to reach the mid-90s because it does not conform to the traditional markers of greatness. The Platklip Palomino Old Vine 2025 from Piekenierskloof is a case in point – a wine that gave me much pleasure, but one I could not in good conscience score higher than 93.
There is also a danger that the pursuit of high scores encourages a stylistic consensus. Producers, consciously or otherwise, may gravitate towards the characteristics most consistently rewarded by critics – whether that means power and extraction, or, conversely, extreme reduction, hyper-lean fruit and searing acidity.
As scores climb, so too do the prices attached to benchmark bottles. But does a 98-point wine offer twice the emotional and intellectual reward of a 93-point wine? Rarely. Yet the market treats the numerical gap as a chasm.
When every release is heralded as a “masterpiece” or a “triumph of the vintage,” the language of praise becomes exhausted. Eventually, hyperbole eats its own tail.
The tyranny of the number
Here are some reasons why the growing preoccupation with high scores – and the status they confer – risks narrowing our understanding of what makes a wine important.
The first misconception about wine scores is that they measure how much you will enjoy a wine. They do not.
A score is an assessment of a wine against certain criteria: complexity, balance, intensity, length, typicity, ageing potential and overall quality. It is not a prediction of your personal preference.
A 92-point wine made in a style you love will almost certainly give you more pleasure than a 96-point wine that does not suit your palate. The most important critic remains the person drinking the wine. Some consumers prefer bright, fresh, energetic wines. Others enjoy richness and power. Some want intellectual complexity; others simply want something delicious with dinner. Indeed, even the same person’s preferences legitimately change depending on context, mood and occasion. A score cannot account for all of this.
High-scoring wines are frequently expensive wines. This is understandable. Old vineyards, meticulous farming, limited production and elaborate élevage involving considerable cellar investment all come at a cost.
But the relationship between quality and price is not linear. The difference between a 95-point wine and a 93-point wine may be almost impossible to detect for many consumers, while the price difference can be substantial.
A critic’s most useful recommendation is often not the wine that achieved the highest score, but the wine where quality, character and price intersect most convincingly. A 91-point wine at R150 can be a far more exciting discovery than a 96-point wine at R1,500.
There is a danger that chasing scores turns wine into a trophy-hunting exercise rather than an exploration. I say this with some discomfort, having played my own small part in the 95-point economy. Critics are very much part of the ecosystem that I believe needs to evolve. The highest-scoring wines can become objects of status as much as objects of enjoyment – collected, traded and displayed as markers of taste and access. In this environment, wine risks becoming less about curiosity and pleasure, and more about acquiring the “right” bottles: the rarest, the most expensive, the ones carrying the biggest numbers.
What ever happened to curiosity?
The joy of wine lies partly in finding something unexpected: a producer you have not heard of, a variety you have never tried, a region you have overlooked. Twenty years ago, South Africa’s fine wine consumers were arguably more open-minded and adventurous. The category was still being defined; drinkers were willing to experiment, to follow unfamiliar names and to take a chance on wines that did not yet come with established reputations.
There is a danger that the openness that characterised that era is beginning to narrow. A handful of producers, deservedly admired as they are, have become so firmly entrenched at the top of the wine scene that it becomes harder for newer protagonists to gain attention. The next generation of ambitious producers, or those working with less fashionable varieties and overlooked sites, can struggle to break through.
If every buying decision begins and ends with “What scored highest?”, discovery disappears. And without discovery, wine becomes much less interesting.
The irony is that consumers may need critics more than ever – but perhaps not in the way they once did. The critic’s role is not simply to identify the wines that deserve attention. In an age of abundance, that is no longer enough.
The more valuable role is to provide context. To explain why a wine matters. To identify character and value. To separate the memorable from the merely impressive.
Scores provide a useful common language and a quick reference point. For many consumers, especially those without the time to taste widely, they are an invaluable shortcut. The issue is not their existence, but the weight we attach to them. They should be an invitation to explore, not a reason to stop looking.
