Editorial: Why wine scores will be around a while longer

Talk to anyone in the wine world and you’ll hear the same refrain: wine scoring is under pressure. Winemaking competency means there are increasingly fewer substandard wines. Tastes are more fragmented. Technology is creeping in making human-generated ratings redundant. And human behaviour increasingly makes more problematic than helpful, as wine politics, stylistic diversity, and personal taste complicate any single number’s authority.

Firstly, there’s the simple reality of wine itself. South African producers, particularly at the upper end, are astonishingly proficient. The days when quality varied wildly from bottle to bottle or vintage to vintage are largely behind us. The 100-point system was supposed to offer a more nuanced calibration than the old-school 20-point scale, but today, most wines are simply “good.”

The question isn’t whether a wine is well-made – it almost always is – but rather about style, personality, and context. Is this Chenin exuberantly fruity, or tightly structured? Does the Shiraz lean savoury or lush? These are inherently subjective judgments, far more meaningful than a tiny point difference. In fact, scores often mask stylistic nuance, flattening wine complexity into a single, reductive number.

To complicate matters, palates have diversified. Where once power, extraction, and sheer intensity reigned, there is now as much acceptance for wines of elegance and finesse. Wines that might have soared under the old rubric can feel heavy-handed now, while subtler, more expressive bottles shine.

The score addiction

And yet many consumers are still addicted to scores in a narrow sense. They won’t buy under 95 points yet aren’t inclined to interpret wines in terms of style and personality. The result is all sorts of buyer’s regret when the high-scoring wine isn’t to personal taste.

Why does this occur? The trouble is not taste or methodology but the sociology of the industry itself. The avoidance of public debate over scores is surely due to a fear of conflict as much as anything. South Africa’s fine wine industry is tiny – everybody knows their place in the network, and nobody wants to step out of line. Producers want affirmation and to sell their wines. The trade can’t afford to offend for fear of losing allocations. Critics and consumers alike want access and invitations. In such a compact ecosystem, publicly questioning results is uncomfortable and potentially costly. Silence is rational, if unexciting.

Which brings us neatly to technology. Artificial intelligence is creeping into wine evaluation in ways that would have seemed science-fiction a decade ago. AI can analyse chemical composition, fermentation variables, vineyard data, and historical scores to predict a wine’s style, trajectory, and even consumer appeal. Someday soon, it could, at least in theory, identify stylistic alignment faster and more consistently than a panel of humans. That doesn’t mean AI is about to replace critics entirely – the sensory, emotional, and contextual elements of tasting are notoriously difficult to quantify – but it does mean that some of the arbitrariness and subjectivity of scoring could be bypassed. A machine doesn’t have allegiances, doesn’t need access, and doesn’t fear conflict.

Why scores still matter

And yet scores aren’t entirely defunct. Humans naturally seek guidance. Wine is complex, and even when every bottle is technically excellent, deciding what to drink, buy, or cellar can be daunting. Scores act as a shorthand, cutting through the noise and signalling what stands out. They offer reassurance, a reference point for conversation, and a shared language for comparing style and quality. That impulse isn’t going anywhere.

Put these threads together, and the picture is murky, yet one thing is certain: wine scoring isn’t disappearing overnight. Its role is shifting. It no longer separates poor from mediocre – that problem largely solved itself. Scores now guide taste rather than dictate it. They work best as markers, not arbiters.

Critics and panels retain influence because humans crave conversation, context, and narrative around wine. Scores are no longer absolute measures but can still serve as shorthand for style and preference. In some ways, this is liberating: producers can experiment knowing their wines will likely find favour (and points) somewhere, collectors can follow their curiosity rather than third-party authority, and critics can focus on storytelling rather than rigid evaluation.

The 100-point system, born to differentiate quality in a world of uneven standards, now exists in a landscape of almost uniformly excellent wines, sophisticated marketing, and advanced evaluation tools. Its utility is increasingly about guidance and less about judgment. Human desire to compare, rank, and debate will keep it alive. AI may augment scoring, but it should never replace the nuance or joy of tasting. Scores persist because people need them, and because wine is too complex, too rich, and too subjective to leave entirely to the market or an algorithm.

Wine scoring could be dead, but perhaps all that’s happening is that the rules of the game are quietly shifting. Those who cling to points as absolute truth risk being out of step. For those who understand their limits, context, and industry dynamics, scoring can still be engaging – and occasionally useful.