democracy! or democracy?

Although I enjoy wine, I have not made use of wine reviews, maybe some of the class might find this useful:

Wine ratings have been used for the last hundred or so years( maybe longer) to determine what is worth savouring and what is comparable to dish water. Ratings can differ depending on the critic, and the nature of the review which might be an avg of several ratings: they can be on a 50- 100 scale,0-20, or 0-5 using stars.

Wine critic Robert Parker is credited with creating the 50-100 scale, the rough equivalent of a school grade ranging from A-F. Something in the 80s or 90s would be deemed exceptional, something under 50 would be horrendous. In some ways this may be beneficial to find a really exceptional wine, but, it has the unintended effect of making everything less than A+ less appealing.In effect creating a dichotomous rating system. The 0-5, which is functionally little different, is used here. It can be argued however, that the smaller rating scale, somehow, makes the rating less significant than the larger number. The example being the difference in review of 93 compared to 95 is quite significant, whereas a rating of 3 compared to 4 appears less so.

Another website, CellarTracker,  has group ratings, taken from the many users on the site. This is a great idea as it allows users to compare reviews in a variety of conditions, without relying on a sole source of information.

Traditional 20-point scale- aroma, color, taste and finish assigned a maximum number of points. I really like the 20 point rating because of the way that points are allocated. A reader is able to gain a better understanding of how the wine was rated based on the points in each category. On a negative, it is limited because many of these qualities are subjective. This, unlike the 0-5 and 50-100 allows for a gradated review that may prove more useful to someone interested.

Critics of these systems have suggested that they are responsible for the commercialization and loss of “terroir” and individuality in wine making, being replaced, in kind, by uniform, but critic pleasing flavors. I agree, having experimented with both cheap and expensive wines, I am pleased to note that both, while tasting different to some extent, produce the same desired result.