There is pleasure in greatness, but there is also pleasure in modesty. Sometimes the most satisfying wine is simply the one that fits the moment. If every bottle we opened had to be “great”, greatness itself would soon lose its meaning.
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Josua | 4 August 2026
I don’t particularly care about score inflation as long as a reviewer remains consistent. I don’t just look at the score, I also look take the reviewers preferences and biases into consideration. Robert Parker famously loved big wines, so a 100-point score frequently pointed to a great but full-bodied wine.
With that in mind, I absolutely agree with your point around context being just as important as points. But therein lies a problem, can reviews that are, on average, fewer than 50 words provide that necessary context?
Your Palomino review is a great example. While you mention here that the wine is “thrilling” despite not having an exceptional score, the review itself omits this context.
James McKenzie | 4 August 2026
Great article Christian
Philip Mostert | 4 August 2026
Maybe randomly get a consumer or two on the panel and see what they like blindtasting?
Udo | 4 August 2026
I think you are exaggerating the importance of scores. In my opinion, a score plays only a small part in purchasing decisions by consumers. A special offer, a nice label, a good experience at the tasting room, enjoyed with a good meal in a restaurant, the salesperson’s recommendation, a habit, etc. etc. is far more important.
And for the few consumers who are paying attention to score’s, there are thousands of wines with high score’s around the world anounced every month. And they can only buy a few of them.
Louis | 4 August 2026
I think scores remain important because they provide a common benchmark and help consumers navigate an increasingly crowded market. While I agree that score inflation has become a real issue, I’d actually like to see the 80–89 range used more often. Sometimes it feels as though critics are reluctant to award a wine less than 90 points, not only for fear of hurting a winemaker’s feelings, but also of straining the close relationships they often have with producers.
The real issue isn’t the number itself, but how it’s used. A score should never be read in isolation, the accompanying tasting note is just as important, as it explains why the wine received that score and whether it aligns with your own preferences.
I also think scores are often treated as more absolute than they really are. Most reflect the opinion of a single critic rather than a consensus. Comparing reviews from several respected critics usually provides a far richer and more balanced assessment than relying on a single numerical score.
Desmond Kruger | 4 August 2026
Another excellent, thought-provoking article. Thank you.
Matthew Ferrandi | 4 August 2026
Thanks for a great article, Christian! The “what happened to curiosity?” question I find particularly apposite. There is always more to explore beyond the “traditional high scorers” and that is what makes wine so exciting. Collecting 95+ scores is not what it’s all about -at least not to me.
Christian Keidel | 4 August 2026
Great article. Indeed a crisp description of a wine’s making, taste and style is more important than the score itself. I also like the single style attributes that you are adding to the score (like ‘distinctive’, ‘classic’, ‘serious’ etc.), these are a good way of adding information to the pure points.
Gerhard GB Van Huyssteen | 4 August 2026
What are the historic reasons for having a 100-point scale (e.g., used by Winemag), a 20-point scale (e.g., used by the Cape Wine Academy), and a 5-point scale (e.g., used by Vivino)? The latter I understand, because a 5-star system is often used in software environments. But the purpose of 100-point vs 20-point systems still eludes me.
Kwispedoor | 4 August 2026
I don’t blame you. With the 20-point system, most tasters score between 14 and 18/19, including half points, making it closer to an actual 10-point system. On paper, the 100-point system should offer more scope, but – unless you employ it wider, like Michael Fridjhon very sensibly does (not sure that’s still the case) – most also end up basically scoring between 89 and 98. Again, that’s just about another 10-point system. None of it makes much sense, but we all just follow whatever trend is prevalent, in order for our own scores to be seen in context.
Christian Eedes | 4 August 2026
Hi GB, Historically, the different scales are more a matter of convention than science.
The 100-point scale became dominant because Robert M. Parker Jr. popularised it from the late 1970s onwards. It resonated with American consumers because it resembled the familiar US school grading system: 90–100 is excellent, 80–89 good, below 70 poor. In practice, wine critics almost never use the full range, so it’s really a compressed 50-point scale (roughly 50–100).
