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Wine Lister claims ‘new standard’ in wine rating
A new wine rating system, Wine Lister, which claims to be the “new standard in wine rating” is set to launch this month.
Ella Lister
The system is “data and technology-driven” and aims to give a truer “holistic” assessment of each wine based on aggregated scores from eminent critics as well as its brand strength, liquidity and price – all presented on a 1,000-point scale.
The brainchild of wine writer Ella Lister (pictured), the system has apparently been four years in the making, including long interviews with “key players” in the fine wine world.
As Lister explained: “Each discussion revealed a different set of challenges, but the consensus was the need for a more comprehensive tool to assess wines.
“Thanks to their input, we can truly say that Wine Lister gathers, analyses and aggregates all the facts that count.”
To help in this, Lister has secured the support of various critics and data-trackers. For scores Wine Lister has formed collaborations with Jancis Robinson MW’s Purple Pages, Antonio Galloni’s Vinous and Bettane+Dessauve.
Likewise, to help measure any given wine’s popularity it will use information from Wine-Searcher, auction data will be provided by Wine Market Journal and exchange platform Wine Owners will provide market-level pricing.
The resulting data gained through this network of partnerships and proprietary research is then collated and put through an algorithm and then presented on a 1,000-point scale.
It is hoped that a more impartial score will bring “greater transparency” and “objective guidance” to wine rating.
Wine Lister’s director of technology, Henry Woodsend, explained: “We have such extensive data, across so many criteria, that we can actually differentiate to this level of precision.
“We felt that the more traditional 100-point scale, whereby only the top 20% is actually used, would undo the nuance and meticulousness of the exercise.”
Due to launch at the end of April, Wine Lister will initially feature “tens of thousands” of vintages covering around 2,000 different labels from across the sphere of fine wine. It is expected this reservoir will grow to over 5,000 different wines within the first year.
In addition, users will be able to narrow their searches using a subset of ‘Wine Lister Indicators’ that highlight wines with particular characteristics such as ‘Value Picks’, ‘Hidden Gems’, ‘Investment Staples’ and ‘Buzz Brands’.
Lister concluded: “Wine Lister is a true hub of information that can adapt to the user’s requirements. It’s a sophisticated system, rating sophisticated wines, for an increasingly sophisticated audience.”
Due to go live in April, the site can be found here.
While I understand the obsession with wine ratings, I have always struggled with the assignment of a numerical score to such a subjective issue. I will look forward to reading more about this “new” system that appears to take some of that subjectivity out of the equation. However, in the end, the same criterion must ultimately prevail, that wine enjoyment is a deeply personal subject and the quality scale relates to the drinker and his/her taste preferences rather than any aggregating algorithm.
1000-point scale??? “Holistic” assessment?!! “Objective guidance”!!!!! All I see is are a bunch of weak buzz words that mean absolutely nothing. I wold love to have Ms. Lister convince me of any quantifiable difference between a wine rated 898 points and one rated 911 points. This is all getting seriously retarded……
This system is totally off the mark. Wine drinkers are already beginning to reject the 100 point (or any point) system of wine rating. People need to read the description of a wine being discussed, not the points! I predict this will be a total failure. Sorry Ms. Lister, but this is not an improvement to the current wine rating systems. There simply needs to be more objectivity in wine rating.
I’m in favor of a 2-point system. 1. I like it. 2. I don’t like it.
I have created a million-point system. I just scored my first wines; Haut-Brion 2007 received 956,932 points. I slightly preferred it over La Mission 2007, which I scored 955,939 points.
I think it’s a good idea. First off, point systems that exist today are 100% subjective to an individual’s palate but yet still steer us to gems we may want to try for ourselves and make our own determination. No one with any intelligence blindly follows them but we do lean towards those whose tastes mirror our own….like a movie critic. It looks like the attempt here is to take the subjective factors and mix them with statistical factors for a more comprehensive view. To me all it means is that I have another set of eyes looking at the tens of thousands of products on the market, but at the end of the day I still make the final choice. Looking forward to it.