As a follow-up to Nathan Bray’s recent question which referred to the basis on which judges in wine shows allocate scores out of 20, I would like to present what I believe to be a very authoritative analysis concerning the actual meanings of scores in wine shows. Gary Baldwin is a very experienced winemaker who, as one of the country’s leading consultants, is the hidden source of talent and experience behind many of its finest wines. He is a partner in Australia’s most respected winemaking consultancy, Wine Network Australia, and is one of the country’s busiest and most experienced wine show judges. He was asked to deliver a presentation at an Advanced Wine Assessment Course for the Australian Wine Research Institute with the purpose of setting scoring guidelines for wine show judges, with a view towards creating a national standard rating system. Here is a summary of his interpretations of scores: 13.5 or less: Poor or faulty wine, not of commercial standard. No award. 14.0, 14.5, 15.0: Wine without obvious faults and of commercial standard, but lacking sufficient flavour or varietal character to rate more highly. No award. 15.5, 16.0, 16.5: Well-made wine showing good flavour and some varietal or developed characters in keeping with its style category. Bronze medal. 17.0, 17.5, 18.0: High quality wine showing distinctive varietal or developed characters in good balance. Silver medal. 18.5, 19.0, 19.5: Outstanding wine of intense flavour, complexity, character and balance, exemplary in style category. Gold medal. 20: Perfect! Interestingly, this system still leaves wide open to interpretation the presence of a character whose presence may be on the borderline of faultiness, ie a very low grade brett taint, low level dimethyl sulphide, etc. The scale therefore would appear to work very well for wines with or without any obvious fault, but less effectively for faults that may exist on or around the human threshold, and especially where one person’s fault is another’s complexity. But that argument is never likely to go away!
