The Royal Tannin Bombs

Sad to say, but the study of wine is a mathematical exercise in qualification and quantification.  Without being able to easily share results and make quick comparisons, a wealth of expansive tasting notes is just that – a good read if you have the time.  So to transcend all that each serious wine taster should create and adopt her own point system – be it 3, 5, or 10 “stars”, 20, 50, or 100 points; whatever.  Here at The Royals, we use The Bad Man’s modified U.C. Davis oenological method, which began its life as a 20 point system, expanded later to 100.  You can see the system, and its heavily objective weighting, putting the aesthetic evaluation of the taster above the technical, here.

Bad Man here: I would like to say that these ridiculous publications, including Mr. Parker’s, wherein you see many wines rated high into the 90s and even an occasional 100, are patently offensive.  I believe that any wine breaking the 90s barrier must be phenomenally beyond reproach, and that a 100 point wine would be perfection, which can never actually exist but must always be striven toward, and therefore NO WINE can possibly ever be rated 100 points!  My word – the gall of these people.  ;o)

In general when you look at my numbers an average wine will score in the mid to high 70s.  A supremely solid effort would weigh in at the mid-80s.  Anything higher is indicative of near-perfection in a glass.  On the other end of the scale, a below-average wine (as many of them are) would score in the low 70s, with a travesty (likewise near impossible to achieve) scoring in the 60s.  And that’s not good scoring in the 60s, not like Mama Cass.

It seems certain publications, especially The Wine Spectator, appear to rate most every wine between 87 and 91.  Why have a 100 point system if you’re not going to use it, my friends?

My 100 point system can be applied to reality thus: