Mark Squires' E-Zine/Tasting Notes Introduction to Summary Page

Tasting Notes and Scoring Methods Explained

Introduction: Summaries, lists of wines that are reviewed in each monthly or bimonthly issue, are set forth on the Tasting Notes Summary Page to expedite browsing. You can go to detailed notes for each month by clicking on the link as indicated. The pages for detailed notes are easier to read, but, on the other hand, you have to take them one at a time instead of getting a birdseye view of all notes available. If you want to search the whole site for something you are looking for, check the search engine. It is always available from the SEARCH button. It is often more efficient to just use the FIND command on your browser if looking for something on one page.

On a related issue, I let the summary page run on for many screens worth of scrolling. Current good practice in HTML programming is to split it up so it does not scroll so much. But I find people can locate wines pretty easily using the "find" command on their browsers IF all the notes in a particular year are together. If I split the notes up into the ten or twenty pages good programming practice might require, searches would be impossible except by opening each and every subpage. As it stands, you can find every wine reviewed in 1998 on one page; in 1997 on one page, etc. This is often faster than searching the whole site with the search engine. There are links to older notes at the bottom of the main, current summary page. Some people may not find old notes to be of much use, but they are there if you are interested. NB: Some of them date to the early days of this site, and new programming devices may not have been in effect then. I have not gone back and revised every single old page.

QPR Winner In 1999, I started using this tag after certain wines that demonstrate an excellent quality to price ratio. They are sometimes more expensive than the wines featured in my Best Buys section (which is cut off at $15), so while every Best Buy is also a QPR Winner, not every QPR winner is an official Best Buy. QPR winners are simply wines that are great values for a reasonable price.

Point scores: I started using point scores in Februrary, 1997. Why? In my articles section, I have an article Scoring Wines that many thought was well taken. SO, they said, why aren't you scoring? Well, scoring is harder. It requires more thought. I shuddered and blinked. But, to quote myself, it also adds an exclamation point that quickly and easily clarifies the reviewer's real opinion of the wine. "Lush and velvety" can be a descriptor for a variety of wines, but a score for one of 97 and another at 85 tends to put that in a useful context, in my humble opinion. So, scores are here.

What do they mean? I adopt the common convention that the points relate to grades. 90 = A-, 91-94=A, 95 and up, A+, 80= B-, etc. Differences in grade categories (like going from an 88 to a 90) are thus more significant to me than minor differences within categories, like a 91 versus a 93. Within grade categories and sub categories, like 91 to 94, I'm merely indicating a direction the wine is going, and if it was drunk in a context, how it fared in that context. My scores are relative regionally. A 92 for a Tavel Rosé doesn't mean I necessarily think it's as good as a Pichon Lalande that got a 92. I see no point to comparing a Vouvray with a Sauternes. That said, even with relativity, don't expect to see a 98 point Vinho Verde. It is judged as Vinho Verde in certain senses, but all wines have to be judged according to certain criteria. Will they age? Will they develop complexity? I don't mean for any of this to be too compulsive--the scores are just a useful guide and most meaningful in conjunction with the notes. Sometimes, the notes are more revealing. Sometimes, the scores really make my point. It works best when you have both--that's my view, anyway.

By the way, for me, a wine of 90-94 points has to be special in some respect, distinctive and with something extra. Just like when your teacher graded subjective essays in school, there is a certain psychological barrier to getting an "A," or 90. You don't get an "A" without some feeling that you are an "A" player. "A" does not stand for "Average." The one point between 89 and 90 means a bit more than that point between 87 and 88. I take a very practical, and visceral, approach to this.

Moreover, 95 points and above is a potential legend--a benchmark wine that folks will talk about when creating standards for its type. I'm a conservative scorer. I don't throw big numbers around easily. Below 80 is a wine with so many significant defects that detract from its overall impression that I am not likely to bother drinking it, and cannot possibly recommend it. It may be average in some universal sense, considering the many minor wines of the world, but is not something a serious wine drinker will want to drink.

There is some issue building in my mind these days regarding compression of scores, but that has yet to be fully resolved.

Finally, note that the majority of these tasting notes are not done in controlled tastings. Some were from trade events. These days, I only use ranges for such events since it is so difficult to get a good read on the wine. Most were from wine dinners. There are some review samples professionally evaluated, but on the whole, the tasting notes section of this site is not intended to report scores from controlled tastings. That said, I have become more careful over the years, even at dinners, frequently resampling wines to the point where it seems that I can get buzzed drinking wines I didn't even like because I retried them often to increase the likelihood that I did not miss something important about them. You won't see here any reports on wines that I vaguely remembered from the prior evening. I take notes, and retry them as often as possible. It may not always leave me stone cold sober, but I usually learn something about the wines. ;)

Tip: Looking for something? Use the "search" or "find" command on your Browser to search on the Tasting Notes Summary Page. It's not perfect, but it often works well. If you're searching, make sure to scroll down to the end of the Tasting Notes Summary Page, too, where you'll find a link a for older notes as well.

The base URL to this site is: http://marksquires.com but don't click to go back HOME or you'll be operating in two browser windows at once. Just click the "x" in the upper right hand corner to eliminate this browser window and return to where you were.