Oliver ranking system queried

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Question submitted by Hoe Tan, Australia

I’ve been subscribing to your Wine Annual for the last 8 years or so. I value your comments and overall, I am quite agreeable with your individual vintage rating. One just has to find a wine critic who has a similar taste/palate. However, I’ve always been curious about how you rank the wines from 1-5. Although you mentioned in your book and website how it is done, it seems to me like it is more of a ‘hand-waving’ kind of exercise. For example, if you look at the Cape Mentelle Cabernet Sauvignon with a ranking of 3 and then compare it with say Bowen Estate Shiraz rank 2 or Bannockburn Shiraz rank 2, clearly by all counts, the Cape Mentelle is under-ranked.

Similarly, comparing Henschke Hill of Grace with Petaluma Coonawarra, I fail to see how the former could be ranked 1 and yet only 2 for the Petaluma. I appreciate you trying to be as objective and unbiased as possible but I believe that there will always be some influence/factors, such as the status of the wine, comments from other critics, etc., that might distort the impartiality perhaps sub-consciously. After all we are only humans. Perhaps there is a more analytical way of ranking the wines. Thanks.
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Any ranking system of wine is going to become a little blurry around the edges, especially the more you look into it. I present the scale for mine in my book and on my site, and do my level best to adhere to it. I only extend gratuity to any given wine if its track record justifies it. I am the first to agree that this is perhaps tougher on younger wines without a track record, but I have no problem being tough on new entrants to the game. There are enough people out there heaping unjustified praise on new labels without me adding myself to the queue, and it’s best if newly emerging wines build their names on consistent and keenly evaluated performance rather than the knee-jerking hype so common today.

As far as the examples you provide are concerned, each are pretty simple to me. The most recent vintage of the Cape Mentelle Cabernet Sauvignon rates 95, a score in the ranking 2 range, but the previous 6 are in 3 or below. It sits comfortably as a ‘3’. Three of the last four vintages of Bowen Estate Shiraz sit within the ‘2’ range, which easily justifies its ‘2’ status. Three of the last six vintage of Bannockburn Shiraz rate in the 2 range, while one of them is a 96, a ranking above 2. I am very comfortable with its ranking based on these scores.

I recently downgraded the Petaluma Coonawarra from a ‘1’ to a ‘2’. This is because none of the last four releases rated in the 1 range. For me, this was one too many. Given some better anticipated vintages in future, it could well return to a ‘1’. Two of the last four Henschke Hill of Grace ratings lie comfortably within the ‘1’ range. Prior to that, its performance might indeed have merited a ‘2’. The 2001 vintage rates only a 91 at present based on a single tasting, but I would expect the 2002 vintage to be exceptional, given the standard of the other major 2002 Henschke reds. I do not believe it would be sensible for me to downgrade this wine to a ‘2’ rating without first having tasted the 2002 vintage.

This may or may not answer your concerns. As I said earlier, it’s not possible to be absolutely beyond question when creating a system like this, since there is no such thing as a universally accepted clear-cut distinction of quality between all wines. I reject the notion that mine is a hand-waving exercise, and if you think I’m influenced by other critics, I’d like to know who they are. I would perhaps read one wine article a month, and hardly ever read the reviews of others. I don’t have the time, and I if I did, I don’t want to be affected by them. I’m happy to stand or fall on my own work. And, since I agree with your notion that we’re all only human, I’d also add that wine writers, myself included, make just as many mistakes as the next person. Tasting wine lies somewhere between the subjective and the objective. The serious taster tries to make it as objective as possible.
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