Two wines get the same rating. Do I just buy the cheaper one?

If a $50 and a $25 bottle of shiraz receive a 95-point rating from the same wine critic, should I consider the cheaper wine twice as good value? Or is price a consideration when scoring wine?
H.C., Newtown, Vic

Credit: Simon Letch

In a word, no. At least, that’s generally the way it is: I can’t vouch for every wine critic. In my world, price is not considered when assessing a wine’s merits. I leave that up to the reader to compare ratings and prices and make a decision about value for money. In my view, a score should be absolute. Otherwise, things become very woolly.

So a $50 wine that scores 95 isn’t half as good as a $25 wine that scores the same. The rating system isn’t as precise as that. As well, we’re only human and everyone’s palate is fallible. The score is simply an assessment of the wine’s qualities and attractiveness at a given tasting on a given day. The description of a wine is at least as important as the rating and the two should be viewed together. A 95-point $25 wine of a style you enjoy will always give more pleasure than a $50 95-pointer of a style you don’t like. And vice versa.

Only once have I heard a wine critic claim that his palate was so consistent that, in a blind tasting, he would always give the same wine the same score. And he was never tested on that. It seems an unbelievable boast. Aside from the variability of the human palate, wines themselves change over time.

And our perception of them can be influenced by other factors, too, such as temperature, exposure to air and the size and shape of the tasting glass. Maybe somebody should score the wine critics.

People seem to score everything these days. Perhaps the Bureau of Meteorology should not only predict the weather, but score it, too: “If you’re in Dunedoo, you’re going to have a 10/10 day tomorrow. So do the washing and buy a lottery ticket.” Astrologers don’t usually attract my attention, but I was once impressed to read a horoscope in which the writer routinely gave a score to the week ahead: “You’ll discover your boyfriend is cheating on you, your dog will die and you’ll have a car accident. It’ll be a 1/10 week.” Thanks a lot.

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