Why Wine Scores Are Broken and What Chess Can Teach Us About Fixing Them

A deep dive into why traditional wine ratings fail, how a chess-inspired Elo system offers a more intuitive alternative, and the app I built to put the idea to the test.

Wine scores, whether they take the form of 100 or 20 point assessments from well known wine critics, or the 5 star system championed by platforms such as Vivino are problematic. They seek to compress what is an incredibly multidimensional sensory experience into a single, supposedly authoritative number. While they will be highly considered assessments, often backed by serious expertise and qualifications, any score compresses thoughts on the wine’s aroma, texture, acidity, tannins, its balance, evolution in the glass, the context in which it is consumed and even the emotional state of the drinker into a single number. None of these variables scale neatly onto a single linear axis, yet that is exactly how these scoring systems treat them. The difference between a critic’s score of 93, 94 or 95, is more likely a reflection of mood, time pressure and unconscious bias than any defined qualitative experience.

As discussed at some length in my last article on the topic, the actual value of…