Turn to these trusted publications for the best wine ratings.
With the rising popularity of blogs and publications that demystify the many varieties available, the world of wine is becoming more accessible every day. The best wine rating publications use scales from 0 to 100, with the best bottles ranking in the 80s and above. Each of these scales varies slightly, however, as do the methods for arriving at the final point values.
For this magazine, considered one of the top wine publications in the United States, each wine-making region of the world is rated by one editor. All tastings are conducted blindly, meaning the tasters' knowledge is limited to the sample's region, grape varietal and vintage (or the year it was bottled). If a wine scores particularly poorly or well, it is retasted for a second opinion to confirm the unusually low or high score. On the Wine Spectator scale, rankings from 70 to 79 are considered average, from 80 to 89 is good, from 90 to 94 is outstanding, and from 95 to 100 is classic. Anything below 70 is considered undrinkable.
The Wine Advocate
The Wine Advocate uses a slightly stricter scale for the top wines. Only those bottles that rank 96 or higher are considered the best of the best. Here, more than one person may taste the wine, and the wines are compared against others of their specific type. As with Wine Spectator, the tastings are conducted blindly, so tasters aren't influenced by brand. Again, anything below 70 is considered undrinkable.
Wine Enthusiast
Wine Enthusiast formulates its ratings less strictly than the previous two publications. Wines may be tasted individually or within a group, and testings may not be conducted totally blindly. The rankings also employ a more relaxed point system: Anything above an 80 is considered generally good, and nothing ranked lower is published in the magazine.
Wine & Spirits Magazine
Wine & Spirits boasts a strict, carefully controlled process. All wines submitted are first judged by a larger panel of professionals from the wine industry. The best-liked are then presented to critics, totally blindly, with only the varietal, region and vintage information. Most regions are assigned to a specific critic, who also writes a review to go along with the score, so readers can judge their own tastes against that of the critic's. Here, anything above an 80 is considered good, while those scoring from 95 to 100 are considered superlative.
Tags: Wine Spectator, above considered, below considered, below considered undrinkable, conducted blindly,
