What are these classroom scores all about?
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The 'Parker 100' scale
First and foremost, I don't really like giving a score to wine. Impossible to be that mathmatically precise or consistent, even if you could remove all subjectivity from tasting. However, scores do offer useful guidelines and easy cross-referencing. You should always put them in context with my tasting notes and comments on style, quality, maturity, balance etc; and perhaps also take a band either side of the score, e.g. a wine rated 87 falls between 85-90 (read on for further explanation). In addition, I'll try to offer a food matching suggestion where I can, which is arguably more interesting.
There are several scoring systems for wine and each has its supporters, but, attempting to keep an international perspective, I use the 100 point scale, which is now widely recognised. Apparently it was popularised by Robert Parker, the influential American wine critic, and many magazines also 'mark' wines using the same or similar criteria. It's a tad more complicated than you might first think.
I'm told "the premise of the scale is to appear generous to everybody." It works by readjusting 0 to 50, so in reality every wine is scored from 50-100 with 50 being undrinkable and 100 vinous heaven. It's best understood following these simple rules:
50-60: very poor, faulty, nasty wine.
60-70: marks in this category really aren't any good either, crap to shoddy.
70-80: wines in this band are generally below par from mediocre to average to OK. Not necessarily bad, just dull, out of kilter or lacking.
80-85: solid working examples of their type, most decent wines should fall into this category.
85-90: good to excellent wines with genuine character and style.
90-95: top stuff. These should ring your Bacchanalian bells, they'll be true classics that linger on the palate and in the memory; must be excellent to outstanding.
95-100: speechless. Very few wines get these scores, as they represent the peak of terroir, fruit quality and winemaking - the world's best wines from the greatest vintages. Unless you're rather lucky (like me occasionally), not to mention wealthy (unlike me all the time), you'll come across just a handful of this rank of wine in your drinking lifetime. They'll feature in your top ten, or perhaps 100 for the rich or lucky.
Here's another way of looking at this system, or at least one I thought of. It converts it to a mark out of ten by subtracting 50 from the score out of 100, then a bit of simple maths. So: 70/100 = 4/10, 75 = 5/10, 80 = 6/10, 85 = 7/10, 90 = 8/10 and 95 = 9/10.
I urge you to try and score a wine in context. If it's stations ahead of the pack, you shouldn't be afraid to rate it highly; and inevitably the mood and atmosphere of a tasting environment will always affect the outcome. Wine tasted in an intimate situation or with great food will almost always count higher than in a clinical laboratory or busy trade tasting. So carry on sampling and scoring if you must...