The 20-point scale has older European roots and was widely adopted in academic and professional wine education. It was favoured because it could be broken down into components (appearance, aroma, palate, etc.), giving an impression of analytical rigour. In reality, experienced tasters usually arrive at an overall impression first and then allocate the points.
As for the 5-point scale, you’re right: it’s intuitive, easy for casual users, and fits neatly with the star-rating systems common in software, retail and review platforms. The trade-off is that it offers less granularity than either 20 or 100 points.
Gerhard Van Huyssteen | 4 August 2026
Ah, thanks Christian, it makes now (a bit) more sense 🙂
fabiana | 4 August 2026
Christian, I’m sure we’ve had this discussion before, but how bad does a wine actually have to be to score below 90? I know you don’t publish scores for every wine you taste, but what would it take for a wine to receive, say, 10/100?
It sometimes feels as though simply being a sound, drinkable, grape-based fermented liquid automatically earns 80 or 85 points. If that’s the case, we’re not really using a 100-point scale at all; we’re effectively using only the top 20 points. Where do average, poor or flawed wines fit into the scale?
Given the points you make in the article about context and the limitations of scores, wouldn’t it make more sense to return to the 20-point system, or at least acknowledge that the effective range is really 80–100? At the moment, there seems to be very little practical distinction between good, very good, excellent and truly extraordinary wines because effectively everything worthy of review starts at around 90.
So how do you think this gets fixed? Should the scale simply be recalibrated so that a competent wine might score 75–85, an excellent wine 86–92, and only genuinely exceptional wines reach the high 90s?
Or is the challenge partly a human one? Critics inevitably get to know the people behind the wines and appreciate the time, effort and emotion that goes into every bottle. Does it make it harder to use the lower end of the scale?
Christian Eedes | 4 August 2026
Hi Fabiana, You’ve raised many of the key issues. The 100-point scale was originally intended to offer greater granularity than a 20-point system, but that advantage has largely been eroded. Wine has become technically much better across the board, while score inflation has compressed the meaningful range into the 90s.
The reality is that most critics don’t spend much time reviewing poor wines, so consumers rarely see the bottom end of the scale in action. Where the lower limit of the scale actually lies is almost beside the point. Most wines that make it into reviews are already technically competent, so they inevitably occupy the upper reaches of the scale.
Could the scale be recalibrated? In theory, yes. In practice, it would require the entire wine world to move together, and that’s unlikely. For the meantime, it might be helpful to work with the idea that higher scores represent increasingly difficult levels of excellence, but the exact size of the gap cannot be measured objectively. A 98-point wine isn’t “5% better” than a 93-point wine. It may be ten or a hundred times rarer, depending on the critic’s standards. That there have been so many 97 point scores just recently on Winemag is partly due to the exceptional 2025 vintage reaching the market.
As for personal connection, I don’t think knowing the people behind the wines should make critics more generous. If anything, familiarity should reinforce the need for independence. The integrity of the review depends on it.
Murray McIntyre | 4 August 2026
I have been part of an eight person tasting group doing blind tastings four times yearly for over 40 years. We have evolved through several scoring systems. Currently we use a 100 point system where 85 is an average drinkable wine that one would purchase if priced reasonably. Between 80 -84 the wine exhibits flaws which must be specified. Above 90(gold) the wines become increasingly excellent. 85-89 points (bronze and silver) are in the mushy middle.Works for us!
Mark Casey | 4 August 2026
Great article indeed Christian, it resonated with me on many fronts. As I was reading, I was reminded of two things my Dad used to say:
1. “The best wine is the wine you like” – so his rating was a simple scoreless but personal view, and
2. “Always ask for the house red or white, after all, they will never stake their name behind bad wine.” – and for this I advice I will always be grateful as it ensure a discovery is only around the corner!!