Professional wine reviewers and publications use different rating systems, some use five stars or ratings out of 10, 20 or 100. Robert Parker's 100-point scoring system has become the most popular despite have its share of critics and deficiencies. It has, however, become an industry standard. Our process gathers scores from a wide number of industry resources, all using a maximum of 100 points for scoring spirits and wines. We find it to be the most versatile scoring method to create significant separation between ratings in a large sample size. Although we don't publish the exact aggregated point total for the wines we analyze, here's how we break our categories down and what they mean to you as a purchaser:

96-100    Extraordinary

90-95     Outstanding

 80-89       Very good   

70-79         Average   

    60-69     Below average

   50-59     Unacceptable

Whisky Advocate follows the same categories as above. Wine Spectator uses a slightly different set of categories for their rating system. More about their system is available at their site. It's worth noting that the one-point difference between an 89 and a 90 score has significant marketing and sales implications to reviewed products. Look for our article soon about how it impacts you when you're at the store!