Why I don't give scores
A 92 sells, an 89 stays on the shelf. Why wine scores are a mood pinned down with false precision, and what you get on VinoVonk instead.
Someone asked me at a tasting the other day: “So, how many points?” I had just described a champagne. Chalk, warm brioche, a finish that refused to quit. And the only thing that stuck was a number I did not give.
There will not be a number. Not on vinovonk.com, not in the newsletter. Anyone looking for wine scores here will not find them, and this is why.
A 92 sells
Not because scores are useless. They are too useful. A 92 sells. An 89 stays on the shelf. With hundreds of bottles on a shelf a number is faster than a paragraph, and a panel of tasters averages one off day out against ten others. That part is true. In practice the gap between them is a shiver down the taster’s spine, a better lunch beforehand, a bottle that happened to be at the right temperature. We pretend three points are a fact. They are a mood, pinned down with false precision.
And a number hides more than it tells. Ninety points will not tell you whether the wine is sharp enough for oysters or broad enough for a winter stew. It will not tell you whether to open it now or cellar it three more years. It will not tell you who it is for. It only says: higher is better. And that is exactly the idea I want to get away from.
Because “better” is a direction, not a ranking. The best bottle for a Tuesday night alone is rarely the highest-scoring one. Drink less, choose better only works if “better” means something you can use. Not a figure someone else filled in for you.
What you get instead
A description concrete enough that you almost taste the wine before you buy it. The context: who made it, where, why like this. And a verdict, because neutrality is cowardice. I think things. I say them. But the verdict comes as a sentence, not a score, so you can do something with it: serve it cold, hold it back, pour it for someone who claims alcohol-free cannot be done.
Three phrases keep coming back. Recommended: a wine I would recommend to anyone who likes this type. Worth knowing: interesting, not for everyone, but deserving attention. Learning moment: a bottle that shows something about a region, grape or style, even when the result does not convince. That last one is not a score of six out of ten; it is a reason to discuss the bottle anyway. How I taste, at temperature and often on two occasions, is set out in the tasting methodology.
A number closes the conversation. A sentence opens it.
What about the medals on the label?
I mention them when they are there, with the competition and the year, because they say something about the context a bottle is sold in. My verdict does not hang on them. A silver medal with 92 points tells me that a jury in a hall on one day thought something; it does not tell me whether I want to open that bottle again tomorrow. The same goes for press samples: the bottle comes free, the verdict does not. How that works is in the editorial policy.
That champagne from the tasting
I eventually told the taster what I thought: buy it, but not for the party. Open it on a night you want to taste. They looked at me as if I had withheld something.
I had not. I had only refused to hand him a number to hide behind.
Frequently asked questions
Why are there no wine scores on VinoVonk?
Because a score suggests a precision wine does not have. The same bottle tastes different on a hot summer day and in a cold cellar in November. Instead of points you get a concrete description, the context of the maker and a verdict in a sentence, with three fixed categories: recommended, worth knowing, learning moment.
How do you compare wines, then?
By tasting them side by side, ideally blind, and naming the difference instead of counting it. That is how it became clear that three extra years on the lees at one champagne house gives texture and length, not different fruit, for a two-euro difference. That is more useful than 90 against 92.
