Our main priority at City Vineyard is to help you decide how to choose wine that is best for you. After all, you are the most important judge of the wine you drink. We know that the wine selection at City Vineyard is vast and choosing a wine can be overwhelming, so giving you a balance of information and experience is our mission. Many of our customers learn the “lay of the land” quickly with our help. Others just walk through the door and ask us to choose a wine for them.  Some customers shop on a wine rating system.

Wine ratings may influence your decision, but the ultimate judgment is yours. Everyone has a different palate and different preferences, so basing purchases on wine ratings may not garner the perfect wine match for your tastes. Always read the tasting note to find out more. And when you do purchase for wine ratings’ sake, you’ll soon learn which publications or tasters possess your style of palate.

The wine rating system is a 100-point scale that has become the benchmark of quality in the wine industry. If you have ever looked around for good value ‘90-point’ wine, then you have used ratings. City Vineyard regularly has wine tasting where we bring in wines for under $20 that score 90+ points. The system does rate some aspects of wine quite well, including production quality, but there are a few inconsistencies that you should know about in order to shop smart. Wine ratings don’t necessarily indicate how delicious a wine is. Instead, wines are scored based on production quality and typicity. Typicity is how much the traits of a particular wine ‘typify’ the style and region it’s from.

The 100-point scale actually starts at 50 points (and some raters never include wines below 80):

50-59 wines are flawed and undrinkable
60-69 wines are flawed and not recommended but drinkable
70-79 wines are flawed and taste average
80-84 wines are ‘above average’ to ‘good’
85-90 wines are ‘good’ to ‘very good’
90-94 wines are ‘superior’ to ‘exceptional’
95-100 wines are benchmark examples or ‘classic’

The best way to consistently buy wine you like is to learn about what you like and why. Ratings can help you find quality wines from new regions, but if you stop into City Vineyard we’ll do the legwork and read between the lines to factor in personal style. The best tip on how to choose wine you love is to start learning about the wine regions you like and go beyond just scores. Our favorite way to find out what you love about wine is to taste it. We offer feature samples regularly or if you feel like you need a better fill, try a wine flight in the wine bar. We’ll see you here soon!